Michael Southwood from our home town of Hemel Hempstead
writes about his latest creation ~ The Seagull Super Stearman

I thought you might like to hear the review of my latest ARTF, a Seagull Super Stearman 46. I needed a plane to try out a new RCV 58 and this one looked about right. I have always liked the Stearman. At 49” span it will just go in my car without dismantling. Just as well because it is a real pain to take apart.

Unfortunately on close examination after getting it home, I was a little disappointed with the non scale undercarriage, the lack of top wing ailerons and the rather poor inter-plane strut brackets. Stickers were smart but some are silly, who has ever fitted an ejection seat in a biplane? A pilot is supplied, but sits too low. Windscreen has to be cut from a blow molded Pyramid. No instructions or guidelines to show where to cut or how to fix it. A bit of thin molded ABS forms the rear top fuselage. Again no instructions for cutting or fitting. It stops short of the fin with a square end. Could be better. Building initially went well. Finish is excellent apart from wrinkled Profilm covering, which can be tightened with a heat gun or iron. Fitting the RCV in place of a 46 two stroke required a new mount. Again not too difficult except getting captive nuts inside without being able to get a hand in. Had to use a bit of snake inner to pull the nuts in before fitting bolts and pulling them up tight. I opted to change to sidewinder to bring the carb, which I now have on a new manifold coming straight out of the head, at about fuel level. The fin and stabiliser fitted perfectly and square to the wing. I used white glue to fix, after removing film covering. The tank proved difficult to get in, so I modified the front by cutting a hatch, reinforcing the edges of the opening and fitting a fastener. Now at least the front of the tank and pipes can be seen. I received a warning from another modeller, that the screw holes for the cabane struts might be incorrectly located, so I checked and found them to be 4mm different one one wing panel. Corrected by filling and re-drilling to get a perfect match. Saved a possible skewed wing. I found that the posh looking instruction manual, is in fact very poor. It misses out any instructions for making the cabane struts and it took me ages to work out where the cross bracing rods and anchor plates go. Cabane struts are undrilled aluminium strips as supplied. These have to be drilled to fit. Not mentioned in the instructions. I also found the bolts and nuts for fitting cabane struts and inter-plane struts are too short and not enough supplied. New longer 3mm bolts had to be bought. The RCV 58 fits inside the cowl without having to cut a hole for the head. The carb comes out just behind the cowl, sitting in a recess cut into the fuselage. By cutting and silver soldering the RCV exhaust pipe, I got the silencer to lay across inside the cowl, with only a short plastic extension showing outside. The undercarriage is a two wire affair, mounted in a large black cut-out, but without much spread to stop it folding back on our grass patch. Poor design. Have to be improved and the large black hole filled in underneath, but I will try it first. So far the weather has prevented flying, but the engine has been run in the plane and sound superb. This really is a brilliant design of engine. Smooth, quiet and very frugal. Pulling a 12 X 5 APC prop at 11600 rpm. Cant wait to test fly. Set up for maximum throws, but with 50% rates for the first take off. Looks good from a distance and as it looks right, it will fly right! Saturday morning, flying time. No more excuses, so off to the field. Engine started without too much trouble, but idle was much too fast. After a lot of investigation I found that my HiTech transmitter did not move the servo far enough. My Futaba which I had with me gave a decent tick over. I ran about ½ a tank through the RCV and tuned for peak revs. The wind was in the worst possible direction, forcing a take-off across the patch into the sun. Did not turn out to be a problem as the thing never left the ground. Two problems I think. Long grass and the ground set-up does not give enough incidence to gain lift. The second problem was that the undercarriage came off as expected, breaking the thin plastic straps. Exactly as expected. I doubt that even on tarmac it would survive.

This photo shows what the undercarriage fixing is like after the first attempted take-off on grass. Thin plastic straps broke and allowed the U/C to fold back and come off. Have to make some metal straps and try again, although in my opinion the design is bad and the width between slots too small, giving too much leverage. Fuel looks a bit oily after a long run on the bench

Here she was ready to go. Looking good. RCV producing plenty of pull and all controls now working well after changing to my old faithful Futaba Challenger transmitter. Wheels and spats are too small for this patch, and as you can see they sit on the ground which is almost flat. I think a new Carbon Fibre Undercarriage is called for and a stronger fixing.

Article by Michael Southwood for Bumpy Green Model Aerodrome
February 2004

Comment by Mike Southwood on 20040418083201. Rating 3

Further to the above review, the model has flown a few times. No problem except that it was not exciting. The RCV ran very well, but for my taste was underpowered. Once the engine stops (better not!) the thing becomes a brick, no glide except at about 45 degrees down. Ailerons on only the bottom wing do not give much control. Overall, it looks good in the sky, but is not much fun. I have tried an OS 52 FS in place of the RCV. Certainly better, but it is still not exciting to fly, and is a pig to land. The cabane struts have to be lok-tighted to prevent losing nuts.

Comment by Terry Dunne on 20041115171504. Rating 1

Dear Michael, I concur absolutely with all yor observations and comments. I have owned two of these Seagul models, one with a Thunder Tiger Pro .46 and the other with ann RMX .48 . Both models suffered engine failure in flight and both went in at 45% resembling a pretty brick. The model looks good but is a design disaster; I would strongly advise all not to buy this Seagull model. My rating of 5 out of 5 is for Michael's article. Regards, Terry.

Comment by Ulf Gustafsson on 20050106183358. Rating 4

Hi. Wery interesting to read your comments about this airplane. I bougth a Boeing Stearman recently and have tried to fly it once time so far. I also feel that the ailerons do not work to good. I also had some problem to get the machine off the ground, but that was beacuse of the snow. Well, i manage to get it down in one peace. http://web.telia.com/~u63111753/ Fotos and video for interested. /UlfG

Comment by Sherwin Arculis on 20050824214340. Rating 5

Whew! Have been looking for a nice looking knock about plane. However these reviews have convinced me to forget this plane. A friend has a Seagull P9 and it is quite a flyer. I sort of like it, but don't like tricycle landing gear. My World Models Rambler .46 is a jewel to fly especially since I removed the crumy retracts and went to fixed gear. A .70 OS Surpass gives it a ride!

Comment by stu whitfield on 20060321125805. Rating 5

i read the other comments about the poor flying of the stearman after i had bought the kit. on reading the instructions for the c of g i thought this was too far forward (3.5 cm from leading edge of top wing) so i recalculated it and i came to the c of g to be approx 3.25 inches back from the leading edge of the top wing. i balanced my madel at this and the first flight was a delight, it took off from grass in about 20 feet and will loop roll knife edge inverted all on the first flight. the landings were at walking pace and so easy.so if your stearman is balanced as per the instructions then try what i did

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