N2S-1 flight report

One word....AWESOME...best describes how well this plane flies. The OS 52 is a perfect choice for this scale warbird. The final weight was 6 1/2 lbs. I had to add about 8 oz of nose weight to get her to balance properly. My initial balance point was off a bit. I was a little concerned at how this would affect flight performance but those fears were done away with after the first flight. I broke the engine in with about 2 tanks of fuel. Initially I couldn't get the idle low enough without the engine dying. This will improve as the engine gets fully broken in. Because of this I planned on takeoff from the paved runway and landing in the grass to help slow it down on roll out. I made five flights that day and each was better than the last.

Take Off and Landing:
Taxiing was a bit of a challenge with the faster than normal idle so I just set her on the runway and held the tail until I was ready to go. I applied power smoothly and the OS responded right away. Take off was straight with a little right rudder input. She broke ground after about 60' and climbed out nicely. There was more than enough power from the OS 52 even when swinging that 12-6 prop on a hot and humid day. On landing the plane slows down very nice since you have that big hunk of wood up front providing drag. The rate of sink does increase when you back off on the power on final so I had to keep just a touch on right until I was ready to touch down.I was able to set her down on the mains with no problem and the tail settled immediately. If you plan on flying this plane from grass make sure it's either cut real short or you install larger wheels. The supplied wheels are really too small for most grass fields.

General flying and Low speed handling:
Most flying was done around 2/3 throttle. The control throws were set to the
factory specs. For the elevator and rudder these were fine but on the ailerons
there is a bit more throw needed, especially for aerobatics. I slowed the
Stearman down trying to stall her but I was very hard pressed to do so. She just mushed ahead with full up elevator applied. Not even a hint of a wing drop.
Very impressive! Flying circuits and horizontal eights is wher the beauty of
this plane shines. There is just something special about a pretty yellow biplane
against a blue sky. I could almost imgaine it was 1941 and I was at some
training field watching the days activities.

Aerobatics:
The real Stearman was not especially know for aerobatics but it could loop
and roll. The Kyosho Stearman will perform very scale like manuevers.
Loops were large and round. As for rolls, they are very scale-like using the
recommended throws but you'll need to add some down elevator when inverted.
I had the dual rates set up with additional throw on th high setting so I tried
some at the high rate and the rolls were definitely faster but not very scale.
Stall turns were nice but had a bit more accelration on the downline most
likely because of the nose weight. However, this is a plane that begs to be
flown like the real one. If you want knife edge get an Extra 330 or an Edge.