Performance:
Unlimited vertical.
Awesome inverted flat
spins!  (especially with
smoke!)  Great crowd
pleaser.  Test flown in
1988.  Still flyable today!
 

The Byron Christen Eagle II is a very impressive airplane to watch while it's inflight......especially with dense white smoke pouring out of it.  It's probably the best crowd pleasing plane of my entire R/C Air Force.  With the smoke on, even simple loops and rolls look great.  Knife edges, hammerheads, spins, point rolls, snap rolls, and torque rolls all look impressive just because it's a good looking biplane.......but with the smoke on, it looks even better!  Inverted flat spins with the smoke tightly corkscrewing down are really neat to watch.  In fact, with the smoke on, even just banging the sticks around usually comes out looking pretty cool!!!!

At first, I was really skeptical about the durability of a large R/C plane that was made out of molded foam, with "Foam's Worst Nightmare" (gasoline) in the fuel tank.  I also wasn't too fond of that big, heavy, and sloppy aileron torque rod linkage that was in the kit.  So instead, I used dual aileron servos mounted outboard in the bottom wing.  Each servo drives the bottom aileron directly, with a pushrod linking the top and bottom ailerons together.  Those long aluminum pushrods to the rudder and elevators didn't really appeal to me either, so they were replaced by pull-pull systems.  The rudder uses a single servo that's directly cabled to the rudder.  Each elevator half also has it's own servo that's directly connected with a pull-pull cable system.  Futaba S-28 servos are used on all controls.  One of the S-28 elevator servos was reversed in order to maintain equal throws and tracking of each elevator half.

As it turned out, several years later these pull-pull cables would end up saving my Christen Eagle from total destruction.  A head-on mid air collision with a Goldberg Eagle 63 broke the fuselage in half at the trailing edge, and about the only thing holding the tail section in place were the cables themselves.  The Christen Eagle II was severely damaged.......and barely flyable........but thanks to the pull-pull cable system and it's foam construction, it made it back to the ground with no further damage!  The mid-air collision had SEVERELY damaged it, but at least it wasn't totally destroyed.  That crash completely eliminated all my remaining doubts as to whether or not it was such a good idea to make such a large R/C plane out of molded foam.......and it also completely sold me on pull-pull systems!
(To read and see more on this crash, click on the link at the bottom of this page.)

But even though the Byron Christen Eagle II is one of the most visually impressive planes that I own while it's inflight, especially with the smoke on...........it unfortunately also happens to be one of the worst flying planes that I own.  The Byron Christen Eagle II has a really sloppy feel on the controls while it's flying, and it has to be constantly corrected while performing even the simplest aerobatics.  I can't imagine how the full size Christen Eagle II became known as a top notch aerobatic airplane if it flys as poorly as the Byron model of it.  I'm assuming and hoping that the full scale version flys much better.  So if you ever see a Byron Christen Eagle II flying a SMOOTH aerobatic routine........you can bet that pilot was seriously concentrating on EVERY little stick input to make it LOOK that way!  In fact, a Goldberg Eagle 2 probably has a better chance of winning a "pattern contest" than a Byron Christen Eagle II.   :-)

In the end, my Christen Eagle II turned out to be a much better LOOKER than a FLYER, so it doesn't get flown very often anymore, except at special club events.  So most of the time.......it sits in my model room........ready to fly........waiting for the next club event........and a chance to get back up into the air.  Unfortunately, the most impressive plane that I've ever owned turned out to be just a "BIG PIG"!

Bummer!!!    :-(
 
 
 

Comments?
E-Mail me at:
dmcdnld@yhti.net

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