Sukhoi CG Fix

The Sukhoi has some balance problems

The Sukhoi and I found some time to be together right away, and the flight was quite nose heavy. No matter what I did it wanted to fall and dive. Very small roll input would result in dive and I would have to compensate. I had to give a lot of elevator trim just to fly flat! After looking around on forums a bit I used the procedure described in the owners manual to check CG (or center of gravity) on the plane and found it way off - suprise!- nose heavy.

It was a shock how VERY nose heavy it was, especially considering the battery packs I use are heavier than stock and I still had problems so if I had flown it as it came from the factory it would have been worse. I felt a little disappointed after so much lead time and all the release date chages to still be presented with a problem like this.

I fixed it by moving the center of gravity as described in owners manual 30 mm from the main wing leading edge. My shop doesn't have a CG machine, so I made one out of 2 ball point pens and discovered it fell off. It was so unbalanced it was right off the "scale"!

Here's how I moved the center of gravity:

- extended the battery compartment 3/4" toward the tail
- removed the velcro strip and now use a 1 1/2" piece of scotch tape perpendicular to the battery to hold it in place
- cut and extend the battery leads 3/4 of inch

Now it flies great, and it went from a bit of a disappointment to a very cool and fun member of my little RC air force. I like to show it off on those rare occasions when it's not too windy.