Sebastiano Silvestri with his Funtana

For those of you who have followed the Tournament of Champions the past few years, the name Sebastiano Silvestri (Seba) is not new. This Italian superstar quickly carved out his spot as one of the world's leading innovators in 3D flying and airplane design. He popularized the Italian scale aerobatic design known as the Katana, and his TOC version, the Katana S, has been seen on magazine covers worldwide.

One thing I've personally enjoyed about being a competitor in the TOC is the friendships I've made over the years. Even better, this friendship with Seba turned into a partnership that produced the amazing new Funtana S .40. We started working together to develop his new 3D sensation about a year ago.

Seba's goal was to create a smaller version of his Funtana S 1.20, which he used for 3D practice, and still get similar stability and the overall 3D capability of his large TOC Katana S. About a year and a few revisions later, I believe he's accomplished just that. One unique feature of the Funtana S .40 is the tapered constant-thickness airfoil. By using an airfoil section at the center section of the wing that is 11.5% and a thick 20% airfoil at the tip, Seba has been able to create a model that has stable low-speed characteristics much like a large giant-scale aerobatic plane, yet still flies faster precision as well as a pattern model. I have to admit, I had my doubts about it when he said he wanted to do this. But I was wrong. It works!

The Funtana S .40's unique tapered constant-thickness airfoil provides excellent slow-speed handling.

Get Set I've done a lot of playing with my personal Funtana S lately and have figured out a few things. First, a word to the wise-it's a very lightweight model with very large control surfaces, so it doesn't need to be overpowered and shouldn't be. Stay with the recommended engines; it needs no more. Remember, on a model like this, additional weight is not your friend-ounces count. I prefer to use the Saito .72 in mine. The APC 14 x 4W prop is perfect. It keeps the speed down, which is important on an airplane with control surfaces this big, and provides tons of vertical performance when using 30% heli fuel. Remember, don't prop this model for speed; it's just not designed to be a fast model, and using a big flat prop like the 14 x 4W will let you fly without much concern of over-speeding the airframe. I've played around with using coupled spoilerons for several years to enhance the 3D capability of some models. I have always used a coupled flap mix in my transmitter to do this, so when I flip the switch on my transmitter, the spoilerons move whenever I move the elevator stick. (elevator up, ailerons up and vice versa). Sometimes this isn't beneficial when making small elevator movements, but it does help when you get to "3D" deflections of around 40 degrees. Elevator stick position less than 3/4 up; ailerons are neutral. Elevator stick position past 3/4 up; both ailerons snap up... Snap-spoilerons. Then Seba clued me in on the setup he uses. Instead of using a flap mix, you have to use a curve type mix like you find in the JR 8103 and 10X systems. Set the elevator channel at the master, and the flap as the slave (you're already using flapperon mix for the two aileron servos, right). Set a curve so the ailerons don't move until the elevator stick is about 75% toward the stop in each direction….. "Snap-spoilerons." This allows you to turn on the mix yet have no spoileron movement until you really need it. On the Funtana S, this really helps some maneuvers look much better and more controlled.