Buddy Buddy
Wingspan: 865mm
Engine: brushless 400, with 1320mah lipoly battery
Type: 3d aerobatic
Description
This is a great little model, despite my initial misgivings about its structural integrity, (the wings and tailplane are held onto to the fuselage by only four small screws), but so far it has withstood all that I can throw at it without any of the fastenings coming loose. It is a well thought-out ARTF, only taking a hour to finish, and another hour to add the radio gear. Everything fits reasonably well, although I had to be careful with the fittings as the model is lightly constructed, and so breaks easily if you lean too hard on the wrong part. This is suprisingly easy to do when you are concentrating hard on fitting a wing servo, or threading some wire leads through the wing using a piece of wire.
The profile fuselage, while not very strong, gives the buddy buddy an extra dimension, enabling it to fly sustained knife-edge flight without any great skills from the pilot, apart from those you would expect - ie being able to using the elevator for the rudder, the rudder for the elevator, the ailerons to keep the fuselage level, and the motor to keep the whole show in the air.
The brushless motor is just about powerful enough when coupled to the 4.5 to 1 gearbox, although it would be interesting to try a direct drive motor at a later date. The model is significant for me as it is powered by my first lithium polymer battery. The 1320mah battery weighs about 85 grammes and flies the model for about ten minutes of sustained aerobatics. This compares very well to my first electric model, the IFO, which was powered by a nine cell pack of 550mah nmh and weighed in at about 135grammes. Before I retired the IFO I tried the litho battery in it to see how well it responded. It was immediately apparent just why litho batteries are becoming so popular. The machine went vertical on about half power, and threatened to tear itself to shreds on full power even in the vertical, (it is only a carbon fibre frame with plastic covering inbetween). I never did try full power when in horizontal flight!
Lithium batteries give electric powered models the power that we dream about, and it is a quiet, clean, and simple to manage power. As you can gather I like lithium batteries, and am begining to really like electric powered models.
Score: 9 out of 10Most exciting moment
Small planes tend to suffer from low level aerobatic accidents. What I mean is that as they are small so you have to fly them close to you, and therefore, close to the ground. So there have been several moments when I have been flying aerobatics and have got into a muddle, and then it is suprising how fast the ground comes up to meet the plane!
Home