Carbon Cub S2 thoughts and review after 10 flights

[Cumbersome_Dinosaur]

Hey everyone, just wanted to share some thoughts about the Carbon Cub S2.

Overall, I love this airplane and there’s not a whole lot to complain about. I bought the RTF version and installed flaps. I would consider myself to be an “advanced beginner.” I wouldn’t bother buying any of the GPS stuff or landing sensor because the SAFE seems to give enough assistance for landings.

Batteries- the airplane came with a 2200mah smart battery and I would suggest buying more. I get about 5-6 minutes flying time on 2200mah batteries. I bought a bigger 3200mah battery and it flies just fine; I actually like the characteristics the airplane has with a little more weight. I get about 7-10 minutes out of the 3200mah battery. This is also me flying fast and aggressively.

Landing gear- the landing gear IMO is kind of weak and bends a lot on landings. also bare in mind most of my flying is on dirt or rough grassy areas which seems to be rough on the landings also.

Flaps- quite honestly they’re not really needed. I put them on mainly because I like tinkering and wanted to see what they were like. Takeoffs are definitely quicker but I don’t think they help much for landing; the plane actually sort of stalls out and falls to the ground at around 3-5ft. It’s a little helpful tho when use the larger battery because of the weight, but I still only use the takeoff flaps for landings. Full flaps are about useless. I had one instance where I was screwing around with full flaps just sort of floating around and flipped it in beginner mode; it seemed to confuse the SAFE and it started spiraling nose down to the ground but I was able to recover.

Flight modes- I spend most of my time in the air on experienced mode because I like the freedom and I want to build my pilot skills. If I become disoriented, I usually flip it to beginner mode and it will correct itself. I still do all of landings on beginner mode and will eventually attempt on expert.

Durability- this airplane holds up pretty well. So far I’ve only replaced the prop. I did make some repairs to the tail and reinforced the hinges with packing tape because they were starting to rip. The rudder started to break from flipping over on landings (not a pretty repair, but flies fine until the replacement arrives-see photo). I’ve already mentioned the landing gear. I may try to do some mods in the future to fix these things.

I’m not sure I would recommend this airplane for a first time flier-I would wait a few flights. I learned on my F959 glider which I think helped me learn to “feel the air.” If any one has any questions, let me know!

 

[The Hangar]

I love my S2, it’s a great flyer! Would you mind sharing your setup for the flaps? Are you using the stock transmitter? I installed the servo but couldn’t get it working even though I followed the procedure in the manual.

 

[Cumbersome_Dinosaur]

I’d be happy to help where I can. Snapped a few pics for reference. I essentially followed the instructions in the book, and yes, I used to factory transmitter and it works just fine although it tries to tell you that you can’t.

First thing I did was purchased the servo, exact product name on amazon:
“E-flite DSV130 3-Wire Digital Metal Gear Servo, EFL1090”
I initially tried to find the one they recommended but it seems they don’t make it anymore and the part number superseded to the above. Before I did any gluing or cutting, I plugged the servo in to make sure if worked, and it did. It’s plugged into port 8 in the photo.

Next few steps were pretty simple really. I prepped the servo cavity under the wing and removed the paint using tape- worked quite well. I wanted to ensure the glue would bond well to the foam and not to the paint. After that, I made my cuts to the wings like the manual suggested (I used a knife- would have been cleaner with a razor blade or exacto knife). After I was satisfied with the cuts, I glued the servo in and I think I used a little too much gorilla glue (see in photo) but oh well.

After all the cuts and everything was glued in, I activated the servo and put it in “flaps up” position to make sure it was centered before connecting everything. Lastly, I installed the arm and eyeballed all of the flap positions and made adjustments essentially by trial and error until the flaps were even. Got them where I wanted and took the plane out for a spin!

I hope this helped- let me know if I can explain anything better or if you need some other pictures. I hope you’re able to get yours working. I would suspect maybe you plugged into the wrong port.