Aileron servo arms are covered with streamlined fairings (at left) already installed. Rudder and elevator clevises are held to their respective control horns by steel screws (above center). The reinforced elevator joiner wire is already installed. A single landing wheel (above right) mounted in the fuselage is a nice touch for picture-perfect landings with no scuffing of the fuselage.
lock and are held in place by a single bolt in- stalled through the bottom of the fuselage up into a threaded housing in the rudder. Next, the elevator and rudder clevises are connected to their respective tail surfaces, and are followed by sliding the wings and wing tube into their pockets in the fuselage and tightening the two grub screws that lock in the wing tube.
Flight notes
Part of installing the wings is threading the aileron servo wires into the cockpit area of the fuselage and connecting them to the provided “Y” harness. With its working ailerons the Calypso, as expected, is more responsive to control inputs than a two- channel unpowered glider or a three-chan- nel powered glider with only rudder and el- evator flying surface controls. Given its responsiveness, it requires a gentle touch in turns, particularly if thermal flights are your objective.
If your preferences lean toward aerobatics and ripping down the runway wide open at a
four-foot altitude it will do that, too, al- though my flight time with the plane has been primarily thermal-seeking with bursts of power to get it to altitude and then shut- ting down the motor in favor of extended glides.
The manual is very emphatic about bal- ancing the model and getting the c.g. loca- tion correct. Being on the conservative side in such matters, I balanced the model at the most forward recommended location of the c.g. range. It was evident how far forward it was when the model almost hit the ground on its first hand-launch because of the nose heavy condition. Only a quick application of some serious “up” elevator averted a minor disaster on the first test flight.
The model was quickly landed and the battery was moved back until the Calypso balanced almost on the carbon spar location instead of over half an inch ahead of it. As noted earlier, you can expect about five minutes of strong motor run at full throttle using the supplied 1300 mAh battery. If thermal flying is your objective, as it is
mine, the sky is literally the limit. My flights tend to run in the 20-plus minute range (or until I get tired looking up!) with multiple climbs back to good thermal alti- tude as needed to search for lift. One note in closing about the optional flaps: subsequent to initial assembly and several trips to the flying field, I did install flaps according to the manual’s direction and the parts package from Flyzone. If that’s an option you would like to choose, make sure your transmitter has elevator/ flap mixing capabilities. If it doesn’t, the novelty of having a plane that almost stops in the air when full flaps are applied will be off-set by the need to constantly adjust the elevator to maintain level flight without ex- cessive ballooning. Don’t ask me how I know that.
The plane lands so slowly and gracefully on its single wheel undercarriage with or without the flaps deployed that it will rapid- ly become one of the planes you always take to the field—and it fits in the back of a small SUV fully assembled!
The Calypso demonstrating what it does best. It has a very graceful and pleasing planform and fuselage profile in the air (above left). The Calypsoskims
FLYING MODELS
over the runway surface (above right) in preparation for landing. It has the capability of floating in ground effect for a considerable distance.
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