weight for profile cardinal

Here's a newbie type question...How much should a good flying profile Cardinal weight finished with tank installed etc..I'll be flying with a OS46LA. I hope to learn to fly the complete pattern with it. I'm getting ready to start the finishing process and want to know how heavy or light it is. This will give me some idea as to how fine a finish I'll be able to apply. Right now I've got to decide to go all silkspan and dope or maybe use some ultracoat and paint the fuse.

At 40-49 OZ. it will fly great. At 50-60 OZ. it will still fly good.
With an OS LA .46 powered Cardinal profile & its great wing you can not go wrong.
It may turn out alot lighter using film for finishing depending on how much dope finishing you have done in the past. Finishing a plane with dope to a light wieght is allmost an art.
My first contest plane was a Cardinal profile. I used Ultra Coat on the wings & colored Jap tissue & clear dope on the rest of the plane. LA .46 powered. It wieghed 45 OZ. new ready to fly. That was 8 stunt planes ago. I flew it on Sunday & it still flys great.

Thanks Patrick...that's just what I wanted to know..I think if I go with the ultracoat on the wing I'll be able to keep it under 50 oz. dry. Again thanks

"Finishing a plane with clear dope is almost an art"
But not lost--I didn't know I was "artsy" -- its still being done!!!
FYI- I finished my Nobler this summer-- Silkspan on all of it.
It was 11 coats of clear Aerogloss (needed to use it up) and the all up weight gain from bear wood to finish ready to put on the colored coat was 3 oz. What you use for color or how you put it on is your choice. I painted mine with DeRusto enamel with a camel hair brush and ONLY gained ONE oz--ttl covering,clear,colored--4 oz. Like I said FYI. The previous posts were good suggestions.

Don't concern yourself too much with weight. As long as you have enough HP (your .46 should be fine) a heavy Cardinal will fly better than anyone who is still learning the pattern can fly it. Mine was a porker, especially after I had to glass it all back together once (60 ounces +/-), & I still did pretty well with it in Advanced a few years ago (ST G-21 .46 powered).
If you're ever going to fly it in competition I suggest you put some aluminum gear on it & use light glass or CF on the fuse to keep it from wagging it's tail. A control hardware upgrade is a good investment too.
FWIW, I'd use a Ukey or something similar to learn the pattern, they fly well & they're A LOT harder to break & A LOT easier to fix than a Cardinal...

Thanks Dave and Nils,

I appreciate and understand your input. Out of curiosity, having just today purchased a set of electronic scales, I went ou to the shop and checked the weight of my Nobler that I built from a Brodak kit and it was 40 oz w/o engine. That was finished in silkspan and dope. It has been repaired from one horizontal eight that ended a tad too low. I don't know what it's weight was before finishing, but from your experience does it sound like I finished it too heavy? I've always felt like my finishes were heavy. I do love the looks of a doped finish, I just thought I'd try my best to keep this Cardinal light.
Thanks again,

Lynn,

Ooops! Forty ounces is a competitive weight for a Nobler. Assuming all the minor stuff--engine, fuel tank, prop, spinner--is also in place.

Note: this is a cue for anyone who wants to segue into a glassy-eyed rendition concerning the weight of GMA's own models.

For a worthwhile comment, many times I saw Nils fly what turns out to be a real porker profile Cardinal. Never, ever did it look as if it weighed (weighs, current tense?) 60 ounces. A very nice flying model which sold a whole bunch of profile Cardinal kits up here in the NW.

>Lynn,
>
>Ooops! Forty ounces is a competitive weight for a Nobler.
>Assuming all the minor stuff--engine, fuel tank, prop,
>spinner--is also in place.
>
>Note: this is a cue for anyone who wants to segue into a
>glassy-eyed rendition concerning the weight of GMA's own
>models.
>
>For a worthwhile comment, many times I saw Nils fly what
>turns out to be a real porker profile Cardinal. Never, ever
>did it look as if it weighed (weighs, current tense?) 60
>ounces. A very nice flying model which sold a whole bunch of
>profile Cardinal kits up here in the NW.
>
>Dan

Thanks Dan. Alas, my "Red Menace" is gone too. I was flying it last fall & something went pop when I hit the second corner of the first inside square. It turned into the circle & went in inverted in the grass. It didn't appear to hurt it much (one wing pulled out of the fuse at the root, didn't break the covering) but I knew something went wrong inside. Autopsy showed the crank mount had come loose. Probably the result of unseen damage when I hit the fence post with it & broke it into the four major food groups (on flight #361 as I recall). It took a lot of 'glass to put it back together but it was primarily around the CG & didn't really make any noticable difference after it was re-trimmed. I took a half ounce of lead off the tail & moved the leadouts a tad. I got at least another 300 flights out of it. I hated to trash it but it wasn't worth fixing again. Very dependable honest airplane & engine combo. Btw, that old ST.46 was still pulling it along just fine after all those flights, even with the weight gain. I thought the ring was supposed to wear out in these things?

As a builder of 54 ounce Mo'Bests, I feel the combination of a large, thick wing and plenty of power is a viable one. Naturally, lighter ships have some edge in an absolute sense, but not so much to concern the average flyer, particularly while you are learning..

At lower altitudes and higher humidities, the heavier ships suffer less. Here in southern New Mexico on a summer day with temperatures in the high 90s and humidity 20% or less, and an altitude of 4000 feet or greater, we dp notice a considerable decrease in performance, particularly in the wind. (The same ship is much easier to fly in the wind in Dallas, even when the weather is hot..)

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Cascade 545: Beautiful ship, not enough wing and power to be heavy..

Long ago, I built a Cascade 545 powered by an OS .40 FPS, which came out heavy (about 56 ounces), and the combination of thin wing, smaller wing area, and marginal power made it "slide" noticeably in the square pullouts on a hot day. Ultimately, that lack of performance cost the ship..

By the same token, the ~615 square inches of Mo'Best wing and thicker airfoil kept it more manageable, particularly with an ST .51 powering it. From what I see, the LA .46 is quite a husky powerplant compared to the trusty old .35/.40 FP engines, it should suffice.

That said, I have to tell you that a 44 ounce Mo'Best flies better than a 54 ounce Mo'Best, everything else being equal. The Cardinal has a similarly large, thick wing, and obviously is up to the task of hauling greater weights. I don't think I'd worry so much about its weight, as perhaps stiffening the aft fuselage (say with fiberglass), although I'm not sure that is anything to worry much about either.

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"We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience." -George Bernard Shaw