This is the latest creation from the fertile mind of genius EDF designer Andy Chen...there IS a difference as to who designs these, this guy just has the magic touch, and it shows in the scale accuracy of the overall plane, and also in a lot of thoughtful little details and engineering that really make it stand out from the competition.
It's beautiful! Small, and very high performance...
Very high quality molding, lots of detail, good paint, good water transfer decals, clear canopy with cockpit deck(the pics on the nitroplanes website show an early prototype with a tinted canopy), easily removeable or replaceable landing gear, full flying stab, easy fan access for maintanance, lots of nice features.
In the air, it's pure dynamite, everybody guesses it to be about 70mph, and that's very fast for such a small airplane! It's a whole level of performance above the rest of the RTF EDF jets...
It's basically the smallest airframe that you can wrap around a 64mm fan.
Hand launching is really easy, there is a grip molded in for doing it, and you don't need to heave it, it will fly away from just a light toss with no problems.
Roll rate is tremendous, vertical performance is awesome, and downright speed, well...most EDFs, you fly around at full bore all the time, with this one, you want to save full throttle for verticals and high speed passes, and throttle back to half or two thirds to keep the thing manageable the rest of the time, it's mighty quick.
It's very easy to land, I have been bellying mine in on the grass with no problems, though you might want to put a little glass cloth on the lower lip of the intakes, they tend to snag the grass and get chipped up. With the landing gear on, off pavement, it has no bad habits at all. The gear comes on and off with a few screws in a minute or two.
It takes up no room in the car, it can fly out of small parks, or you can take it to the club field and mix it up with the big boys, it costs little, it requires no maintainance, it looks great, and it flies great. It's my new favorite airplane!
Update...
I also got the RAF camo version. Even more beautiful. Probably the best looking foamie jet out there.
On the Blue Angels one, since I am belly landing it, I found that adding a little silver aluminum tape to the leading edges on the wing and intakes cures and damage from the grass.
I see there has been some talk of lateral instability on some of the forums...I think it's just a case of this plane tends to get punched around a bit in heavy winds, mostly because it's so light. In less wind, you will notice that there is no rolling back and forth at all.
It is a plane that flies fast and hard, it's small, and it requires you attention, keeps you on your toes. I also recommend that you go easy on full power, use it in small bursts, lest you burn something out...the system is putting out a LOT of power, and it was not meant to go full bore all the time...which would be a little hairy anyway!
