Ok, so we FINALLY had some nice days to fly in the North Texas/Dallas area! For the last two weeks it has either been snowing, sleeting or raining. Our area lakes have been low for years now and I think that most of them are finally back up to a fairly normal level which is good.
Anyway, I was able to go out and fly the little MX-2, and this is one very, very nice flying airplane. I cannot imagine a way to beat it for a 3D type full airframe for $130, I have not even found anything CLOSE. The knife edge is great with just a very slight tuck (which might be fixed with CG, the 45 degree inverted test seems to show it can come back a bit) and the flat spins are just fantastic. I have not had a chance to fly it just a whole lot yet as I am still working on getting the 10gx engine sorted. I am getting close though, one of the main issues has been that it keeps on spitting the pressure line off of the muffler. The Viton fuel tubing that the engine came with keeps on splitting at the pressure nipple, and Tygon melts...
I just put the Viton back on with a piece of Tygon over it, I have read where the Viton they ship with the engines has this issue but if you order it direct it does not. Either way I now know that:
1. It will recover from a flat spin while deadstick
2. It has a pretty darn good glideslope
3. No bad habits while slow (does not fall off in either direction hard)
4. It slows down very nicely without an undue propensity to balloon
To be perfectly honest, I have only landed it under power I think three times out of ten or so flights! Like I said though, I am pretty confident that the needles are sorted if I can keep the dang pressure line on, I have never had so many issues with something so simple. As far as flight characteristics, from what I can tell it has a little bit of wing rock which CG might help, but I have not really put enough trust in the engine yet to get too low and slow. It does hover well though and the 10gx has plenty to pull it out. Maybe not ballistic, but comfortable. Once the engine is completely sorted I might stick a 14x4W on it to see how that does, I am pretty sure it will turn it. The rolling harriers are pretty good as long as I am careful not to let it start to wrap up too fast, smaller airplanes seem to get going pretty fast as compared to a 30cc or larger due to the weight and momentum. All control surfaces seem to have more than enough authority to get out of whatever I seem to get myself into. The snaps both positive and negative are simply violent. One thing I did note however was that I needed to wrap just a little bit of tape around the locating dowels for the wings otherwise they were able to shift up/down maybe 1/2 degree. Once I wrapped tape around each of the rear locating dowels it was all tight.
As far as the hardware, most all of it was good. The only pieces that I replaced were some of the ball link as they were too tight for my liking and did not seem to want to loosen up. Some of them were ok, but others were just too tight. Also, if you do choose to build it gas, the fuel tubing to be used in the tank is reportedly gas friendly, and maybe it is if you do not mind the tubing swelling to twice its normal diameter! I found that out the hard way.... I had already put a Dubro gas stopper in it, but the instructions specifically stated that the tubing was good for gas applications. Other than that the supplied hardware was actually pretty decent.
With all of that being said this little airplane is the real deal. It flies better that my old Funtana X50 (which was a favorite) and better than my old Reactor 50 (which for whatever reason I did not like as much as the Funtana). And the MX-2 is cheaper than either. I think the Funtana might have come out a bit lighter, but I was also running a 55ax in it and not the gas engine which is heavier. Either way the MX-2 has more wing area. One of the best things about the airplane is that it is fairly cheap. While I do not ever want to put one in, I just do not have as much fear of something bad happening when the airframe is only $130. Sure it would hurt, but not as bad as it could be! Due to that I think I can do a lot of learning with this airplane, and it is really sharp on top of it all. Today at the field people first commented on how good it looked, and then after a few flights I had a lot of people come over to comment on how well it flew. Like a bunch of guys with 30-60cc airplanes were asking questions, when I told them the plane sells for $130 they were asking where from? So it gets a thumbs up to the point where if I do stuff it I will be ordering another one, it would be worth replacing.