This Product Review is the first part of a 3-part series about this airplane and how to update older designs to today’s requirements. The Falcon 56, and its larger brother the Senior Falcon, have probably introduced more RC pilots to the sport than all other trainers combined. I am not certain when a Goldberg Falcon’s wings first lifted the airplane from the earth, but I do know that it was at least 45 years ago.

Photo 1               Photo 2

How do I know the Falcon 56 design is at least 45 years old? Simple, photo 1 shows a Falcon 56 that my cousin Edward Granelli built around 1962. The airplane was assembled but never completed as the radio and covering systems of that day were difficult to manage, hideously expensive and unreliable. So it sat carefully stored until now.

Ed’s original Falcon 56 provides a perfect opportunity the judge the new Falcon 56 ARF against the original airplanes that made this design a legend in the sport. For the design is truly a legend. The Falcon 56 earned its reputation as a high-performance trainer during the 1960’s.

The airplane remained stable at very slow airspeeds using extremely low throttle levels. Even tiny engines like the Fox .15 shown in photo 1 would fly it well. It was very stable in turns, could self-recover from bad attitudes (except for spins) and went exactly where the pilot pointed it.

But open the throttle and the airplane would climb like a boosted rocket ship, level off and then roar across the sky about as fast as a pilot of those days wanted to go. Aerobatics were exciting given the radio and powerplant limitations of the day.

The original Falcon 56 would slow for landings but remain under full control. If you put ailerons on it, most Falcon 56’s were made without ailerons, they remained effective right through the stall and continued to work even in the deep stalls that could follow. The airplane would bank with rudder input about as well as an aileron equipped airplane and it had no tendency to “wander” in straight flight as did many airplanes of the 1950’s.

In short, the Goldberg Falcon 56 was an honest airplane that could teach new pilots how to fly but also had aerobatic abilities far beyond the average trainer. But that was years ago. What about the Falcon 56 ARF now available? Is it as good as the original design? Has it remained a high-performance trainer? Or has Goldberg made compromises over the nearly 50 years since those first flights? Let’s find out.

Photo 2 shows the airframe components of the ARF version. They certainly look a lot better than my cousin’s old parts which took weeks to assemble even without covering and painting. The ARF version is colorful and the bottoms of the wing and horizontal stabilizer are very different, making pilot orientation easy.

Although not really a part of this review, let’s take a few minutes out to compare the ARF airframe to the original just to see if Goldberg made any compromises over 48 years. Photo 3 shows that the fuselages are almost identical. While the ARF fuselage is slightly deeper to allow for more radio equipment, larger fuel tanks and engines, the important things like wing position, tail and engine thrust moment arms remain identical. Most importantly, the horizontal stabilizer retains its airfoil shape. Goldberg could have taken the easy way out and switched to a sheet balsa stabilizer to save time and cost but the airplane’s performance would have suffered immensely had they done so (photo 4). They didn’t do that. The old stabilizer was held in place with rubber bands, not acceptable with today’s high output engines, but Goldberg wisely changed to a fixed stabilizer without changing the important things back there such as stabilizer incidence.