This item is discontinued.

GREAT PLANES GILES G-202 46
PRODUCT REVIEW
by Keith Palmer

Midsize sport-scale aerobat

The Great Planes Giles G-202 is an aerobatic sport-scale plane that's legal for both MINIMAC and IMAC competitions. It's modeled after a Giles that's owned by Bob Stark-an avid International Aerobatic Club competitor and judge. Stark's Giles sports a bright yellow and blue color scheme that makes it highly visible in the air and gives it eye appeal on the ground, so I decided to use those colors, too. The Giles' square shape make it extremely easy to build and even easier to cover, and its wide fuselage and thick wing make radio installation a snap.

The Giles G-202 kit is CAD engineered and features tab-and -slot construction. It includes laser and die-cut balsa and ply parts, pre-bent aluminum landing gear, ABS cowl and wheel pants, a clear plastic canopy, a hardware package that includes a fuel tank with a removable mounting tray that you can slide out for maintenance and an instruction manual.

The parts fit so accurately that it is almost impossible to build a crooked wing or fuselage, even if you use your couch as a building board!

TAIL FEATHERS
The stab and fin are built over the plan out of 3/16 - 1/4 and 5/16 x 1/2 inch balsa sticks. The only die-cut pieces are a stab leading-edge (LE) brace and the stab center section. The stab's trailing edge (TE) is reinforced with a 10 inch long, 3/16 inch square basswood spar. After the stab and fin have been framed up and sanded flat, they are sheeted with 1/16 inch thick balsa and then finish sanded finished before you know it!

The rudder and elevators are framed up over the plan using 5/16 x 1/4 - and 5/16 x 1/2 inch balsa sticks. These parts are not sheeted, and I spent only half an hour building them. I used thin Great Planes CA to frame up the tail feathers and medium CA to glue on the stab and fin sheeting.

WING
Building the wing was a thrill because everything fit together so nicely and was soon finished. The LE sheeting is glued together first using three, 3x30 inch pieces of 1/16 inch thick balsa. These sheets are then cut at an angle to form left- and right-hand sheets. The next step is to glue the 1/8 x 1/2 x 13 inch basswood spa doublers to the 32 inch long spars. These doublers are on the inboard section of the wing panels, where most of the stress will be. The two wing panels are built upside down over the plan.

Next, pin one of the spars over the plan with the basswood doubler facing upward. I used my Great Planes Magic Magnet Building Board instead of pins because four magnet clamps accomplish as much as about a dozen pins.

Then position the tip rib and the third rib in from the center and into the notches in the main web and the aileron web. There are four web spars for each wing panel: LE, main, aileron and TE. These run the length of the wing panels and are notched to line up with notches in the ribs. This ensures a perfectly straight wing as long as the parts are properly seated in the notches.

Now pin the main spar web to the top spar, aligning the two ribs over the plan. The rest of the ribs can now be placed in their notches, and the LE web and aileron web can be positioned in the rib notches. After making sure that all the webs are down against the board, you can glue the joints with thin CA. The bottom spar and basswood doubler are now glued into place in the rib notches and against the main web.

Now glue the aileron servo tray and control-horn support into place and sheet the wing according to the plan. Then join the completed wing panels using a die-cut wing joiner that's made out of three pieces of 1/8 inch ply.

Now you have only to glue on the pre-shaped LEs and wingtips. After you've finish-sanded the wing, cut out the ailerons, and glue on the wing TE and aileron LEs and sand them to shape. No center-section reinforcement is necessary.

FUSELAGE
This is built almost entirely out of 1/8 inch thick lite-ply. The large lightening holes in all the sides do not weaken the structure. All of the bulkheads come drilled, so it's easy to install the pushrods.

Build the fuselage over the plan by first fitting the four bulkheads to the fuselage top. Right thrust must be built in, so be careful to correctly line up the fuselage top over the plan. Now fit the right and left sides into the bulkhead notches.

After making sure that everything is properly seated, use thin CA to glue the structures together. All of these parts fit together so well that I could pick up the fuselage before I had glued the parts, and it did not fall apart.

Install the wing-hold-down block, and bolt the wing to the fuselage. Two dowels hold the wing on the front of the fuselage and two 1/4-20 nylon bolts hold the wing down at the back. After you've bolted the wing into place, assemble the belly pan, which is made out of 1/8 inch lite-ply and glue it into place on the bottom of the wing. Two cardboard tubes are glued inside of the belly pan to allow access to the wing bolts. Now glue the firewall, the landing-gear mount and the top front fuselage formers into place and sheet the top front of the fuselage with 3/32 inch balsa. After the fin and stab have been glued into place, glue in the turtle-deck formers and sheet them with 3/32 inch balsa.

RADIO INSTALLATION
The pushrods are made out of 1/16 inch wire that's glued inside Nyrod sleeves and run the length of the fuselage. They're supported by the predrilled bulkheads. These pushrods are stiff and don't bind. The split elevator servos are very easy to hook up. One elevator pushrod is connected to the servo output arm, and the second is connected to the first with two wheel collars that hold them together near the output arm. You have the options of mounting the rudder servo inside the fuselage and using a long pushrod, or mounting it outside the fuselage near the rudder using a short pushrod and a servo-lead extension; I opted for the latter. The G-202 uses dual aileron servos, so you'll need a Y-harness to hook them up.

COWL AND WHEEL PANTS
These are formed out of ABS plastic and are very easy to assemble. The wheel pants have overlapping edges that, when glued together with thin CA, make a very strong joint. The cowl has very nice cut lines molded inside that make cutting it out and fitting it very easy.

A few words of caution: the cut line on the bottom of the cowl is in the wrong place. I cut my cowl out to the lines, and the bottom was about 1/4 inch short. The cowl halves are held together with thin CA and an ABS reinforcement strip. With an O.S. .61 FX engine mounted, I mounted the cowl on the fuselage, securing it with three screws on each side.

Next, drill the mounting holes in the plywood fuselage out to 3/16 inch, and glue in plastic inserts to provide a strip-proof hole—a very good idea.

FINISHING
The instructions tell you how to balance the model laterally before you cover it. This is very important if you want to get the full potential out of this airplane.

I covered the model using Top Flite MonoKote. As long as you follow the sequence in order, you cannot go wrong. I painted the cowl, wheel pants and canopy with Top Flite LustreKote. Note that LustreKote cannot be sprayed right from the can onto butyrate; it will curl the edges of the canopy. Spray the paint into a jar and let it sit for one hour to allow the solvents to evaporate; then apply the paint with an airbrush.

Your must glue on the painted canopy within three hours of painting it, or its edges may still curl. If you glue the canopy to the model and then paint it with an airbursh, you won't have any problems.

AT THE FIELD
I ran two, 12-ounce tanks of fuel throught the O.S. .61FX, and it was ready to go. The first two flights were low slow passes for the photographer, and I was amazed that a compeittion airplane could handle like a trainer. After the photo session, I put the Giles though the wringer, and it did not disappoint me.

Great Planes has done a truly magnificent job of designing and manufacturing the Giles G-202. The kit goes together very quickly and builds straighter than any kit that I have assembled in the last 38 years. It will make any Sunday flier look like a MINIMAC competitor.

FLIGHT PERFORMANCE

TAKEOFF AND LANDING
After starting the engine, I pointed the Giles into the wind and slowly opened the throttle. The plane took off in the shallow climb as straight as an arrow-perfect! Not one trim correction was needed. Nor was there any need to add right rudder because of the 2 degrees of right thrust built into the firewall.

Landing are a breeze; the Giles will slow down to a hover without snap rolling, and the controls remain responsive even on low rates-truly amazing!

LOW-SPEED PERFORMANCE
At low speeds, the Giles handles as easily as a trainer. I particularly like to do low, slow aerobatics on a calm day-a real crowd-pleaser.

HIGH SPEED PERFORMANCE
At full throttle and with the O.S. .61 FX swinging an 11 x 6 Top Flite Power Point prop, the Giles zips along nicely. When you point it straight up, it will climb out of sight without slowing. There was also no trim change between full throttle and low speed, and that speaks well for the airframe's design, i.e., incidence and built-in right thrust.

AEROBATICS
When I put the Giles through the wringer, it did not disappoint me. Knife edge flight was spectacular; put it on knife-edge and add just a little top rudder, and it will fly on knife-edge out of sight. Input full rudder, and it will do one of the nicest knife-edge loops you've ever seen. It snap-rolls very crispy, both inverted and right-side up, and stops the moment the sticks are centered. The Giles also tracks straight, does both inside and outside loops and requires no rudder trim to compensate for torque.