Hello, this is going to be a review on the FT Old Fogey. I hope to share my experience building and flying this great plane, but I am rather new to this so it may not be very good. I will first show the build process, then my experience flying it, and last, a few notes on how the plane performed.
I built the plane in about 3 hours. It was very easy to build, with the exception of the landing gear. The landing gear was very hard to bend. I think the best way to bend it is with a vice and pliers. Or maybe I'm just a weakling. Josh bent the wire pretty easily in the video. I wonder if the kit wire is the same as the wire in the video?
I think the wire could be straighter, but I doubt if I could get it there. (I dont have a vice and I can't seem to get it it better.)
Here's the wing all done. I put packing tape on the wing breaks to make it stronger, but I dont think you actually need it. The wing is pretty strong by itself.
The fuselage was a little trickier to make because of the control surfaces, but stil easy. I have the servo tray in, and control horns istalled.
I used some yellow tubing I had laying around for the wire guides.
Heres my power setup. I'm using a ar6100 rx with a DX5e. At the time I bought the power pack the picture showed a xt60 connector but the description said it had a jst plug, so I ordered it and decided to buy a battery after it arrived. When it arrived it had a xt60 so I bought a adapter to use it with my old 1300mah 3S. I wanted to use a 1000mah lipo, but I didn't want to wait forever for a battery.
The plane is finished now, I minwaxed the outside of the fuse, and top and bottom of the horizontal stabilizer. I just need to fly it now.
THIS IS THE END OF THE BUILD PROCESS.
I took the plane to a park nearby for the maiden flight. On my first hand launch, It went about 4 feet before hitting the ground. I removed the landing gear to save wheight, which i probably should've done in the first place since I was hand-launching. On my second throw, the Fogey flew great! I had not flown a real rc plane for about a year, but practiced a bit on an iPAD simulator. I flew it around the field a few times before coming in for a rough, belly-flop sort of landing. I could feel tail-heavyness in it, so I moved the battery forward a few times before getting it well balanced. I have flown it at home about 12 times now.
This plane flies great in calm weather. Wind pushes the plane around a lot so I wouldn't recommend flying on windy days. The motor is way overpowered for this plane. You can get almost vertical at full throttle! I rather like this though because whenever I get too close to a tree or whatever, it powers right out of there at almost a 45 degree angle! I fly pretty nose heavy, and the plane keeps its speed up very well when gliding. Below I will list a few problems I had.
- Every time I landed, the battery would fly out becasue the velcro couldn't hold it in place too well. I made a velcro strap to go around the battery and hold it in.
- The rear bbq skewer pulled out of the foam when I crashed once. I glued it in but it happened again. I cut up a hotel card and glued it over the skewer to keep it from tearing.
- My reciever lost connection on one flight and I suspected it was because the rx was too close to the ESC. (Is this possible?) So I made a velcro strap to hold the receiver up high.
So that is all for my review. This is a great plane that is easy for beginners to build and fly. I recommend flying on a simulator before flying this plane, but that probably goes for all planes. Its a good trainer, and very forgiving when it crashes. I hope this review can help someone who wants to kow more about the FT Old Fogey. Please leave suggestions, in the comments. Thank you for reading my post.
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