About two months ago, I noticed that Dennis had a PA Electric Shock in his shop, and the idea was attractive. We all need a justification to buy another model, and at the time I reasoned that was an inexpensive way to get into PA aircraft. It is rumored to be a very nice flying airplane.

Internet research showed that very few people customize this particular model.  Some replace the servos with Hitec, but almost nobody uses an alternate to the recommended Thrust 10.  I decided to ‘drink the kool aid’ and buy the IPA including the battery that PA recommends.  I ordered an Electric Shock in Red, with the ‘full monty’ IPA that included the battery and the servos.

Dennis (LHS owner)  made me a  reasonable deal on the setup, I prepaid the order, and we figured there would be a good 7-14 day lead time to get everything in.

Well, it turns out that PA’s West Coast distributor is more than a little disorganized.  We waited well over four weeks for the stuff to show up, and when it did show up most of the parts in the IPA were not there.  After this failure, Dennis had to phone the guy numerous times to find out if the parts were even showing up, and the distributor was not returning calls for many weeks on end.  Even worse, I’m told he was somewhat argumentative regarding the f’ups that left me waiting for my bird for many weeks on end.   Strong work, hombre.

I have heard this story from all corners of the industry regarding PA.  At one point, apparently the PA distributor blamed the fact that he only had one staffer manning the phones, and apparently this poor person was recovering from Chemotherapy half the time and was not as effective as she could have been.

That sucks, and I don’t blame the girl that was going through health issues.

I blame her boss, Precision Aerobatics, and whomever else decided that mediocre performance was OK for one of the best brands in our hobby.

It pissed me off even more when the kit showed up – Everything was perfect, beautiful, as it should have been, five weeks late.

I realize that the product is special, and if it’s that special then they need to disclose on their website that they do not have their act completely together.  Arrogance is a beautiful thing, but it does not excuse crappy performance in the real world.

I honestly hope that this post reaches the attention of people at PA that can make a difference.  Hey you Aussies, we love the aircraft, and y’all have picked a bunch of dork-a-saurs to distribute your product here in the US.  Please get them calibrated or get them replaced so we may continue to enjoy Precision Aerobatics, please.

:so now it’s 7/4/09, and the model is complete.  I’ve only flown it once, but it was splendid and required zero trim clicks to fly straight.

OMG I am starting to believe the hype regarding Precision Aerobatics.

I bought my Hanger 9 Aspire EP used in 2005.  I was up at the LHS, buying $15 worth of stuff and all of a sudden I feel this compunction to look up.  There it was, it was Friday, and the bird went home with me. 

As originally sold, the bird was packaged as an RTF (HAN1950) for about $240.  It came with a brushed Speed 480 ‘can’ motor, and a huge 6 cell car nimh pack.  Mine was pretty similar, but the guy had ditched the ESC in favor of a full size servo that came and engaged a micro-switch.  It flew OK, but climb performance was pretty anemic.  I flew it for a summer, and then hung it up in the garage. 

In August 2008, I started flying with Zeke.  He had a parkzone Radian, so it was natural to want to dig out the glider.  With a new NIMH car pack the performance was a little better, but still not great.  One afternoon, I was trying to land and got in a rush.  I heeled it way too far over on the wing, stalled the tail and it didn’t occur to me that I should throttle up until after impact.  The battery decided that it wanted out, and put a bullet hole in the side of the fuse.  The rest of the bird was fine.

Week later, brand new fusealage in hand, I decided that I was not going to rebuild the thing as stock.  I wanted something that was going to fly something more like the Radian.  I started doing some research, and based on recommendations from online reviews and motocalc research I picked this motor:

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=3883

You should be able to get by with an 18a ESC of your choice, I happened to put a 25 in because that’s what I had.

Now, Hangar 9 says that you cannot convert this bird to brushless because the firewall won’t take it.  Poppycock.  There is plenty of structure up there, and this little motor is not going to hurt a thing.

The motor bolts right up to the F2 header plate and the motor shaft is in a good place (more on that later) – the real problem here is that with such a light motor replacing the big heavy can motor, the CG is way out of whack. 

Fitst of all, I decided to compensate for some of the weight by using 2 of my older 10-12C 2100 lipos.  Wired together in parallel, I figured I would have a ton of runtime even with the older batteries, and get good economy out of the batteries in their twilight years.

This created a problem, however.  The F3 and F4 header plates were in such a position that placing the batteries was awkward.  I managed to get the bird assembled this way once and flew it, but it was really a mess ‘under the hood’.

So, I decided to hog out the F3 and F4 plates.  I did not photograph this as well as I should have, but you get the gist here: http://isaac509.smugmug.com/gallery/8349071_25aQs#524436141_wNyxc

http://isaac509.smugmug.com/gallery/8349071_25aQs#524428438_NVu3v

http://isaac509.smugmug.com/gallery/8349071_25aQs#524438240_ehvM8

I was concerned that I had taken some strength out of the thing, and you can see the CF bars I epoxied into the fuse as well.  I also installed some balsa planking in the floor under the front battery, just so it would sit nicer in the fuselage.  I think it’s stronger now than it was to begin with.

The last challenge was the spinner and prop.  I wanted to use a Graupner 9×7 folding prop, but the hub that came with the Graupner didn’t have enough ‘plunge’ to reach the motor shaft.  So, I used the stock Hanger 9 hub, which needed to be shorted by about 8 mm, and then drilled out so that the shaft would go all the way into the hub.  The Graupner prop fits it fine, although the spinner is a tiny bit small.

Lastly, I hot glued about another 2 ounces of lead into the nose.  I had flown it once with the weights just stuck on up there and jettisoned one on a test flight – that got my attention and now they are hot glued in.

Having to add that weight was kind of a shame, but this is a fairly heavy bird to start with.   With the new powerplant the model climbs out with ease, has plenty of power to maneuver and overcome the wind.  I would say that it’s not quite as fast as the Radian, but it’s close.  The runtime is phenomenal.  I went out the other day and flew around at moderate throttle + some WOT climbs for about 10 minutes.  I wanted to see if the motor would run hot, and I was curious about the battery. 

When I checked the batteres, I had to charge them about a total of 450Ma.  And, these are rummy old packs!  I honestly think that you could fly around with throttle management for well over an hour, and still have plenty of RX power to get home.

In summary, I feel that I have really upgraded this bird at minimal price, and it’s awfully nice to have it back in enjoyable flying shape. 

- Eli