RE: Spitfire 25
I maidened my plane today. But before I get into that, a few things about finishing off the plane. The ARF doesn't come with any holes to vent out the hot air from the motor. You will have to drill holes somewhere to do this. I drilled two in the front cowl and and six in the rear of the bottom of the fuse. If you don't do it, I don't know how and where you're going to vent out that hot air over a 10 minute flight. Second, the battery hatch is attached with magnets. This is awesome. It is so secure and snug, I just had to mention it. Okay, on with the flight summary.
The Spitfire is set up with the following:
AXI 2814/12
4000mh lipo, 11.1 v
45 amp Great Planes esc
Total weight of plane is about 2.8 lbs.
9x6 Master airscrew prop
This plane takes off quick. You won't need a lot of runway. Be careful not to add to much elevator because the plane will go straight up really easy. At full throttle, the plane has a good amount of speed. It doesn't appear to be as fast as the Great Planes Combat Corsair, but you won't be disappointed. This thing will rip through the sky and you only need about 1/2 to 2/3 throttle to accomplish it. Giving it full throttle will only give it a little more speed for some reason. I don't know why this is the case. Maybe changing out the prop will give it more speed, but I'm pretty happy with how fast it goes right now. On turns, this thing rips. It doesn't turn like my Combat Corsair or Great Planes electric Sportster. When you give left or right aileron, you have to give up elevator to make it turn. The plane doesn't just turn with aileron only input. Hence, a beginner will have problems with this. Also, just a little elevator will make this thing roll left or right. The funny thing is, a full barrel roll takes forever seeing how twitchy it is with a little input. I guess that's just the way warbirds are. Loops with the elevator are no problem. You can have the tightest loops with the setup I have. Just be careful though. While doing two loops, I accidentally gave it some aileron input and it turned on me during the loop. Good thing I was high enough to recover orientation. The plane also has an excellent stall speed. You can bring it down to less than 1/4 throttle and it will still fly quite fast. At zero throttle, the plane will glide in and you could land it if you're good enough. Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee. My Combat Corsair couldn't do this at all. It would just nose dive if there wasn't enough throttle. One problem I did notice is that when you add throttle, the nose will tend to lift, and a lot. I think there isn't enough down thrust built into the firewall. I'm probably going to add 1/2 ounce of weight to the nose and shim the motor mount to give it a little more down thrust to correct this problem. Against the wind, I kept having to input down elevator to keep it flying level. Nothing bad, but I should be corrected. Other than that, it was a great first flight. I had to bring it in because it was drizzling out and my radio was getting all wet. Any intermediate flyer will love this plane. For $100, it's the fast building ARF ever and the covering is top notch.