As soon as I saw the New Great Planes Lancair ES advertised in a flying magazine I new I had to have one… I have been looking for a 60 size plane with flaps and really could only find planes with flaps in the quarter scale planes (too big for a new flyer like me). This one was a ARF with Tricycle gear. I still have a new flyers’ fear of tail draggers and it had
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 flaps.   I called Tim’s Hobby Shop and told him I had to have it as soon as he got one…

 Getting one of the first kits off the assembly line made for a few additional
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 challenges...  In communicating with Great Planes, some of the problems I had have since been corrected, but this model did take me longer than the other  ARF models I’ve built..  Some of the problems I had were that the holes in the fuselage to mount the elevator and in the elevator half were the wrong size. They did not supply the 3/8-inch dowel to mount the wing to the fuselage, which the predrilled holes for this were really ½ inch..  They sent two right servo covers for the flaps instead of one right and one left.  

 There were also some things I did not

like about the way they assembled the model. These I changed.. First, they recommended full size servos for the ailerons, but the full size servo is thicker than the wing where they are mounted . So they supplied a plastic cover that  would go over the servo to cover the increased thickness. But then due to the thickness, you would have an unnatural looking and certainly not scale underside wing.  They also recommended mounting the aileron servos inside the wing with GLUE.  I purchased Hitec 255BB wing servos, which are thinner, made two wing covers to mount flush with the wing and mounted the servos to the cover with blocks. The same way the Flap servos were to be installed. 

The flap servos were full size also, but since the wing is thicker inboard they should have fit with no problems.  But when I trial fitted them, the mounting platform where you screwed the flap covers to, were too large.  I could not fit the servos in the cut outs.  They had to be cut to fit.

Great Planes had 40 size wire in a straw the full length of the fuselage, one to each elevator half.  They wanted to tie them together at the
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
servo and run both wires and elevator halves with one servo.  I added a 2nd elevator servo.  I used a Hitec 8 channel receiver.

With help from some of our club instructors the Lancair made its first flight.  Rick took it up first and his first reaction was that there is too much aileron throw.  With a touch of the right stick this plane was doing a knife-edge on low rates at 65% differential.   Adding 50% expo calmed the turns down.  The elevators also

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Wingspan: 80 in (2030mm)
Wing Area: 690 sq in (44.5 dm²)
Weight: 8.5-9 lb (3850-4080g)

Wing Loading: 28-30 oz/sq ft (87-92g/dm²)
Fuselage Length: 52 in (1320mm)
Requires: 2-stroke .61-.75 cu in (10-12cc) or 4-stroke .91 cu in (15 cc) engine and 5-channel radio w/7 standard servos