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The Lanier Laser 200, designed by Bob Godfrey, is a 1/3 scale model of Leo Loudenslager's world champion aerobatic airplane. This giant model is not inexpensive and requires a lot of room for building and storing. A vehicle with a large cargo area is also required for transporting the model. Some of these disadvantages are offset by the relative maintenance-free lifestyle of the gas burning engines available for this model. This same model has been used by well known performers such as Chip Hyde in Top Gun competition. It will fly and land amazingly slowly, seemingly unaffected by the winds, yet when the throttle was advanced it will perform any manuever in the book. The Laser 200 kit comes in a big box. The kit includes the wing cores, wing covering materials, aluminum wing spar and tubes, ABS turtledeck and wheel pants, all of the balsa and ply components, and two full-size plan sheets. No hardware is includede with the kit. The instructionss are typed and do not include any pictures. The wood quality is excellent and the die-cut pieces are easily removed. The floor for the tank/servo area, wasn't cut square. The instructions are not clear at times but the plans make up for this deficinecy. This could be a problem for someone with limited experience in kit building. The wings arrive as two foam cores with slots in the top and bottom for spruce spars and a hole for the wing tubes. The tube and spars are glued in slots, the leading edge and trailing edge are sheeted , and cap strips are placed at three inch spacing. Finally, the ailerons are cut out using a band saw. That is basically all there is in this simple process that results in a very strong wing. Bob Godfrey and Lanier gave recommendations for saving weight in the wings but they also made the disclaimer that they wouldn't be responsible if the wing snapped in flight. Four things which to save weight; carbon fiber was installed along the main spars prior to sheeting the wings., the foam between the cap strips for selected sections was removed, some of the foam in the leading edge area was removed and. shear webs were put in all but the last four sections. The method of attachment of the wings to the aluminum spar was changed. The plans show machine screws that go through the top spruce wing spar into a threaded hole in the aluminum wing tube. The holes are located only a few inches away from the fuselage. The aluminum tube is so thin resulting in only two threads of aluminum holding the wings. The holes were moved to within one inch of the ends of the wing tube and a small block of hard balsa was epoxied into the inside of the tube. Holes were drilled and Ohio Superstar "All Threads" were glued into the blocks. Sheet metal screws pass through the top of the wing into the "All Threads". This provides a much stronger and reliable attachment for the wings with minimal weight gain. The fuselage sides are made of 1/8" ply. Lightening holes of 2" diameter were cut in the fuselage sides and the sides were reinforced with carbon fiber. A 3/8" square spar was added above the wing joiner holes to prevent the fuselage sides from flexing when the wings were installed and removed. Both of these ideas were recommended in the other reviews of this kit. The 1/8" plywood servo floor was found to be out of square. If this had not been checked and corrected, the fuselage would not have been square. The F2 former is made by gluing two 1/8" ply pieces together to make a 1/4" thick former , These pieces were not cut symmetrically so if they are flipped, the two pieces it would not match with the mating piece. A 1" diameter paper tube was installed the length of the fuselage from the area where the tail servos are mounted up to the wing cover area to run all of the servo wires. The ABS turtledeck was replaced with a styrofoam version sold by Precision Aviation Design. It was about 1/2" shorter in height than the ABS version, so the plywood back for the canopy had to be cut down to fit and the canopy had to be trimmed more. The styrofoam turtledeck is sheeted with 1/16" balsa which results in a stronger and lighter turtledeck that won't crack with age. The foam/balsa version was 5 ounces lighter. This modification is recommended to anyone building this kit. The tail group is entirely made of 3/8" square balsa with a plywood support for the vertical fin. Until the support wires are installed, the tail group lacks the required rigidity. At the recommendation of Indy R/C, importer for G62 engine and Slimline, manufacturer of the muffler, the engine was mounted without the use of soft mounts. Soft mounts reduce noise and vibration of the plane but they the engine to vibrate more so there's a greater chance of engine damage. The 24 ounce tank was mounted in front of the aluminum wing tube with foam between the floor and the tank. The ABS cowl was reinforced with 2oz fiberglass cloth using ACE Hardware All Purpose Cement to adhere the cloth to the ABS. This worked extremely well, the cloth melts into the ABS. Care must be take to not use too much cement since it softens the ABS. The cloth was layed in place and then the cement brushed on as thin as possible. The resulting structure is very rigid but the durability will be determined over time. The same method was used to reinforce the wheel pants. All ABS components were sanded with 220-grit sandpaper and primed with Rustoleum primer, then re-sanded and painted with Dupont Centauri automotive enamel. Monocote was used for all covering. An RCD Supreme receiver with a 1300MAH receiver pack was used to go with the Futaba 7UAFS system. Hitec 605 servos were used for ailerons and elevators. A Hitec 700 servo was used for the rudder and Futaba S148 servo operates the throttle. The receiver battery pack was mounted as far aft as possible in the foam turtle deck. A combination switch/charging plate was installed on the right side of the fuselage just beneath the wing leading edge. After all of the efforts to save weight, the model came out nose-heavy. It took 6 ounces of weight in the tail to get it to balance at the recommended CG. To avoid this the tail surfaces might be sheeted and 2-56 rods can be used for all of the support wires rather than the fishing leader. Replacing the ABS cowl with an aftermarket fiberglass cowl may also help. People had said that anyone who can fly a sport/aerobatic .40 can fly this plane. This sounded great but six months of labor, 20 lbs of airplane, an undisclosable amount of cash outlay, and a 22" prop still tend to be intimidating. On the planned day for the test flight, the wind was blowing at 5-10 MPH straight down the runway. Pre-flight photos were taken then exhaustive pre-flight and range checks were performed. The G62 was hand-started with no problems and the model was taxied out to the strip. The Laser taxies fairly well, but it takes quite a bit of up-elevator to keep the tail down when the throttle is applied. Otherwise, the tail will rise off the ground. After a few private words with God the throttle was slowly advanced. At about 50% throttle and 30 yards of grass, the Laser was in the air. The first thing noticed was that the plane felt very stable. It took one click of aileron, two clicks of down elevator, and two clicks of left rudder to get perfectly straight flight. After the jitters were overcome, some maneuvers were attempted. The rolls were smooth and straight. The Laser stops rolling immediately when the ailerons are released making four-point rolls very easy. Snap-rolls were also very controllable, much more so than with smaller planes. Inverted flight required only a touch of down elevator. Knife-edge flight took very little effort. There was no tendency to go left when pulling vertical, and the longest hover to date lastest 10 seconds. The vertical with the G62 is excellent, not unlimited, but certainly enough for the average person. The first landing was set up fairly high and and the throttle was reduced to about 20% on the final leg but the Laser did not seem to be losing altitude. With a further reduction in the throttle, it slowed down beautifully, flared, and landed the plane right in front of the viewing stand at what seemed like walking speed.The landing was amazingly easy, far easier than the Goldberg Cub, Goldberg Ultimate, Champion 45 ARF pattern plane, or Lanier Stinger 10. The other planes are going to spend alot of time sitting in the garage. This is one incredible plane! This kit is a great value and an excellent choice as a first Giant Scale kit for someone already with flying experience. No other giant scale plane that gives this much performance and ease of building for the $200 kit price. It continues to get rave reviews from expert pilots that are used to flying much more expensive kits like the Godfrey, Miles Reed, Ohio RC, Carden, and Pirate models. It can perform all of the wildest manuevers yet flies like a trainer at low throttle, floating down slowly on landings. |
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