Is the startus tail heavy?

[hawk3011]

I just got a stratus and mine is tail heavy Do i have to use some lead weight etc?is this normal on this Bird

[TomC]

Originally Posted by hawk3011

I just got a stratus and mine is tail heavy Do i have to use some lead weight etc?is this normal on this Bird

I don't have a Stratus (just a couple of old MA Ion-x's) although I've seen lots of them, so please take this info with a grain of salt.

The original Stratus had a pretty heavy canopy (esp. when painted), a CF tail boom, and plastic tail gears.

I believe the newer, and after-market canopies might be a bit lighter. A lighter canopy is going to move the CG rearward.

The Stratus now come with an Al tail boom since MA does no longer produces/sells a CF one. The Al one weigh a bit more than the old CF one, so this will move the CG rearward. You might be able to find some lighter after-market CF tail booms.

The Stratus now comes with a metal tail gear, which probably does not weigh too much more than the original plastic one, but it will move the CG rearward. Probably not a good idea to change back to plastic unless you are into sport flying and soft 3D. For this kind of flying you could also go to 95mm tail blades instead of the slightly heavier 105-110mm ones most would use.

The best way to combat all this tail-heavy stuff in my opinion is to try to place your electronics and Rx battery as far forward as possible. I think that MA has an extended Rx battery upgrade to allow you to shift the Rx battery a bit further forward (you could probably rig this up yourself). Obviously, a bigger/heavier Rx battery would help as well (although this is just like adding lead weight to the nose, kind of silly if you don't need it). You could also ditch the rear tail horiz fin as well. It does not really do anything (except look good). I've recently noticed that most local hard 3D Stratus guys have ditched their Horiz fin.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
TomC

[Knud Pedersen DENMARK]

Hi hwak3011

check this http://rc.runryder.com/helicopter/t563687p1/

Carbon versus alu tailboom, I have had both one the weight:
The Carbon 33" Tailboom weights 66 gram
The Aluminium 33" Tailboom weights 114 gram


I can see your from Bronx to, like the Tattoartist on RR - maybe your the same guy

[Alfred]

Just one of the tail-gears are metal.
At the time of the design, the Arizona regulator and the 4300mah LiIon batteries were the standard for the big 90 helies.
With this and the CF boom, the Stratus balances out perfect or at least mine does.
Tail heavy is easy to fix...nose heavy is a lot harder.
Instead of adding dead weight, use any/all combos below ...
1) increase battery size for added flying time.
2) Add governor
3) add remote glow
4) add remote mixture adjustment
5) add Eagle tree with sensors to monitor various aspects
6)........