Parkzone - Citabria (Kyosho Minium Citabria)

citabria_stand.jpgLatest review - 1 year anniversary now online!

Status: Flying

Specifications

  • Type: Indoor Electric (or outdoor on very calm days - it stalls slower then you walk)
  • Wing Span: 16.5 in (420mm)
  • Overall Length: 13.25 in (335mm)
  • Flying Weight: 0.7 oz (20g)
  • Radio: 3-channel 2.4GHz (included)
  • Recommended Battery: 3.7V 70mAh Li-Po battery (included)
  • Battery Life: 8+ minutes at 1/2 throttle
  • Battery Recharge time: 15+ minutes
  • Manufacturer: Kyosho / Minium

Purchased: March 15, 2008

First Flight: March 17, 2008

Input costs to date:

Plane $129 (on sale) - available in Winnipeg at either Cellar Dwellar on Main, or Eliminator RC on MacDonald. I purchased the plane at Eliminator, but the parts to date have come from Cellar Dwellar, and online.

Gear box $18 (March 26, 2008), $12 (May 3, 2008)

Prop $3.50 (March 26, 2008), $5.20 (x2 May 3, 2008), $4 (November 22, 2008)

Extra battery $9 (March 26, 2008)

Wing $13 (November 22, 2008)

Receiver $35 (February 9, 2010)

Total costs: $230 (plus shipping and taxes)
(I have not included the AA batteries required for the Tx or charger as one could use rechargeable batteries.)


Flight logs:

Total Flight Time: 18 hours and 20+ minutes

February 9, 2011 - 2 flights. 8&7 minutes. MaxBell centre. Good plane to have to slow things down while waiting for batteries to charge.

December 15, 2010 - 1-2 minutes. Our church gym - way too small, but still had to try. Constant turning and then landing. Whew!

November 10, 2010 - 15 minutes. Inside carpenter/millrite school building - a big building with posts, desks, tools, scaffolding and other entertaining obstacles. Lots of bumping/crashing into stuff, but I survived. Spend most of my time on the mSR.

August 6, 2010 - ~5 minutes. Afternoon in Spruce Woods. Pockets of cool air falling over the trees made the otherwise calm air a bit bouncy. At one point the motor seemed to seize - wonder if the brushes are going. May need a new motor soon.

July 29, 2010 - 10 minutes. Early evening in Swan River. Nice and calm, had some time to relax. Buzzed around in a farm yard.

July 9, 2010 - 10 minutes. Late evening, very calm, pleasent (lights look sharp in after sunset before it gets too dark). Mosquitoes were vicious! Would have loved to stay out longer, but my blood pressure was dropping due to blood loss by the little vampires...

April 27, 2010 - 16 minutes. Nice evening - fairly calm (a bit of bumping around). Nice enough to spend some time doing touch-n-goes on the front street. Not sure if I landed a touch hard, picked up some dirt or if age is setting in. The motor / gear train is making some extra clicking noises as well the prop came loose and few off. Will need some maintenance work.

April 18, 2010 - 3 minutes. Winds calmed down, so out in front of my house for a quick spin around the cul-de-sac. A very gentle breeze was bouncing me around a bit, and after planting 2 other RC's this weekend, I figured I wouldn't push my luck.

April 11, 2010 - 35 minutes. 2 Batteries (big & medium). Max Bell centre (this might become a habit...) Lots of fun. The other plane / pilot was learning, and so there was a number of field repairs made to keep him airborne, however, a dislodged receiver / servo board finely grounded him.

April 4, 2010 - 20 minutes. 1 Flight. Gunton, MB. A bit breezy, had to stay low (under 10') to maintain control. Otherwise a nice evening.

March 21, 2010 - 45 minutes. 4 flights (maybe a couple more depending on how you count). Max Bell centre - just myself and one other Citabria. Great place - thanks Jack!

March 5, 2010 - 30 minutes. 4 flights. Golf Dome. Good to be airborne once again. Need to solder the lights back to on - the flaky hack job may have caused the receiver's temporary amnesia. Rebind at home, appears good to go again.

April 20, 2009 - 26 minutes. 3 flights. Crashed into wall, stripped rudder servo on landing - may not be worth repairing.

April 17, 2009 - 30 minutes. 4 flights. Last Golf Dome for the season. A few more indoor nights and then on to the great outdoors!

April 6, 2009 - 30+ minutes. 5 flights. 2 interesting 'crashes' - one into (onto?) the net that splits the gym, and one into the climbing rope (hung the gear on one rope and the tail on a slightly higher rope). Thanks to Harold for having an extendable aluminum pole to poke me free both times!

March 23, 2009 - 40 minutes. 5 Flights. Lots of just toodling around.

March 16, 2009 - 35 minutes. 4 Flights. Its hard to line up a nice touch-n-go in the gym... (sorry to Mike for flying into his head :-( ).

March 9, 2009 - 40+ minutes. Indoor. 4 Flights - lots of taxiing, take off, land, low flying. Managed to squeeze longer flights out the batteries tonight.

March 6, 2009 - 30 minutes. Golf Dome. 4 flights. Good evening. Tried out the Fokker (unsuccessfully).

February 23, 2009 - 30 minutes. Buchanan. Battery #1 is not giving much time. Not much more than 5 minutes. #2 was still 8+ minutes. Flew each pack twice.

January 30, 2009 - 30 minutes - Golf dome indoor (plus 7 minutes on the frame). I flew 3 packs for 30 minutes. Very big crowd. My son, a friend and his son joined me and flew the #1 battery for about 7 minutes.

January 19, 2009 - 30 minutes - indoor. WHAM Indoor. 4 flights - lots of pausing and waiting. Did not run last battery down to engine cut off. Did spend some time taxiing with the tail off the ground - that is hard! (Try not having the prop nick the ground, while toodling around the gym).

January 12, 2009 - 38 minutes - indoor. WHAM Indoor. 4 flights. Battery #1 gave 2 x 8 minutes, while battery #2 gave 2 x 11 minutes.

January 2, 2009 - ~20 minutes - indoor. Golf Dome. 4 flights - one to engine cut off. Had a good time, however, at $20 a shot, I might be better saving for a bigger plane (or maybe a helicopter????).

December 8, 2008 - ~15 minutes - indoor. Gym flying. Lots of heli's tonight, so not much action on my behalf.

November 28, 2008 - ~30 minutes - indoor - Golf Dome flying- at least. 6 batteries, some not right down engine cut-off. Lots of planes and choppers. The lights worked well. The red and white were quite visible, the yellow not as much (green would have not worked). Only one major mid-air, and I was not involved. A Parkzone was turned to confetti by a chopper. Had a friend record a bunch of video, am looking forward to the final product.

November 25, 2008 - no time. Battery tests: B1- 7:10 from 4.1V to 3.7V, B2- 9:15 from 4.1V to 3.6V. Tx batteries - still the originals! 1.42V each (Alkaline).

November 24, 2008 - ~4 minutes - outdoors (-5C). 2 batteries. 2 very short flights before engine cut off. Not sure if the batteries were not properly charged, cold weather shortened capacity or if there is some other damage from the collision last week. Will have to recharge and bench test the batteries.

November 17, 2008 - ~20 minutes - indoors. 3 batteries and a bit on a fourth. With LIGHTS! Run time is down a minute or 2 due to extra drain from lights and extra weight. Second last flight had a rough landing and I broke the propeller (and loosened the motor mounts - not sure how much more the main fuselage can take). Last flight ended with a head-on collision with a 3D plane - fortunately he was running low throttle. My main wing was badly damaged (ripped off) and the wires to the wing tip lights were wrapped around his prop shaft. After careful extrication and gently reseating the cracked wing I was able to get airborne, but the stability was badly affected. Will need a new wing (and should get another prop for a spare) before the Golf Dome fun fly in 2 weeks.

November 10, 2008 - no flight time. Testing battery life. Added lights. Ran engine full throttle with full stick movements every 10 seconds. Both batteries lasted just over 7 minutes.

October 28, 2008 - ~ 10 minutes - outdoors. 1 battery. A quick flight before the sun went down for the night.

October 27, 2008 - ~25 minutes - indoors. 3 batteries, lots of full throttle, so probably not 10minutes / battery. Golf Dome. Some loops, some inverted attempts, no major damage.

October 20, 2008 - ~40 minutes - indoors. 4 batteries, 1 prop. Lots of fun. Looking forward to the golf dome...

September 14, 2008 - ~ 5 minutes - outdoors. At a brother-in-law's. They have a dog. It was a little breezy and we did not stay long.

August 30, 2008 - 40+ minutes - outdoors (mid-afternoon in Saskatchewan of all places...). Found a parking lot in a provincial camp ground to practice approaches. Was getting real good. Trim throttle so that full down the motor is just barely running and that provides enough thrust to make a very realistic looking approach. Add just a touch of flare as the wheels drop within 1"-2" of the ground to keep the prop from tapping the ground to roll out a very pretty landing.

August 24, 2008 - 30+ minutes - outdoors. Local park (20), out front (10). Hung it up in a tree - not good. Practiced lots of approaches - not bad.

July 11-20, 2008 - 40+ minutes - outdoors. Rushing River. Almost 4 complete batteries worth over 2 nights.

June 24, 2008 - 45+ minutes - outdoors. At least 4 batteries, maybe 4 1/2. Lots of toodling around in the air. Started working on touch-n-go landings to better manage throttle. That needs work. A neighbour girl (10) brought out her dragon-fly (ornothopter) - I was quite impressed. It tended to stall, but for $35-40 it flew not half bad! The built in battery lasted well over 5 minutes on the one charge.

June 15, 2008 - 20+ minutes - outdoors. It was the WRCC President's day fun fly. Way to windy for anything I own. However, at home, after 9pm the wind died right down to nothing and I got 2 and a bit batteries done while waiting for my brother-in-law.

May 27, 2008 PM - 5 minutes - outdoors. A few crashes, some repairs to re-glue the motor mount and tape the vertical stabilizer / rudder back on. That's what happens when you are not focussed on flying...

May 26, 2008 PM - 48+ minutes. (Last?) Indoors at gym. Only one other pilot there, so pretty much had the hole gym to myself. Flew for 12-13 minutes, changed batteries, put the dead one in the charger (with new AA batteries), flew the next battery 12-13 minutes and Hey! the first one is done charging - sweet! Swap, fly, repeat! Got Four (4!) good flights in. Got a bit too brave and had a hard landing that loosened the motor mount (see blog for repair).

May 18, 2008 PM - 15+ minutes. Outdoors at a school playground. A little breezy, had some glitching when the plane was about 100' away. Tx batteries (original) might be getting weak. (update: they check out at 1.52V each). Plane was fixed by slightly enlarging the shaft hole on the new prop and forcing it onto the broken shaft of the mounted motor. Will keep the 2nd prop and motor for future crashes. Had to shave back the front of the plane to make room for the shortened prop shaft.

Evening - calmer, ran through 2 batteries. First one gave me 13:34 (with a small break for cars) and the second battery was 16:49 with a couple short breaks for cars and people. 29 minutes!

April 25, 2008 PM - 15+ minutes. Indoors. (I now bring CA with me :-) Headingley Sportsplex. Lots of fun! Until I snapped the shaft (again). Will try a new repair technique.

April 21, 2008 PM - 15+ minutes. Indoors.  Flew until the prop broke. Was quite jumpy - need to back off on throttle when inside. Motor seems to be running rough. Will clean gear train at home.

April 17, 2008 PM - 10+ minutes. Outdoors. Started calm, but did get a bit breezy for the little guy. Was running close to full throttle, so only managed 5+ minutes / battery. Had a couple stop by and watch - they had a very curious puppy that seemed to be very eager to catch the plane, but when it got up close after a landing it was quite nervous - very cute. (Good thing it didn't try to catch the plane, or that would have been the end of it...)

April 13, 2008 PM - 6+ minutes. Outdoors. Nice and calm. Out in Portage la Prairie. Wide open field, so tried altitude test. Kept climbing well past the height of the nearby 3 story building, guessing 60'+. It was getting a bit breezy up there, so I cut the throttle and glided down - actually managed to get 2 nice loops in - a first! The third loop was started about 12' above the ground, which was about 2' too low. Doh! Hit the throttle, then the ground and snapped the prop again.... (CA is my friend.)

April 13, 2008 AM - 5+ minutes. Outdoors. Nice and calm, albeit chilly (2C). My son tried a few laps around the cul-de-sac. Then a car came, I took over and flew it into a tree. One blade on the prop snapped off. Am trying to glue it back together with modeling CA.

April 8, 2008 - 5+ minutes. Outdoors. A bit windy, plane had trouble sometimes penetrating the gusts. Need to work on coordination when the plane is flying straight at me (left to go right?).

April 7, 2008 - 20+ minutes. Indoors. A couple of times I ended up disoriented, but no damage done tonight. Ran 3 batteries, but with lots of breaks - with the battery left in. As soon as the bigger airplanes hit the air, I was down and hiding - no intention of being prop-bait.

April 3, 2008 - 18+ minutes. Nice evening. Whirly birds turning slow. Temperature around 6-8C. Had a few run ins with tree trunks, shrubs and even a couple traffic sign induced spins, but all survivable. Timed second battery at 10 minutes 38 seconds (which included 2 short pit stops to show off the plane to neighbours).

April 2, 2008 - 5+ minutes. Outdoor flying. Still a bit too breezy, limited control and a few landings in or near puddles and mud. Did fly the battery out, so time was over 5 minutes.

April 1, 2008 - less then 1 minute total: First attempt at flying outdoors - fairly calm wind, but not calm enough. Couldn't control the plane and almost put it in a tree. That's enough for that day.

March 17, 2008 - 4 minutes total. Initial flights. WHAM Indoor club - Buchannan School Gym. Got about 4 flights in. One of the first flights ended with a mid-air collision with a 3D foam plane - no major damage - just the belly opened up a bit. Final flight ended by clipping the wall and spinning right into the cement breaking the shaft right by the prop.


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