olwarbirds

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Parkflyers Cessna 182 pro deluxe: I didnt know I was going to do this review so i didnt take any pics of how it looked in the box. It comes very nicely packaged and I personally dont see any big risks of damage in shipment. This plane comes RTF in that it comes with everything you need including the glue and to my surprise it included a fms flight similator cd and cord to hook to the included 2.4ghz transmitter that hooks to your pc via the microphone in jack and works on windows except vista of course!! It includes four different instruction manuals one for Plane, radio, charger and flight sim., all very easy to follow. It also came with an extra prop and linkage clevises.

Specifications wingspan 32.5 inches
lenght 28.5 inches
weight 22.7 ounces
motor himag 480
radio 4 chnl 2.4ghz with 4 9gram servos
charger ac balancing adjustable charge rate
battery 7.4v 2200mah

Assembly is very easy, takes about 15 minutes. I used 15 min epoxy instead of the included glue just a personal preference and epoxy gives you a little bit stronger bond. The only reason it took me this long is because i kept stopping to look at how scale this plane really is, right down to the wheelpants. I was very impressed in how nice it went together, had to make one little cut in the fuselage to get the tail gear on and this is mentioned in the instructions. I put on the landing gear and mounted the wing that is mounted using two screws. At this point i started looking for the location of the cg in the instructions, no mention of it. I made Mark at www.parkflyers.com aware of this and that will be taken care of. The CG is right on the wingspar/reinforcement just aft of the leading edge which is 1 1/4 inches back from leading edge. Thats the one and only miss on this rtf. Make sure to get your flying surfaces as level as possible before you attempt to fly, by adjusting the linkages. save your trim on your radio for in flight trims because the radio doesnt give you very much trim adjustment.
The only additional thing i did to mine was i put some reinforced packing tape on the leading edge of the main wing

Flight is very scale, this is one sweet flying rtf, i have to say one of the best ive ever had. The battery compartment is located under the fuselage right behind the motor its very easy access and no probs with the lipo moving around its a snug fit, battery compartment looks like it was made for the included lipo. Turn on your transmitter making sure you have the throttle all the way down and the trim knob. hook up the lipo close the battery door securing it with the two pivoting locks and your ready to fly, no having to take off the wing to change batteries is a very nice feature. The included 480 himag neo-dynium motor is more than enough power, this plane doesnt need a brushless upgrade. The included motor is a very nice smooth powerful motor, turn the prop manually and you can feel the strength of the brushes. The dual servo ailerons are very nice and give plenty of command on rolls and turns with no slop at all, i had no glitches!!!

Flight times are just as advertised, around 20 mins with proper throttle control. I was amazed, my first flight was on a new kinda rough ball diamond and it went airborne in about 20 feet it actually caught me off guard and i dumb thumbed it into a roll about 15 feet off the ground, so i finished out the accidental roll and went right into a loop the onlookers were impressed and so was I ! This plane has more than enough power the way it comes, i did inverted flight with very little radio input. You can fly this plane with a very low speed and it stays stable no stalls, so with some throttle management you could fly it in a small area, I was able to fly the bases around the ball diamond with no problems, and it looks so good doing it.
This planes landing gear is designed for a smooth runway, so if your gonna fly it on grass take them off and it hand launches very nicely and belly lands with no problem.

The parkflyers cessna 182 pro is a great plane for anybody. From a beginner with some sim time or an instructor to assist or a pilot whose looking for their first 4 channel to the experienced pilot who wants a scale rtf that does everything thing its claimed to do plus some. You wont be dissapointed in this one or dealing with the folks at parkflyers. The reason i wrote this review is the fact that ive dealt with them several times now and have been more than satisfied. If you have a problem i have no doubts parkflyers will help you out.

For the beginner, make sure to hook your elevator and aileron linkages to the middle hole, this plane is very responsive and you could very easily over control it !!!! put the rudder linkage to the outermost hole so you have some on ground steering control, the landing gear is fixed so it takes a bit to make it turn on the ground, which is one thing im doing to mine is making the nose gear steerable, but its not necessary to do this. If you bend the landing gear, which you will, take it out of the plane before you try to bend it back or you might break out the supports.

Im gonna be adding to this review some more pics and video soon as i get a cameraman. If i can be any help with your parkflyer model just let me know, ill be glad to try to help you. DJ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D5aR...eature=channel

olwarbirds

My Feedback: (3)

i will keep adding pics and some videos when i have them. if you like this plane pls let me know or if u need some help with it ill be glad to try and help ya if i can.......DJ

coinworker

Great review olwarbirds! This plane is my first 4 channel and i taught myself on a 3 channel HZ super cub. i have some hours in on fms but that was it. yes a beautiful flyer and just plane good looking too. This plane has done me well so far and i agree with your review. i did a quick review on youtube but not as indepth[youtube]www.youtube.com/watch[/youtube]

olwarbirds

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Tks Coin and tks for the video it showed some things i didnt cover yet, because of the lack of a camera operator......

After doing some online research another big thing ive noticed about  www.parkflyers.com  is that they carry all the replacement parts and that seems to be a problem with alot of other sites and planes getting parts or even getting someone to answer the phone. I can say from experience that if you call parkflyers or email them if they dont answer the phone if u leave a msg someone will call you  and if you email them u will also get a response.

Their is one upgrade part that is nice and not expensive at all is a metal  nose cone, plus it just plain adds some bling not that this plane needs any.   DJ
 

parkflyers

Hello , Its marc from parkflyers.com here. The response to our new Cessna 182 Pro Deluxe has been amazing. Im glad we chose its current setup as many peopleagree its one the best specedtrainers you canbuy right now.

Many people ask why we did not choose to go brushless with the Pro, and i wanted to clarify here online the reasons why we didnt.

We initiallyordered a prototype of the Cessna Pro with a 1200kvbrushless motor . It was off balance(flew like a butterfly)and did not fly scale at all and it wasnt as quick aswe had hoped for. The1200kvhas a very longmotor shaft and it easily bends from just one bad landing as well. Right away i knew i didnt like this setup at all. It was all wrong! Isaid this thing could usemore power but what about really LONG run time.
So Ithrew in a Himag motor (40% more power than a standard speed 7.2v 480) and cut out the battery bay to fit a 2200 mah 7.4 Lipoly battery. The results were simply amazing. The plane was flying at a faster top end speed than the brushless version, and it wasPERFECTLY balanced and i was getting up to 20 minutes of run time on a single charge!!!! Exciting!

Next we decided to upgrade to dual ailewron servos over the original one centered servo. We right away saw quicker and more precise aileron control and is world's easier to work on and change out if needed. We then said with all this new found power we could use a 2.4 ghz radio sytem for a 100% glitch free radio .....Next we said , why not throw in a Balanced peak Lipo charger as well ! Ithink what we have is one of the most satisfying Cessna 182 that we have ever released to date.

Ihope everyone has a great time with this plane.....

Rgds

Marc M.

Parkflyers.com

MinnFlyer

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Marc, you'll be happy to know that I am helping my new protege do the review of this plane for RCU Magazine and so far, we are loving what we've seen!

coinworker

Mark thank you for a wonderful plane! i have a question about the lvc... i sent an email but it may not have reached you. i am wondering if it's safe to fly until the battery shuts off or will that ruin the battery. my first few flights and i have not been able to fly for more than ten mins due to my fear of ruining a battery.... right now i can't afforrd to replace anything... that's why i'm flying with a taped up wing now. thanks agian this has been a wonderful first 4 channel.

parkflyers

Yes , you will be ok to let the BEC kick in. The onlycritical mistake customers make is that they leave the battery in the plane for a few hours after flying it. This will completely drain battery.....

The ESC was designed with Lipoly batteries in mind.

rgds

MM

Parkflyers RC

coinworker

thank you so very much mark... this plane and the thought behind the package with the customer service and the performance of flight makes me say that you can count on future business from me.

olwarbirds

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Couple of new links....for those who want to try the parkflyers cessna 182 on their fms pf-cessna-182.zip

If your running vista and want to try using fms this patch should take care of the problems http://www.start64.com/index.php?opt...3208&Itemid=47 enjoy hope this helps those having probs with fms on vista....

i still continue to enjoy this model alot....going to attempt in flight video this weekend weather permitting......DJ

Note: other patch available for vista 32bit read further

olwarbirds

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Several new pilots to be have pm'd or emailed me about the cg....CG is the point where the plane balances at, its not necessary to worry about this when you first put the model together because its built into the model from the factory. Marc at www.parkflyers.com made sure of this...now if your gonna modify or if you crash and use glue and tape to repair you might offset the CG, so make a note of where its at before you fly it the first time.....CG on this model is noted in the review and they way u check it is put one finger under the wing on each side of the fuselage in the noted position with the battery in place and mark it or write it down where its at so when u do repairs u can verify its still good...

Sorry no videos yet, the weather here has been really wet, so maybe this weekend......as always tks for reading this and enjoy        DJ

coinworker

i had to figure out that the hard way about a year ago, that link would've helped alot then... My problem with vista is getting the tx, and sim cord to work with fms. i would love it if i could use the tx as a controller, because it would give more realism to the controls. As for now i am useing a computer controller (by phillips) that looks like a ps2 controller so i can use the sticks as controls the only problem is that the throttle needs to be held in position.

Does anyone know how to make the Tx work in vista?

olwarbirds

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Coin, we are working on that issue right now. Hopefully will have it worked out in the next day or so,  I know Marc from parkflyers was concerned with the same issue...........anybody else knowing a cure for this prob pls let us know......tks     DJ

olwarbirds

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This should be the final fix for fms on vista...now working on using the parkmodels radio and provided patch cord...will let yall know what i find out    DJ

First, reinstall the FMS flight simulator program. A self extracting installation wizard is available on this page, at http://n.ethz.ch/student/mmoeller/fms/index_e.html Download the latest version, titled Version 2.0 Beta 7 (Windows 9x/ME/2000) – recommended Version

1. After installing, you will need to install the missing library D3DRM.DLL in your Windows Vista System32 folder. Please be careful to follow these instructions exactly, you could damage your system by accidentally deleting files in this folder. Here is the installation procedure, be sure to follow it exactly.
   1. Go to http://www.driverskit.net/dll/get/494.html and enter the provided code 
   2. Press the download button, and save the ZIP file to your computer.
   3. Extract the file D3DRM.DLL
   4. Move the file D3DRM.DLL into the folder C:\Windows\System32
2. Restart the FMS application, and it should now work perfectly.

coinworker

i am very happy. Here's the deal with vista or at least this is how i got it to work. as far as i can see, do not even mess with the disk sent with the package.... sorry mark[].... follow the directions olwarbirds posted on getting fms to run on vista. once you have a working version of fms, it's time to download smartpropoplus. go towww.smartpropoplus.com/dnn/and follow the directions there. once you get it up and running make sure to calabrate and i had to invert some of the contols but i did that in the calabration page of fms.

i'm just glad to finally have a tx for fms... i was about to spend $20 on a usb tx... So it is now an added bonus to recieve a sim with the parkflyers package!!!i will now have to update what i've said in my review on you tube.

sorry it was a bad link but it's fixed now.

olwarbirds

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coin, that link u posted doesnt work bro    ooops lol               im working on my parkflyers corsair review right now and i cant wait to fly this beautiful scale bird tomorrow woohoo ....it along with the beginair from parkflyers,,,,that i might pt out is a great first plane for anybody, my Dad loves his and its a great flyn lil plane...and the parkflyers cessna im gonna be drawing alot of attention tomorrow....the oooo's and aaaahhhs r gonna be running rampant [8D]       DJ

coinworker

www.smartpropoplus.com/dnn/ try this one... sorry about the other link.

olwarbirds

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Tks for fixin that coin...........guess nobodys having any probs with their cessna 182...which is a good thing, i know im still very happy with mine

olwarbirds

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As you can see from the pics, i have quit a parkflyers lineup ....all of them fly good...the cessna continues to fly very nicely. It looks so scale. The parkflyers cessna takes off and lands very smoothly and in a small area, yet it has enough speed and power to do anything a full size can plus some. It does loops, rolls, inverted and it even does a half decent knife edge for a highwing...DJ

olwarbirds

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D5aR...eature=channel my cessna in action..only upgrade is the spinner from parkflyers

Rc_Freak_30

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sweet man! I just bought the same plane a couple weeks ago and i love it as well. I think you were on my post before and told me about this page. Well i have benn flying the cessna for a while and it flies great! But the problem is that i crash it almost every time i land, no major damage i just want to land it good!!!! I did bend the motor shaft so im gonna need a new motor. Can you give me a good suggestion on a motor upgrade since im gonna have to buy a new one???? I also need a new main wing but i dont understand how im gonna swap the servos.... Can you please help? Thanks

olwarbirds

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Hey Rc, sorry to hear u crashed it...do u have the cessna pro deluxe or the other one..if u have the pro version then personally bro i wudnt upgrade the motor, that motor/esc and lipo combo rock...u can get a new motor from parkflyers for like 15$.....putting a brushless motor in it makes it really tail heavy, so u have to add nose weight which defeats the value of the upgrade....changing out the servos on the wing r really easy...u can use clear gorilla glue 5,10 or 15 minute epoxy to secure the servos back in place and u can use these same glues to do major repairs like gluing wings back together etc...what i do for repairs is apply a small amount of adhesive to both surfaces then hold them together with packing tape, not only does that keep them together till the adhesive dries but i leave it on as secondary support for the joint...hope this helps ya out, if i can do anymore to assist pls let me know..also get the upgraded spinner it makes a big diff too, if u do get the spinner use the smaller prop adapter......

If u dont have the pro deluxe version....upgrade it to the 480 neo dynium motor and a 7.4v 2200mah lipo...ive just done this upgrade to my parkflyers decathlon and wow what a difference it made...getting ready to post a review on that upgrade too....if u need more help rc pls ask..........DJ

robtest

What type/features radio comes with this?

Would if be compatible with other 2.4ghz BNF planes like the Parkzone Sukhoi Su-26M BNF ???

olwarbirds

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No it would not....the sukhoi bind n fly has a spektrum reciever...which is dsm2 technology so u wud need a spektrum dx series radio to bind too the sukhoi.....parkflyers cessna has a 2.4ghz thats dsm technology....that works great but its not the same as the spektrum

I personally use a spektrum dx transmitter and they r great!...what id suggest is get a spektrum xmttr....then get a few spare spektrum rcvrs to put in other planes...u can get a good deal on both here http://www.toddsmodels.com/Radio_con...F_Kits_s/1.htm these guys got the best price on spektrum stuff in the states that ive found...join the club/team its free and then u can get spek rcvrs for 37$...i wish they were compatable that wud be really sweet!!!....i hope ive helped ya....DJ

TX Curbster

Hello All,

Just got a Parkflyers Cessna 182 Pro Deluxe. I flew it one time and thats all it took. I ordered a brushless set up to replace the gas 049 in my scratch build balsa 1/2 A scale plane. The one flight was hand launched. It clibmed out very nice,  went to 2/3 throttle, a light tap on the ailerons and it made a gentle right turn until applying light opposite aileron returning to level flight. Then gave more aileron with up elevator to neutral airleron with a lil down elevator and it perfomed nice, almost as crisp as my 049. scratch built does. I am very pleased so far with this foam Cessna. Great casual flyer. I plan to add some carbon fiber sticks to add strenght and upgrade the radio / reciever. I think I even lost radio cotrol at one point. It just nosed over on me. I was flying on the slow side, so maybe I just found the stall speed the hard way. But was abled to pull off a pretty ugly landing. Next flight is going to be on Labor Day and the day after (weather permitting).
Anyone flown this bird in less than calm winds? Say, 10 - 15 mph.

Rich