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Holidays !!
Needed something to fly at the beach, in case there was not enough wind for slope soaring, 2 weeks before heading to Britany!
I don't have a lot of electric models, but anyway, all of them were too big (need to fit in a car, already over packed!), and most important, be able to fly from any terrain (sand dunes, beach, mud etc etc...).
One model is ticking all the boxes : The Multiplex Funcub!
Quick to build (2 evenings), big wheels and flaps to land/take off from anywhere (tested!), compact (2 piece wing), and even have a tow hook (Mpx claim that we can tow gliders in the EasyGlider size range... Cool!).
Thanks to Copaero in France, they sent me the kit really quickly, and was delivered in 3 days, despite the Monday being a Bank holiday in France! Fair play to them!
Here are a few photos of the building, nothing to say really, as usual with MPX, everything is well made and fit perfectly. The manual is great as usual.
 ASSEMBLY
The pieces for the flaps... Neat!
Put together. Everything glued with CA and quicker.
Fuselage halves
Glued together. Note the big wheels :)
Yep.. That's the amount of servos you'll need ! Ailerons, flaps, elevator, rudder and tow hook... All in the 9grs range. MG for the elevator and rudder.
Put together before adding the motor and the stickers.... Nice Piper look!
Oh Yeah!
That should stop that thing alright...
And finally... With the stickers... Looks really good :)
IN FLIGHT
The first flight took place directly on the beach. Putting the model together takes only a few minutes (plug all those servos!). I used a 4000Mah 3S lipo battery... A bit overkilled, but that's all I had before departure (now, I have 2 3S 2450Mah batteries), but that give a good 30 minutes flight time, without taking care of how to spare power... More than enough, this is a plane, so get usually bored after 2 minutes! ;)
Anyway, all went good, like in a magazine really. Plenty of power (good for towing!). I have 2 flaps setup, one with around 10 degrees, great to improve lift on take off and glide (nice gliding rate by the way, a real glider, even with the big battery!), and full flaps (90 degrees) to stop the plane. Full flaps works great, and the plane literraly stop in the sky! Take off with full flaps, and full power, the wheels don't even roll! Straight to the sky within 2cm ! You can basically take off from a platform the size of the plane... And that was without wind !
With a bit of wind, full flaps, and the plane move backward on the ground. And bit of throttle, and you're in!
The FunCub is fully aerobatic, moderate push on inverted flight, nice rolls, rudder really powerful, but the wings have a tendancy to flex quiet a bit when you do high speed manoeuvers. The plane, of course, don't really like big winds. That make the flights not really precise, and it's very light, so it's a bit like you are flying in a turbulence all the time... Good for your thumbs though! I have a small video of me landing on the beach, full flpas, and in big turbulent wind... But here are some photos of the beast, on its playground for 2 weeks!
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