Scale NEW (old) Great Planes Chapman CAP 580!!!

[Terryscustom]

A couple months ago I was lucky enough to be chatting with @stangflyer and he mentioned a CAP that he got as part of a package deal. I tossed out that I'd be interested in the plane if he did not know what he was going to do with it. Well, low and behold a few weeks later and a FedEx fiasco later I have an old ass "new" chapman cap!!!!!!!!!

Lord only knows how old this thing is, but it's NIB. I remember when I was just starting to learn to fly I used to drool over the tower hobbies catalog from front to back and back to front and never dreamed I'd actually have one of these!!!

So, now I've been through a few planes and being an engineer I've learned how things work with them so I'm going into this with eye's wide open. It's pretty cool to see the difference between the "old" ARF's and the newer ARF's. First off I don't see anywhere in the plane any sign at all of HOT GLUE!! All joints from front to back are pretty tight, glued and nice. Entire engine area and can tunnel are sealed. Every bit of hardware down to zip ties and Velcro are included.

Obviously this is the second generation of this kit and it was the "lighter" version of the two. There is still a lot of lumber that can be removed and with very little thought there could have been more but the laser cutting prohibits more removal in certain areas.

 

[ericb]

Looks good. Can't wait to see how this flys.

 

[Terryscustom]

Well, first off I'll say that this has been a huge reminder that I HATE MONOKOTE!!! And old as anyone knows monokote is worse yet! Three hours with an iron cranked up to full steam and a heat gun / glove and all I could do to get it smoothed out! Thankfully the yellow on the fuse was hard, the yellow on the wings was pretty good and the bottom of the wings......well, we had a few words and I did the best I could.

After that was all done I found a few places for some cutty cutty and found a few things in the shop that I could use as upgrades.
Gear - I had some carbon gear and saved 6.3oz.
Wheels - Wow, they made 'em hard a few years ago. Went from 4" to 4.5" with aluminum rims and still saved .7oz.
Canopy - Trimmed out some of the 3m solid ply floor for a 1.1oz savings.
Fuse - Trimmed F-1 and a bunch of the solid plywood can tunnel top for a 3oz savings.
Tailwheel - much improved with a .5oz savings to boot (made from various spare parts I found in my bins).
Wing tube - I had a carbon tube that was just a hair to long and after timming to fit gives a savings of 3.3oz over aluminum.

Total savings so far 14.9oz.

I'm guessing stock fuel tank will end up being close to 6oz heavier than my Fiji tank, I'm using single rudder servo in the tail, no second fuel tank tray will be installed, no ignition pack. I'll be very close to 2lb savings over all stock equipment when done.

Oh, and I could not get the backwards "E" off the one side so it will stay there for a conversation piece......

 

[BalsaDust]

Sub'd

 

[Pistolera]

The backwards E is a "riddle"..!

 

[Husker]

Awesome! I have always been intrigued by these.

I doubt it will fly anything like the planes you have been flying lately. Hopefully it won't discourage you from working on your CAP design. I badly want an updated cap. Probably more than any other model.

 

[Terryscustom]

Awesome! I have always been intrigued by these.

I doubt it will fly anything like the planes you have been flying lately. Hopefully it won't discourage you from working on your CAP design. I badly want an updated cap. Probably more than any other model.

Oh, I will be doing my full design 120cc CAP, that's a fact but it will be mid summer when I really dig in.

This GP is a very cool scale plane and I may actually fly it for IMAC this year. If it has tendencies that I don't like I will promptly make myself a new set of wings and stabs however. The wing area and shape looks great but as with almost all CAP's there is dihedral on the bottom of the wings and flat top of the wings. I will be curious how this acts in harrier flight, that is the reason I'm shaving off as much weight as I can to keep the wing loading as light as possible.

 

[49dimes]

Awesome! I have always been intrigued by these.

I doubt it will fly anything like the planes you have been flying lately. Hopefully it won't discourage you from working on your CAP design. I badly want an updated cap. Probably more than any other model.

I have a hunch he is doing this so he can "refine" the inherent flight characteristics and use this knowledge to produce his "new"cap!

 

[Terryscustom]

I have a hunch he is doing this so he can "refine" the inherent flight characteristics and use this knowledge to produce his "new"cap!

You have a point......I have never flown a CAP other than a small POS seagull cap. LOL, that thing was fine as long as you were going full throttle...........after that WTFO!!!

 

[Terryscustom]

Pretty cool: