Space Walker II Trouble with Taxi and Take off

The point about the Space Walker not taking off easy: In the normal landing gear configuration, it won't taxi on my field. But by moving the landing gear forward as far as it would go, and then I needed to put on extremely big wheels to get it taxi right. Even then it has been hard to get it to take off. I've also had to increase the elevator. The thing is, it is balanced on the CG the way the manufacture wants it.

[@billywild5440]

My best r/c days were worse than your worst days. The only enjoyment I could get, for a while, was from building them.

[@CarlosChavez-gs1ld]

Hi! No worries! These are common problems. I have been flying models since 1979, and have some thoughts for you. 1) On your Elevator up issue- this is common. If the trimmed elevator position in normal flight is more than a few degrees, than either the CG is too far forward, or the "Decolage" angle is incorrect per the plans [See the youtube video "The Aerodynamic of flying wings (part1)" from the UA-cam channel "RCModelReviews" (Especially from about 4 to 13 minutes)]. 2) The mains on a tail dragger should never be SO CLOSE to the CG point. Those mains do not look like they are in the right position to me, but I could be wrong here. 3) In small real airplanes, the fuel tanks are located at nominal CG, so that the burning of fuel during flight does not interfere with the flight dynamics. HOWEVER! In models like yours, usually the amount of fuel combined with the tank not being so far forward means that the fuel level does not usually have a dramatic impact on CG during the flight 4) Do you have too much down angle on the engine? You mentioned you are running a bigger engine. That will produce more thrust AND more nose down force on take off. 5) CLOSING THOUGHTS- Check the Decolage angle of your Horizontal Stab, as well as your engine down angle. Also, is it possible to use a shorter tail wheel so the tail sits lower to the ground? Lastly, if those main wheels really are where the should be and that Horizontal Stab is at the right angle compared to the wing and fuse, then I would seriously consider moving the CG AFT some. There is some room to play with here without getting into trouble. Related to all this, how is she flying now? Does she feel like a nose heavy plane or not? If she is "ROCK SOLID" up in the air, then you can certainly move the CG a bit back without worrying about it. It is a nice looking plane. GOOD LUCK!

[@johnnichol9412]

A very complicated and verbose response. I fly one of these from a grass field no problems with ground handling, take off or flight at varying throttle levels. In fact it is very well behaved with the recommended CG and the manufacture's wheel location. I would suggest that the grass be mowed and standard size wheels used. Those wheels are gong to create a lot of drag in the air pulling the nose down. Listening to the noise when he rotated those wheels a lick of oil wouldn't go astray.