The F18 flew amazing with the light setup, I am very impressed with the performance of the MJV3 motor, I was getting good solid 6 minute flights with a 1600 Mah battery with lots of "thrash and dash" (aerobatics and high speed runs). It doesn't have a huge amount of top end and punch out power, but enough to get me out of trouble if I start to waffle around at low speed or in high alpha. The whole power setup ran very cool the whole time.
As for performance of the F18, it was indescribably more nimble and maneuverable than the heavyweight version I built, turns on a dime and is so much more fun to fly, no wing flex, no bad habits other than getting tossed around a bit in the wind.
I ended up with my CofG being right on plans or right on the point where the leading edge extension meets the leading edge of the wing, so I ended up with my battery about 3/4" behind the bulkhead, so that worked out really well.
Overall, I am very happy with this lighter setup and now that I have built the airframe as light as I can without sacrificing strength, I will start testing with different motor and battery combos to see which others still give me good performance. Some good feedback from F1wanabe in the RC Powers forums tells me that 23 oz is the point where maneuverability starts to fall off, so I have a weight range now in which to experiment with different motors. Looking forward to trying that out.
I bought the Hummer EPP-3D from Hobby King a while ago to have something different to fly once in a while, for $25 it was hard to go wrong, all I needed was to add the power system, receiver and some servos and everything else was there, plus it is rough and tough, so could handle me trying to learn the new skill (for me anyway) of 3D. Here is the link to the plane http://hobbyking.com/hobbycity/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=26559
Based on what I read on the reviews, I went with this motor http://hobbyking.com/hobbycity/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=18116
It runs great on a 20A ESC, 10x4.7 slowfly prop and with a 1300 Mah 3S I get a solid 6 minute flight and with a 1600 Mah battery I get about 8:30 minute flight.
Not fast, but lots of fun to fly, takes off with about a 6 foot takeoff roll at full power, I angled the motor down and to the right a bit with a washer and there is no torque roll on takeoff. It does need full throws as it is quite slow so to get it to do what you want, you need all the control surface movement you can get.
For a "dollar spent to fun had" ratio, this is a definite winner and a nice change up from parkjets once in a while.
Well, back to my F22 build, will keep things up to date on the build, I have the carbon reinforcements installed, all the control surfaces hinged and the centre spine assembly put together, so it should come together pretty quick from this point on.
Cheers,
Scott
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