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Old 06-03-2004 | 11:05 AM
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Jason Beach
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From: Lyman, WY
Default Modeltech Magic Extra

I finally bought one of these planes, and have mixed feelings about it.

First off, I'll say that I'm a bit disappointed with the ARF.
The covering's great, and the plane seems built fairly well, but I had a few issues.
First, my plane came with the holes and blind nuts pre drilled and installed for the wing. However, the holes in the wing and the blind nuts in the fuse didn't line up. 1 was about 1/8" off, and the other was close to 1/2" off. This took some time to fix. Another problem I found was that every blind nut in the plane (LG mount, wing mount, engine mount, etc) had dried glue in the threads. It's good to know that the blind nuts are glued in, but it was a pain in the butt cleaning the threads.

My last complaint nearly cost me my plane. On my 4th flight I did a wall to see how the plane handled it, it did well until I returned to level flight. All of the sudden level flight required a bunch of up elevator to maintain, and getting worse. Luckily I was near the runway at the time, and was able to land. The cause turned out to be bad glueing at the factory. The plate that the elevator servo mounts to came loose, so control imputs moved the servo around inside the fuse instead of moving the control surface.
There was some glue around the plate, but it looks like the glue had dried before the plate was installed in the fuse. The rudder mount also came loose with just a bit of pressure applied.

OK, now that I've got my complaints out of the way, I'll talk about how the plane flies.
It's a lot of fun!
Here's my setup.
Engine- Evolution .61NT
Prop- APC 12.25x3.75
Servo- Hitec HD all around
RX- JR 6ch
TX- Airtronics 6ch computer
AUW- 5lbs 7oz

A quick note about overpowering the model.
Since I live and fly at 7000' ASL, my .61 performs about like a good .40 or .46 at sea level.

I have 6 or 7 flights on the plane now, and enjoy it a bit more with each flight. I started with the CG towards the rear of the recomended range (3 - 3 3/4), and have moved it back until it flew how I liked. Sorry, I haven't measured the CG since I moved it.
Hovering is easy with this plane, it's very stable with the nose pointed at the sky. With the .61 I'm hovering at about 3/4 throttle and have reasonable pull out at WOT. Knife edge has a bit of roll and tuck, but not too much. Knife edge could be mixed easily, but I prefer to hold it with my fingers. Harrier has pretty bad wing rock, but I was expecting this with the fun fly wing. Spoilerons/flaperons help a bunch, but there is still some rocking. Rolling harriers aren't real pretty right now, but that's probably because I don't know the plane that well yet.

I've read that a lot of people have had problems with the covering. On my plane, the main covering seems fine, but the trim does come off very easily.

So far I like the plane, but think Modeltech should pay a bit more attention to the plane before it leaves the factory.

Jason
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