Introduction
A designer like Christophe
Paysant-Le Roux's(CPLR),
whose list of credentials include: Champion du Mont F3A, IAM winner
and also TOC champion, guarantees the performance of any plane(No
wonder Alliances are always in demand)! This applies to the CPLR
designed Madness too. When I ordered the Madness, I had
to wait for a month before receiving it. This is due to the kit being
hand-made as well as being high quality products of the ZN
Line.
The big box that arrived is without any picture on it, totally unlike
Japanese kits. This is fine with me, as I'm only interested in the contents,
not a colourful box picture. When I opened the box, I discovered that
the plane sits within the box with a very ingenious system to protect
the model from shipping and handling damages. This impressed me because
always the some manufactuers prefers to give us a pictured box rather
than to spent same money and time to protect the plane from shipping
damages, unlike ZN
Line.
The Madness I ordered came covered, and I was(again) impressed
with the quality work of ZN
Line.
The plane's covering is excellent, and ZN
Line
also included accessories like the fuel tank, wheels, tail wheel, hinges
and engine mount. Very Complete
Assembly
I began the construction with
the wing. It was delivered finished, so the only work to be done was
to fit the hinges, horns and the 2 servos.
All the work required just 20 minutes.
The Tail section came finished like the wing, and they only require
fitting of the hinges and the horns. All done in 10 minutes.
For the fuselage, I first fitted the engine. My engine selection was
for the new YS 63 FZ(available @ Singapore
Hobby Supplies)
that would spin a APC 14X5 at 11,200RPM. This strong power plant required
me to reinforce the firewall a bit with same balsa. I adjusted the cowl
and fitted the canopy.
I followed by fitting the
servos. Two separate servos are required for the elevators. And a servo
for the rudder, which is to befitted in the fuselage with a push pull
system. I fitted this servo in the tail zone to solve a nose heavy problem(the
YS is just a bit heavier than a normal 45 two stoke). Then came the
more difficult and delicate work of setting up the plane. I fitted the
horizontal stabilizer with epoxy (paying attention to misalignment)
And then with epoxied the vertical tail in place. Well, I'm left to
fit the throttle servo, on-off switch, RX, battery and tank to finish
the work . All this required only 2 working sections of 3 hours.
Setup
Personally I opted, for weight saving, to use 2 mini servos from JR
to move the ailerons; 2 mini from JR for the horizontal tai , a mini
from JR for throttle and a standard servo for rudder .
The following are considered only like starting point. Eeveryone must
discover a personal setup with the Madness:
Elevator throw: 35mm to 75 mm; Exponential 25% to 50%
Aileron throw : 25 mm to 80 mm; Exponential 25% to 55 %
Rudder throw : 80 mm to 120 mm; Exponential 40% to 60%
There is no suggestion about the CG so I started with a 33 % from the
T.E.. Now I'm on 37 % to improve 3D maneuvers .
Flight
The Madness is the simplest 3D plane
to hover that I have never test! This simple consideration make all
things clear about the flight performance of CPLR's
design . Impressive maneuvers include the Parachute; Harrier; ultra
Flat -Spin and Torque rolls. All the maneuvers are simple to perform!
And the Madness is a pilot's joy.
Overall
In my opinion, this is a great 3-D model. However, as suggested on the
rec.models.rc.air newsgroups, ona scale of 0 to 10, the Madness
gets a big 9. To reach the 10, there is the need to include kit
instructions, and a yet painted fiberglass cowl. Regarding the instructions,
I have asked the ZN
Line
support, and they have assured to me that they will enclose instructions
in the kit, and on the ZN
Line
site too. My Madness was delivered
with a yellow front turtle deck, an in my my opinion, goes against the
white gel coated fiber cowl in colour. So I opted, using the same piece
of monokote to change the look of the plane(see photo). Happy torquing
rolling!!! - Nicola
Rossi
Go on to
Serge Boardais's Madness Review, for
another view on this excellent aircraft.
