I've got an idea. why not talk to someone who owns one, or has at least flown one?

My friends Don, Rich and I bought a couple of Raptors. Rich and Don are brothers and both have been out of the hobby awhile. Don hasn't flown a nitro plane in 20 years but is getting back in, while Rich has been flying electrics with me for about a year, but we also used to pylon race together years ago. Between us, it seems like the Raptor could be tailored to suit all our needs.

We flew both of the raptors yesterday and they performed well. Don's was left in the trainer mode and he was deleriously happy with it. I took all the training stuff off mine so it would be fully aerobatic and it was a little trickey but it was still good. Of course, we were flying in 25mph winds, so it's not fair to judge the plane just yet.

One thing to be careful of is that the end point controls for the ailerons are set at 45%. This didn't look like enough to me, so I cranked them up to 100% and they are just right. She has a roll rate of three rolls in five seconds, which I think is just right. With the end point cranked back to 45% I think the thing would roll like a pig, but remember this plane comes set up for training.

Speaking of rolls, with all the fuselage area the raptor does a smooth, beautiful slow roll. I though with all the rudder force higher than the thrust line there would be a lot of roll coupling, but it surprised me how little effort it takes to knife edge the plane.

I also added the operational flaps, and while I haven't measured the deflection yet, I had to dial it back quite a bit. With a lot of flap droop the plane would rock back and forth on the roll axis when I would pull the nose up and try to settle the plane into a flair. This was probably too much lift in the center sections with the tips stalling and starting flying again. After I dialed it back the plane lands beautifully.


It's not reasonable. It's a steal! Try building something like this for yourselves and you'll see that this plane isn't a lot of money. The radio that comes with it is more advanced that the $500 radios we bought 10 years ago, and the engine package is about as reliable as you can get. If you had a plane like this built for you by a professional builder it's hard to say how expensive it would be (and a professional builder wouldn't do much nicer of a job than Hangar 9 has), but I sure couldn't afford it.

Everyone at the field dropped what they were doing to come look at our Raptors and several guys tried to buy mine from me before I had even flown it. Every time I flew it the whole club stopped, stood, and gawked at the Raptor. Everyone was begging to fly it. This plane is pretty cool and it really turns heads. Maybe some think it's not pretty, but it sure is the coolest sport plane I've ever seen.

I'm with you. I laughed when I saw the plane on the Hangar 9 website. I thought that you could sell people anything if you told them it was a trainer, but the Mustang fooled me too. I bought a Raptor just because we have a big children's cancer research fundraiser next weekend and it is definately going to make us a ton of money. People are going to pay to see their favorite plane fly, and everyone loves the Raptor.

It flies much better than I was expecting and once I get to fly it in less than Hurricane force winds I'm sure I'll be able to get her really dialed in. So far she has responded predictably to every change I've made and we are definately going the right direction with throws, balance and such.

I'll probably jam an Evolution 52 or an OS 55 under the cowling and then we will really see what she has. The evolution 46 is smooth and powerful, but this is a big plane and it deserves enough juice to go like a jet.

Photo #1 With longtime flying buddy Rich, obviously enjoying ourselves

Photo #2 Both Raptors ready for action. In the foreground is Don and Rich's, with all the training gear in place. In the background is mine with the wing extentions removed and faster 2 bladed prop installed.

Photo #3 Everyone lined up wanting to take a turn at flying the Raptor

Photo #4 And the best part about being an instructor is having someone to clean you plane.

Photo #5 Again, obviously enjoying myself