Reviews

Mini Biplane (aka MiniMax 8307 Searcher)

We have a winner! Having tried quite a few 'instant' radio controlled planes (as you can probably tell from these pages), I spotted and bought the Mini Biplane. The attraction was the high propellor position, to be honest, meaning that there was zero chance of getting the props bent on ground impact. This turned out to be a good call, but there were other benefits too - lots of them. Read on....

The first pleasant surprise was discovering that the throttle control was linear, rather than on/off - with the biplane, you can go from ticking over to full on and every setting in between. The second surprise was finding that the biplane has a Lithium-Polymer battery inside. In practice this means longer charge times (up to an hour or so) but, importantly, flight times of well over ten minutes - with sensitive throttle use and the occasional stop for relaunching, you can expect to fly the biplane for 30 minute sessions quite easily.

In use, the Mini Biplane flies as well as any 'simple' plane can (without elevons and ailerons). It's great fun, it doesn't require huge areas to fly in and the only caveat is not to fly it in winds of 5mph or more, otherwise you risk getting it blown away into trees.

Highly, highly recommended.
Example buy link: IWOOT

Video of the biplane in action (promo bid made for IWOOT, hence URL at end) - iwootad.wmv

Air Hogs Defender

This is an interesting plane in that it's really only a toy and is available from as little as $30 or £20. But the promo video shows it swooping around and very quickly too. So I got one.

First impressions are that it's very dense and I wondered if the props and motors would provide enough lift to get it airborne. The answer is yes, but not for long. The Defender is based around a tiny battery, meaning that it recharges from the supplied controller/charger (with 6AA cells inside) in around 2 to 3 minutes and flies for around one minute. That really isn't long and I'm sure that most families would rather have something that took 30 mins to charge and then flew for 10. Ah well, it's still fun, as long as you don't mind hanging around chatting and playing in between.

The other black mark is that in order to charge the Defender you have to hold down a special charging button on the controller. Having to do this every time is a real pain (literally), though there's no over-charge circuitry built-in and I guess the makers didn't want people forgetting about the charging and ending up blowing up the battery and plane.

The instructions could be better, too, as it wasn't clear to me that you had to keep the button held down to charge, resulting in several abortive charges which may have damaged the battery's capacity(?)

Overall, a fun but frustrating little toy. It flies surprisingly well, but top of my 'spare time' list is disassembling it and fitting a different battery with higher capacity and longer lasting voltage.

SU-27 Ready To Fly

If you're an experienced r/c pilot reading this, please bear with me, I'm a novice. But then this plane is designed for novices, so hopefully I'm a fairly representative buyer.

The SU-27 arrives well packed in a large flat box. The flat bit is possible because the tailplanes have to be added with (very strong) double-sided tape, and because the undercarriage wires simply push into moulded slots in the fuselage. This assembly takes all of 2 minutes and then it's time to sit back, admire the plane while the battery charges. The pack is fairly small and clips into a bay beneath the cockpit, taking about 5 hours to charge completely. As with many cheap rechargeable systems, you have to manually make sure you don't overcharge the cells, otherwise they get hot and might leak.

And so to the park. My first flight lasted five seconds - I launched the plane and immediately one of the spinning props caught my finger, breaking the prop, gouging into my flesh and sending the plane into a groundward slide. Lesson 1: bring your hand down sharpish after launching so as to avoid the propellors!

Take 2, an hour later with one of the two spare props fitted and with my finger wrapped in some plasters! I'd noted the instructions (in very poor English) in the supplied manual not to try flying in any kind of wind, but it's difficult as a novice to know what's practical and what's not. I tried anyway. The SU-27 flew into the breeze, climbing nicely and then, when I tried turning, starting get caught by the moderate breeze and, with the wind behind the wings for the first time, the plane's aerodynamics were totally upset and the plane dived and crashed, with one of the tail planes breaking off.

Although disappointed that the supposedly 'ultra-durable' foam plane could be damaged on its first crash, I discovered that most damage is quickly and successfully repaired using sellotape.

Subsequent flights were more successful, especially when I found a nice park that was sheltered sufficiently from the wind. One quirk I found was that the radio control signals interfered with the electronics in the plane when the aerial was right next to the aircraft. Not a problem in flight, but watch out for this 'malfunction' when testing in your home before going out. In addition, there's something of a design flaw in having the props at the back - when landing, it's easy for them to fall off the motor spindles or even break, as they come into contact with the ground.

The plane's demise came fairly shortly after an inexperienced friend launched the SU-27 far too hard into the air, meaning that it climbed ten metres vertically and then stalled and nose-dived to earth. Despite the nose hanging off and all the guts dangling, I was able to patch it back together, although the electronics proved more intermittent after that and the next few flights were each marred by some failure or other, resulting in more crashes. After the plane's back was broken in two, I finally called it a day...

In summary, the SU-27 is one of the more fragile foam planes. Delta-winged planes are quite a lot stronger, but here the separate wings and tailplanes are just too easy to snap off, however easy it is to patch together with tape!

Video

Here's a slightly arty video of the SU-27 I put together from my cameraphone: su27arty.wmv

Where to buy

The only gadget store that still sells this new is OtherLand.

Aero Jex RC (a.k.a. Sky Soldier)

Now this is the plane I wish I'd started with. The box proudly claims 'Virtually indestructible' and they're not kidding. Even the best pilots in the world get caught out by a gust of wind, resulting in a major collision with Mother Earth, but the Sky Soldier shrugged off every one, with not a trace of damage

Unpacking the plane was trivial, with just the single tailplane to push on (a snug fit, not tape, and thus easily removable for storage back in the box) and undercarriage to push into slots on the bottom (again removable). The first (pleasant) shock was that the main aircraft battery plugs into the control unit to recharge and that it does so in less than 10 minutes. So no more trips back home because flying time's up for the day. Flying time on a single charge is about 5 minutes, which is longer than it sounds, as is usual with r/c planes.

The instructions recommend you hand launch it when starting out, which works well, although I'm itching to try tarmac-based take-offs and landings when I get a day with still enough air. The Sky Soldier is very light and, as you'd expect, sensitive to even light winds. But then, scaling things up, a 5mph breeze to the Sky Soldier would be equivalent to a 150mpg hurricane to a full size plane.

In flight, there are two basic throttle settings, for climbing and for steady flight. I found myself using the climb setting most of the time, giving more lift when turning. The twin engines/props are relatively weak but adequate for flying round the park; and after all, you're expecting to drive the motors for five minutes from a tiny pack that's been recharged from four AA cells.

The Sky Soldier's ceiling is probably about 50 feet, but the main thing is that it's fun to fly, relatively easy to land again, and comes with a peace of mind that if you do crash then you're unlikely to do any damage whatsoever.

Video

Here's a video of the Sky Soldier taken on my first outing. skysoldier.wmv

Where to buy

The place to buy this is OtherLand.