I recieved the Filton Edge for a review and wanted to share the build with you all. It is an extremely well designed and built plane. The entire canopy hatch comes off and provides easy access to the batteries. I still do not understand why every manufacturer designs this feature (or a hatch of some sort) into all planes. It should be a designing norm now adays.


Specifications
Wingspan: 1,480mm, 58.26 inches
length: 1,404mm 55.27 inches
Main Wing Area: 37.26sq dm2
Flying Weight: 2600gr, 91.71oz

Equipment:
Eflite Power 60 outrunner
CastleCreations HV 85 esc
Koolflightsystems UBEC
16X10 and 16X8 APC E
6S3P 5400 Mah Electric Power batteries
4- JR sport 48mn and 1- JR Sport 125 for the rudder.

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The plane is built very well and all of the glue joints are nice and tight. As mentioned earlier the entire hatch is one piece. It is secured in the front with two wooden dowels and the rear is held down using two screws and blind nuts. As usual though, I will abandon this method and use my favorite latching method. Ill cover that a bit later.

This first thing I do is to get out my trusty soldering iron with cutting tool and use it to open up the wing bay, elevator slot and servo slots. This is a great tool to use as it effectively cuts the covering away, while sealing the edges. You dont get any run aways with it either, like I do with a dull knife blade.

The wings are two peice with a Carbon Fiber wing tube. This makes transporting easy if you have a smaller vehicle. The ailerons are hinged using CA hinges as is the elevator and rudder. I found that a few of my hinge slots needed to be opened up a bit. They were not cut all the way through. A quick run through with a blade and it was good to go. I pinned the hinges at the center point and then inserted them in wing before mating the control surface. A few drops of ZAP thin CA on each side as I flexed the control surface is all it took. I repeated the steps for the remaining wing and installed them onto the plane. They fit perfectly. No gaps and the anti rotation pins slipped right in with little effort.

The Elevator Stab is slid into the pre cut slot and aligned to center. After tracing the outline of the fuse, I removed the stab and again using my soldering iron, I removed the covering. Since the iron melts the covering, I usually try and keep it no closer than 1/4" from the line. The instructions call for the stab to be installed using thin CA. I have to admit that I was a bit concerned by this as I am accustomed to using Epoxy. However, I rarely deviate from the manufacturers plans on a review, so thin CA it is. The Stab was once again lined up and thin CA was wicked onto the surface every so slowly. Too fast and the wood doesnt have time to soak it up. And you end up with a river running out the other side.

The rudder is a snap to install. The tailwheel is installed after the fact, so there is no worring about drilling holes etc. Just pin the hinges, mate the surfaces, deflect and CA.

The Landing gear is composite and has a great looking high gloss finish. It is a two piece gear and is secured using two hex bolts per side. The blind nuts that the bolts mate too are preinstalled and line up perfectly.

My motto is if a plane has wheel pants, then I am going to use them. It is pure aesthetics, but I love the look they give. It is a bit tricky as I have Neanderthal hands, but a with a little patience I was able to get them together. I do like that the pants are held to the gear by compression. While the pant is tight, in the event it gets bumped it will rotate. You can certainly add a retaining screw through the gear and into the pants themselves, but I like the designed way much better.

Due to my field conditions, I used a wheel that was one size larger for more clearance of the wheel pants. I had it on hand and didnt want to see the pants being dragged through the grass. The installation procedures did not change at all.

While I am at it, I went ahead and opened up an air exit for the hot air to escape. Rule of thumb is to make the outlet twice the size of the inlet (cooling holes in the front). This creates a vacume and actually draws air out.

Fliton includes some great looking hardware with this kit. The control horns are red anodized aluminum. They secure to the control surface using provided screws. It is very important that the screw holes be wicked with thin CA before mounting. Although the mounting surface is ply, I dont trust it unless the wood is hardened a bit. I did find that the control horns will bend if too much lateral force is applied. From a push pull perspective, this isnt an issue, but be careful when installing them as I found myself bending them by accident.

The JR sport 48mn's are a little bit smaller than standard servos. I have never used them before, but there are a few that have good experiences with them in 40 size planes. Due to the smaller size, it is necessary to fill in the gap to give the servo somewhere to attach. I took some scrap lite ply and created a secondary plate for the servos ears to attach too. This also allowed the mini servo to sit up a bit higher and offered better alignment to the control horn.


The Rudder Servo is mounted in the rear bottom of the fuse. The JR sport 125 is a standard servo, so no alterations were needed. Two aluminum control horns are used for the rudder. It is set up as a pull pull, however using control rods instead of cable. It works very well and plenty of throw is acheived.

The Elevator is setup as a split elevator and you have two options. Option A is to use the supplied split rod included in the kit and mount the servo in the fuse towards the front. Option B is to mount an elevator servo per half in the tail of the plane. I choose option B for a couple of reasons. That being that I have plenty of room to play with the CG and I have never been successful at setting up a split rod accurately. I find that there is always binding and getting the halves to line up is a bear.

Fliton makes no provisions for the servo in the tail method and only mentions it in passing in the manual. With mild building experience, anyone can do this though. The rear fuse is constructed of balsa, so it must be reinforced!

First, make a servo tray from ply. Trace the opening from the servo tray on the plane and use a sharp #11 blade to cut it out. Getting the servo tray into place can be tricky. However, using the air exit hole we made earlier, will simplify things. Simply go in through the bottom and once satisfied with the plate postion on the inside of the fuse, wick thin CA both through the fuse and from the hole you made.

Rinse and repeat for the other side. One thing to consider is the positioning of your servos. The mini's could be placed directly over each other in the rear of the fuse, but if using a standard servo, you might want to stagger them. I mounted the servos starting 1 1/4" from the LE of the elevator stab.

Now onto the cowl. It is extremely well done. The paint is beautiful and it is thick but not too heavy. But get out your dremel tool. The center has to be cut out as well as a cooling hole in the bottom to allow cool air to travel in and through to the fuse.

The canopy also needs to be cut. The cut lines were not as prodominent as I would have prefered them. But I rough cut the sides and then ended up cleaning it up a bit while it was on the fuse. The instructions call for the user to screw it to the fuse hatch. I choose to glue it. This is just a personal preference of mine.

Where I can use a hatch latch I make use of it. These little gems make getting into the canopy to change out batteries a cinch. They also replace the two bolt method used to secure the hatch. It is more time consuming, but the extra effort is well worth it for the convience at the field. A slot is cut through the turtle decking and the latch is epoxied in leaving as much of the pin protruding as possible, while still retracting fully. Install the hatch and snap the latch a few times to make an indentation. This will show where the latch will intersect the hatch. Drill a hole to match the pin's diameter and for added support, I use washer. That hatch isnt going anywhere!

With the plane built to spec's, it is time for the power plant. I am using a Power 60 outrunner from E-flite. This motor swinging a 16X10 outputs about 1100 watts and gives incredible performance.

Using the X mount supplied with the motor, I outlined where the holes needed to be drilled. Now there are a couple of options available for mounting the motor. You could use an Aluminum mount from Atlantahobby or espritmodel.com. They are very convenient and come in different sizes. However, they are a bit pricey starting at $30.00. I have started using plastic standoffs when I can. I obtained these from Home Depot and they come in various sizes and diameters. Since the motor needed to be spaced 2" from the motor box to the rear of the X mount, I picked up 8 1" stand offs to form a solid 2" length. I also used some 3" bolts to reach from the X mount into the motor box. You could easily get away with 2.5" bolts, but they were out of them when I went. Just cut off the excess if you need too.

With the motor mounted, I choose to mount the HV-85 right against the motor box upfront. This put it directly in the airflow coming from the cowl. It should keep things nice and cool.

Continuing on:

With the motor mounted, I can now mount the cowl. I used card stock to overlap the firewall and marked the edge to assist in where to drill the holes for the cowl screws. With the 2" stand off's the spinner just clears the cowl and looks great!

The battery tray is comprised of nothing more than 1/8" balsa laminated with 1/64th lite ply. It makes a very strong plate and has never failed me. I drilled some holes to allow cooling air to rise through the plate to contact the bottom of the batteries. Some velcro on the plate mates with the loop velcro on the batteries and keeps them from shifting laterally. A velcro seat belt is used around the tray and batteries to ensure they stay put during high G maneuvers. My batteries rest directly against the firewall and put my CG right at the recommended rearward location. I have plenty of room to shift them into the motor box if necessary, however this means shaving away some material of the firewall to slide them foward. I am hoping that it will not be necessary.

The tailwheel is very nice. It attaches using three wood screws to the bottom of the fuse and a single screw to attach the steering arm. The tailwheel is very well made.

I ran up the Power 60 on the 6S3P and go just under 1200 watts using my Eagle Tree Micropower logger. The plane AUW came to 6 pounds 11 ounces RTF with batteries. That brings the weight to watt ratio at about 180 watts/lb. Uhhhh..yeah that will do

hey mike, no updates in a while... hows it going with tihs plane?

RClunatic,
I thought no one was interested . I didnt get notification of your post, so I apologize for just now getting back to you.

The plane is awesome. I have since changed the pack from a 6S to a 5S and stepped the prop from a 16X10 to an 18X10. Getting about the same watts with a hair less weight and no lack of performance.

The review went live yesterday:
http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/a...article_id=790


[link]http://videoserver.rcuniverse.com/rcuvideos/magazine/reviews/790/Edgelarge.wmv[/link]


[link]http://videoserver.rcuniverse.com/rcuvideos/magazine/reviews/790/edgesmall.wmv[/link]

Anybody else build one of these? I am having a huge CG problem with mine. The factory location is 88mm from LE, which puts it right at the front of the wing tube. The best I can get out of mine is 95mm, which was accomplished by adding almost a full pound in the nose! I did the dual elevator servos in the tail, as far forward as they would go. I also did a pull-pull on the rudder, which is something I haven't seen done, but should keep the CG forward. My motor was on the light side (9oz), so I added weight in the spinner and around the motor mounts. I even used a rx pack mounted to the motor box. All in an attempt to get the CG forward. Normally I would leave the CG a little aft, but this plane seems to not like an aft CG at all. My AUW came in over 7 pounds! I'm convinced it would fly like a foamy if I could get the weight under 6, but right now, it just flys like any other .60 glow.
I am using a 5s1p 5000 mounted like the one reviewed on here, so battery weight and location are per the review. My next step will be to upgrade the motor to something heavier (14oz) and more powerful. If I'm gonna add weight, I might as well do it in the form of horsepower!

what servo's are you using in the rear. i put one together with a saito .82 upfront and 1.5oz servos in the back for elevator and a 2.1oz servo for the rudder and i could not get cg without alot of weight. so i covered up the holes and put the elevator servo in the hatch area. that plane since crashed and i bought another one and i used a saito 100 more power ooohh yea. but any way i used the same rudder servo at 2.1 oz and some smaller elevator servos 2 hitecs at 1.0 oz at 66 or 70? oz of torque each. but it balanced out perfect no weight at 6.5 lbs. try smaller elevator servo's i bet it will make a huge difference.

The test plane had 3.2 oz of servos in the tail and mine only has 2.6. I've got my rudder servo up front on a pull-pull. I think Fliton needs to take this one back to the drawing board if they are going to tout it as an "easy electric conversion" It's really designed to balance with a glow engine and the servos up front. You start messing with that and you run into problems. My only hope now is to go through the tail with an Exacto and a drill. I'll still get a bigger brushless motor than the one I have now. Might as well convert some of that dead weight into something useful.
Hindsight being 20/20, I wish I would have gone with the AJ Extra 330 by Fliton. It was designed to be an electric, so it's harder to mess it up.

i am more used to glow and sounds like glow does ad more weight to the nose than electric. i didn't realize the motors are that light. the instructions seem more into the glow set up verses glow.

i notice that you said the cg at 88mm my manual says 93-103mm cg on the edge freestyle.

I didn't get a manual with mine, but got the CG off a message board (maybe RCU??). 93-103 would make a lot more sense. The LE to front of the wing tube is 88mm. LE to the center is 98mm, right in the middle of the 93-103 range. I'm at the aft end of that now, so with a little lightening in the tail, I should be able to hit low to mid 90's. My last flight was getting closer to the kind of performance I'm looking for. I'll have the new motor in this weekend, so we'll see how that goes. If the CG is right, then my last goal will be to bring down the overall weight as much as possible to get the wing loading down without busting the aft CG limit.

Thanks for the info!

Perfection!

I took about .3oz out of the tail, and added a Rimfire 50-65-450 (14-15oz) up front. It balances right in the middle of the CG range with no ballast needed. My AUW is right around 6 pounds. It's a totally different plane now. I have a 16x10E on it right now, but I'll probably go up another inch to a 17x8E or 10E. I'll post pics of my set up if anyone is interested.

glad to see the new setup worked and you are happy with it. i to love this plane it flys so nice. post pics everyone loves them.

Still flying great. Not sure what's going on at Fliton though. They never answer my e-mails. Is anyone else having trouble finding parts? Is this plane being retired?