Me and the Hobby Zone Ultra Micro BNF Piper J-3 Cub....

Last year for my birthday I received the HZ ultra micro J-3, and I was amazed. Being my first radio control plane I did what any newbie would do.... took it right outside and flew it. I opened the box, charged a couple of the batteries, and bound the radio to the plane. Nice and easy, but like i said I was a newb. I took it outside, figured out which was the wind was blowing, and with my Father in-law watching plowed right into the grass. ..............................Well, that didnt last long........... 15 seconds if I remember correctly.

I bought some replacement parts. a new prop, prop shaft and nut, and cut the crumpled nose apart and fixed it. Excited, I took it right outside and guess what? crashed it again.................... Ffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuu................................... prop shaft broke, AGAIN.

This happened 3 more times and i went mad. i look on forums and found that this is a problem with these planes. the prop shaft just isn't meant for rough abuse. It is INCREDIBLY skinny.

I found a forum where, to my astonishment, people found a FIX for it!!!! yay!!!!! 6 pros/shafts later, i found it!!! Surprisingly simple, By the way. You take the motor/gearbox and prop shaft from the HZ Ultra Micro P-51D Mustang, and just replace mine with it. Nice!!! So hereis how I did it, taking me an hour and about 20$. (each crash cost me 7$ in parts with the old setup)

Carefully cut open the fuselage along the seams on the side and just infron of the vertical stab (rudder)

after seperating the two halves, you will see the gearbox glued in with some weird silicone or something. cutting around the glue, remove the old gearbox and set aside.

Next hog out a TINY bit of the foam to make the bigger, more robust rig fit right in. notice the difference in size of the gear AND motors:

trim the gearbox mounting tabs, and glue the new one in, maintaining the prop thrust counterbalancing angle of about 2-3 degrees. you will see how much of an angle it was with the old motor in place.

glue the top and bottom halves back together (NO CA GLUE!!!!!!) with some elmers wood glue or foam glue and install the new prop. You are all set!!! after the glue dries, take her for a spin. I noticed some MAJOR changes once i did this conversion:

after a crash, (right into a tree mind you) the prop was undamaged! everything worked, and i hand-launched it right after.

It flies much more balanced. The nose was so light it used to fly tail-heavy, and overall made for a difficult plane to manage. Now, all is well!

It steers with a rudder only, so remember you will not have a slower reaction time for evasive maneuvers. there is a mod for adding ailerons also, using the HZ P-51 receiver and servos. Meh. I like this little bird as-is.

It takes off IMMEDIATELY. you can almost hang the plane on the prop, and run time is hardly affected at all, since you hardly need any power to keep it in the air. Hand launching is NO PROB.

I use a DX5e radio, so my trims have to be set up every time i switch planes. no problem with the cub. after a hand launch and getting her in the air, you can trim it until she just glides.

So if you have this little pipsqueak of a plane or plan to buy one, just follow these steps. You should be enjoying the flight once again! below is a link for the parts you will need:

motor and gearbox:

http://secure.hobbyzone.com/search/PKZ3624.html


prop:

http://secure.hobbyzone.com/search/PKZ3601.html