DeaninMilwaukee

Can the Parkzone Polecat handle some real wind? I had this past Tuesday off and so headed out to the field to do some flying. On arriving, I found that the winds were much higher than at home, high enough to consider not flying at all. We’re talking winds of 15 or so gusting to much higher, ballpark 25-30mph. I knew my Paulinistha would have no chance, so that one stayed in the car while I first flew my Eflite Yak-54 a couple of times. The 4lb 600 watt Yak handled the wind ok, but you really had to pay attention, especially on landing.

Right before I left though, I decided to give my little Polecat a shot. I figured that it might be okay since its fairly sleek and has good control authority. Since I was flying over grass, I pulled off the landing gear first, took a deep breath and gave it a light toss straight into the wind.

As it turned out, the plane did really well, despite fighting headwinds that were pulling the hat off my head and gusts that could fight the plane to a dead halt while going upwind, so probably 25 mph or so. I was really quite impressed that a 1 oz plane could do this well. I was able to fly all over looping and rolling, and the landing touched down in the soft grass at zero airspeed with no damage. So when people claim a plane needs to be heavy to handle wind, don’t believe them, its all about speed and control authority.

Dean

JSS4

Have you considered installing the AS3X brick in the UM Polecat when it comes out? I'm going to install it in my Beech Baron seen in the Electric Indoor Aircraft section. AS3X gives the plane much better stability because of the gyro. Also you can install a BL motor to run off AS3X so fighting the wind isn't that hard. Hope that helps.

JSS4