Does anyone have any experience with the FEJ AT-3. Any known issues that I may need to look at.

Hi i now have around 70 flights on mine,very pleased with the model, no problems, has worked well from the word go.The video on you tube is mine flying at Jet-power in Germany 2 yrs ago regards Keith

Hi Dennis, it flies great, a fun plane, lands awesome especially with those airbrakes, watch out for the nose gear steering, doesn't seem to have a whole lot of throw within the forks. The rudder of mine has been modified to full length like the full scale, done by maestro Gary Jefferson and it's still a take-apart too. Shui demonstrated some low altitude knife edge circles with it at the best in the west.

Bottom line, you'll love it!

Barry

Barry, I wish I had taken some pictures of the rudder before I sent it to you. I might want to use that setup again someday...

No worries Gary, I'm gonna get Shannon to take some and post them, give us a few days though!

Barry

Tam pointed out that the outer pipe wasn't long enough at the end, which explains the heat build up around pipe. Also to note Dennis, if you could configure a bypass, I think is really the way to go. The big intakes will just blow the doors wide open.

Barry, this is Dale. Unfortunately the plane only made it to 2 flights before the rt stab came apart, you fill in the rest - haha.

I have one ready for maiden. When I got mine it came with two sets of wings and stabs. It looks like they changed the construction from balsa core to some type of composite foam. The balsa cored wings and stabs are a lot lighter than the foam. Did you guys use the recommended 105 mm C/G ? I don't plan on installing the missiles.
Good luck with your maiden Dale.
jef

Well, we already got the maiden in. The second flight the rt stab blew apart and could'nt get the plane back. The left stab was also about to depart so it was a good thing I did'nt try and limp it back in.

Dale,
Sorry to hear about your loss. Do you have any idea what caused the stab to fail. As I mentioned in my previous post my AT3 has modified wings and stabs. How did the plane fly otherwise ?
Jose

I can see exactly how and why but will wait to get into that.

Well, it did'nt fly as well as the Ultra Lightning - lol.

The stabs were supposed to have been the updated ones with the titanium spar. They were foam/glass construction and the tube was set into a balsa block.

The plane never felt "locked in", was constantly having to change pitch and roll trim the first and second flight. After the first flight I checked everything and there did not appear to be any issues. It may have been tail heavy but really did not feel that way, I think there are some wing incidence issues.

The plane does settle down nice and slow and the first landing was picture perfect. The second I held it off as long as possible and was at a crawl before it rolled over about 5ft over the ground, not bad for missing a stab.

Waiting for the FEJ reps to chime in now..... This screams ISSUES to me. How long will it be before one of these FEJ's kills someone. I feel the AMA should set fourth certification standards for any RC airplane larger than 20 lbs. FEJ has had structural issues since day one. I know becuse I owned an F-15 of theirs.
FEJ could have easily killed someone at our club due to faulty engineering and design.

Dale,
Thanks for the report, I lost my Boomerang XL II at Florida Jets last March and 3 days later I lost my L39. The AT 3 was supposed to be a back up jet now it's my only jet .
I hope my AT-3 fares better than yours. Once again I am sorry for your loss.
Jose

I believe there are a few out there flying with good luck. I'm sure you wont have any problems and have a great flying plane.

Thanks Dale,
I will keep you posted.
Jose

I agree with 747 driver, Thank God for the Super responce of the Pilot and the seamless reception of the JR 11X radio, this could of been a very serious accident.

DM

DM,,,,,I"m a 757 and 767 driver....And you need to know that I take offence being called a 747 guy. My point is that the 747 guys and GALS have four frickin engines. I do the same crap they do but with only two engines. So from where I'm sitting in my 413,000 lb twin engine transport catagory jet....them four engine *****es all suck. If they lost two they'd be having an emergency.....just a normal day for me. Tell me how you might feel if you were 3 hours from landing with a cargo fire or an engine out.....welcome to my world B. LOL Oh snap, apple juice is flowin!

Got ya! LOL

Dale, so sorry about the AT-3, hope FEJ will step forward to take care of it, especially a FEJ A-10 is heading that way.

It is the other way around Jef.
FEJ was initially producing their wings out of this Airex type sandwich foam. After having seen a seriously cracked wing on the F-18F, I sent a full technical report explaining how to build strong sandwich wings. The guys at FEJ took it on board and their wings are now very strong from what I've seen so far.
So my advice would be that you discard the foam wings/stabs and fly with the balsa ones ( but anyway, like every chinese ARF, check the inner construction before flying the thing )...

Ah, light twins!

Dale,
Were the cores on your AT-3 foam or balsa. According to Oli the cores I used may not be the best ones.
When I assembled the wings and stabs the foam cores appeared to be the strongest.
Thanks.
Jose

That's funny because the wings are Balsa and the stabs are foam.

[X He has an F-100, 2x F-86's and an f-14 that still need to be gone through and flown plus the A-10 that's on order. [X(]

I checked the wings today. The foam core wings are built stronger than the balsa core. Plywood has been used to strengthen the area around the wing tubes and landing gear mounts.