there’s a lot more open space out here in dallas than there was back in los angeles. the only fixed wing aircraft that i ever flew back in california were slope gliders off of the redondo avenue bluffs in long beach. now that i have endless fields within walking distance to my place i decided to put together a park flyer.

the gws slow stick comes in an arf kit form that includes the 400 motor power system. it took a few hours for final assembly and i was off flying. i have a spektrum dx6i radio system for my helicopters so i just bought an ar6100e receiver to use in the plane. with the gws 20amp esc and a 1250mah 3-cell lipo i get more than 15 minutes of continuous flying time and the system never gets more than warm. with my setup the plane is light enough that it can fly very slow, or at wot can climb and loop with ease.

a few notes about assembly: the pushrods that came with the kit are terrible. they’re too wide in diameter to fit in the servo horns and don’t include the proper hardware to mate with the rudder/elevator linkage. i instead used a mini pushrod set that i bought from my local hobby shop for about $7 that included all of the proper hardware. for the plastic spars that run along the leading and tail edges of the wing, i glued them using the supplied foam-safe glue instead of taping them since the tape would come off and flap mid-flight. i also used a motor heat sink from an old helicopter that i had for the motor, more for balance than for heat dissipation.