I purchased this plane as an ARF from Leading Edge Hobbies. The air-frame is constructed of balsa and covered in plastic.
The plane is designed to be light and it shows during flight. The low wing loading allows it to float through the air and do 3-D maneuvers with ease.
The plane features optional side force generators that can be installed on the wing tips to provide additional lift during knife edge maneuvers. Less rudder is required to maintain altitude, and since the pitch angle is lower the motor has less work to do to keep the plane in the air.
The photo on the left shows the parts that come with the kit (photo taken from the Aeroworks website.) The plane is also available in a yellow color scheme.
Electronics
- Generic brushless motor, 20 ounces of static. thrust, 9×4.5 APC Slow flyer prop.
- 20 Amp generic speed control.
- Spektrum 6 channel receiver (ailerons on separate servos to allow flaps or spoilers to be mixed during flight).
- 9 gram generic servos.
- 1300 mAH Nanotech Lithium Polymer battery (low internal resistance, high discharge rate), provides over 10 minutes of flight.
- All up weight of the plane is approximately 15 ounces.
Construction Tips
I didn’t like the technique the manual described for gluing the main wing into the fuselage. It said to poke holes in the wing covering with a pin and then wick thin CA into the joint between the wing and the fuselage to hold it in place. The problem is that the glue won’t stick to the plastic film and the pin holes don’t provide enough surface area to create a strong bond between the wood in the wing and the wood in the fuselage. It would really suck if the main wing became loose during flight.
I removed the covering from the center of the wing where it joins with the fuselage so wood was making contact with wood. I installed the main wing in the fuselage and lined it up. I marked the wing to show where the edge of the fuselage was. I used a sharp hobby knife to score the covering (without cutting the wood) until I could remove it. You should leave about 1/16 of an inch of covering inside the marks so the covering goes into the joint to make it look finished.
I replaced the wing in the fuselage and repeated the alignment and wicked thin CA into the joint to fasten it in place. No more worry about the main wing breaking loose.
Flying Characteristics
There was plenty of power for climbing so I took the plane up to a comfortable altitude and began trimming it out. It’s a very light plane for it’s size and practically floats through the air.
I discovered during the first flight that it had a tendency to pitch up and climb while upright and to pitch down and lose altitude when it was inverted. If the C of G was too far back it would pitch up when inverted or upright. The symptom seemed to indicate that the ailerons were out of alignment with the airfoil, causing more lifting force on one side of the wing than the other. I used the sub-trim in my radio to tilt both ailerons up (think spoiler) to take away some of the lifting force from the top of the wing. After some test flying and fine tuning I was able to get the plane to fly straight while upright or inverted, and at any airspeed.
The plane has a tendency to float and stall during landings, so I rigged the landing gear switch on my transmitter to add about 10 to 15 degrees of spoiler to reduce the amount of lift provided by the wing. The result was a nice gentle glide slope and better control during the flare.
There were no surprises in terms of the flying characteristics of the plane. I expected the elevator maneuver to be poor, with distinct, alternating stalls and mushes as it descended. It’s characteristic of that wing design.
Suicide slides (knife edge position, full opposite rudder, descending vertically) left something to be desired. I increased the throw of the rudder and they became more vertical, but not straight down as I’d hoped.
Conclusion
This plane can fly slow or fast and performs equally well in 3-D and conventional flight modes. There’s plenty of power for climbing vertically and hovering during the entire flight.
