This item is discontinued.

GREAT PLANES RYAN STA 1.20 ARF
FIELD & BENCH REVIEW
By Chris Chianelli

Golden Age grace - in a matter of days

Would you like an 80-inch-wingspan, all-wood Ryan STA - one of the most beautiful aircraft ever made, in my humble opinion-in almost-ready-to-fly form? I know I would, and now we can! This ARF thing just gets better and better. The competition among ARF manufacturers to earn best "fit and finish" honors in the RC industry is on, and with its new Ryan STA, Great Planes Model Manufacturing Co. has become a major contender in the giant-scale ARF "weight class." It's the best ARF offering yet from that company. Its Spacewalker and AT-6 were good; its Ryan is excellent.

Today, it serves as an icon of the Golden Age era, and in its time-the late '30s-the Ryan STA was a favorite sport-stunt plane. Moreover, as an "STM" version, it also saw military service as a trainer (designated "PT-20"). It featured mixed construction: a metal fuselage and fabric-covered wooden wings braced with external flying and landing wires.

Great Planes accurately captures the essence of the STA's sleek majesty-all in wood, of course-with an IMAA legal ARF version of this historic aircraft. The fully sheeted balsa fuselage and painted fiberglass cowl give it a rounded, scale-like cross-section from nose ring to tail post. These two components, in particular, are fine pieces of work that exemplify the quality found throughout the kit.

THE KIT
In the ARF market, the quest for quality is reaching a fever pitch, and you, as consumers, are the beneficiaries. Some of the most recent ARF kits offered by Kyosho, Yellow Aircraft and AirBorne Models are good examples of what I mean. The Ryan STA sits right up there with the best of these. When you get a new ARF home and find that the wing is precision-fit into its saddle and that the hold-down bolts line up exactly with the preinstalled blind nuts, you know you've purchased wisely. From the built-up control surfaces to the epoxy-coated engine box and firewall, you kind of feel you built the Ryan yourself-but, of course, you didn't!

The entire structure is made of high quality balsa and plywood and covered with MonoKote. The cowl and wheel pants are fiberglass and painted to almost exactly match the MonoKote colors. Some Great Planes ARFs come with an ABS plastic cowl; having a plastic cowl on a giant scale plane such as the Spacewalker I would consider to be a "miss." The Ryan's cowl, however, is not only well made in fiberglass, but it also has panel lines and rivet details molded in-a vast improvement. The headrest, stab- and fin-root covers and the lower rudder fairing halves are made of ABS plastic that's perfectly acceptable for these low-stress beautifying steerable tail wheel, is of good quality, and you should feel confident in its use throughout. As I said, this is Great Planes' best yet.

ASSEMBLY
Great Planes' instruction booklets have been at the head of the class for some time now, and the Ryan's is no exception. The photos and diagrams leave nothing to the builder's imagination. The instructions are very detailed yet perfectly clear.

Once area I thought a miss was the tailwheel-assembly mounting. The outer skin of a model should be made of high-grade, sandable) relatively soft_ balsa, except for those areas in which something must be hard mounted, e.g., a tailwheel assembly. Soft balsa isn't hard enough to securely anchor tailwheel-mounting screws. I even saturated the screw holes with CA glue to harden things up-no good; the screws just pulled out a larger plug of CA-impregnated balsa. I had to make a plywood tailwheel-assembly mounting platform, and that's what Great Planes should have done in the first place. After all, hard mounting locations are provided for the decorative ring bracing struts.

I slightly modified two other areas: the plywood aileron-horn mounting plate and the elevator pushrods. I thought the aileron mounting plate wasn't close enough to the ailerons' leading edge to obtain the proper control-linkage geometry, so I added a little more plywood plate in front of the existing piece-no big deal; I just wanted to get things just right. Great Planes opts for a dedicated servo and linkage system to each elevator half, and I think this is an excellent safety feature. The problem on my Ryan-and this may not be the case with yours-is that these thick, 4-40 rods didn't move freely in the preinstalled pushrod tubes. Since the model just barely edges over the giant-scale qualification line (having an 80-inch wingspan), is designed to fly at moderate speeds and has a dedicated linkage system running to each elevator half, I though it prudent to switch to 2-56 pushrods to alleviate the binding.

Other than these changes, I built the Ryan exactly according to the instructions, and the assembly went very smoothly a totally enjoyable experience.

POWER
I powered my Ryan with O.S.'s new fuel-pump-equipped 1.20 Surpass III, and what an engine it is! It's extremely reliable-inverted mounting notwithstanding and very powerful. With the 1.20 Surpass III, I found myself flying the Ryan at 3/4 throttle most of the time, and some of you won't feel you need all this power for your Ryan. For realistic performance and scale-like aerobatics, a strong .91 4-stroke or a sport .91 2-stroke will do quite nicely. I can't see anyone, however, coupling this historic beauty with anything but the sound of a 4-stroke. But, that's just me.

The kit comes with a good plastic spinner, but this place deserves a precision and beauty offered by a Tru-Turn spinner. Although the one that's included is of good quality, putting a plastic spinner on this beauty would be like wearing bargain outlet shoes with fine, custom-tailored suit.

CONCLUSION
You know; maybe someone more objective should have done this review. I'm very partial to Golden Age planes and, in particular, the Ryan STA. On the other hand, had Great Planes screwed things up and not adorned this historic beauty with the high-quality features it deserves, I would have been really upset about the mistreatment. Fortunately, this awesomely sleek icon of the Golden Age has been given a meticulous treatment.

Here you have a high-quality model that can be assembled in two days, has a large, striking scale presence and, when control throws are set conservatively, flies like an intermediate trainer. Increase those throws, and you have a Golden Age aerial Olympiad that's a mesmerizing showstopper. What more can I say except go get one for yourself before they're on back order - and trust me, they will be.

FLIGHT PERFORMANCE
A big scale model of a Golden Age icon with a wing loading of 24.25 ounces per square foot! I ask you, what could be better? Just look at this beauty! And it flies just as well as its looks hint it might. I was slightly worried about the O.S. .120, since lousy weather right up to flight day had not permitted me to break in the engine at home as I usually do. Showing up for magazine-cover flight shots with an engine that has never even been started did not give me a comfortable feeling. All I can say is that the latest round of new O.S. engines I've run-the .91 Surpass II and this 1.20 Surpass III (both pumped versions)- have raised the bar on quality and reliability once again. I now believe, and I'm sure I'll get letters about this, that the new breed of 4-stroke has surpassed the 2-stroke in terms of reliability.

I primed the new engine at a high idle trim with the electric starter, went to low-throttle trim, added the glow power, it the spinner with the starter, and the engine came to life at a slow idle. That's what a precision-fit gets you.

TAXIING AND TAKEOFF
If you fly off grass, as I do, you might think about modifying the bottom of the wheel pants, as I did. Owing to the relatively high angle at which the Ryan sits on the ground, the bottom rear half of the wheel pants scoop up grass and dirt like a shovel. Enlarging the wheel opening on the bottom of the wheel pants-toward the rear-totally solved this problem for me With this grass-field fix, the Ryan has rock-steady ground handling-very controllable, even in a moderate crosswind, and very scale-like; in fact, everything this model does is very scale-like. Takeoff runs are straight, and the tail comes up rather quickly. The Ryan didn't show any tendency to ground loop. The effectiveness of all the control surfaces was immediately apparent right after liftoff.

AEROBATICS
As I've already said, this one does everything in a true-to-scale way. Loops and rolls are very graceful, and stall turns are downright majestic; in fact, "majestic" is a good word to describe this model's flight characteristics all the way around. With the moderate control throws I initially set the plane up with, I wasn't expecting spin capability, but, low and behold, the Ryan turned out a beautifully slow, and very scale-like, spin. With the CG moved 1/4 inch rearward and some increase in the elevator throw, snaps were breathtaking. Even with the Ryan's semi-symmetrical airfoil, inverted flight needs very little down input. Twisting this large model and its imposing wheel pants and fairings through the sky earns you a real beauty show.

LANDING AND SLOW FLIGHT
The Ryan, notwithstanding its aerobatic grace, has super slow-flight characteristics, and it lands like a perfect lady. You can really slow this one down. There's that 24.25-ounce wing loading, but be careful; with the large-diameter-15-to16-inch-prop you're likely to have on this model and with the extra drag of those large wheel pants and fairings, this big bird slows down fast. You might even plop it down on the ground a bit too hard. I did, but no damage. Just keep a bit of power on until you're a few inches from touchdown and you'll be fine.