FT LongEZ - Release!

September 13, 2018|FliteTest

FTScratchBuild

There's a new Flite Test airplane kit in town, and it's called the FT LongEZ.

Designed for absolute simplicity, this new foam board airplane can be built extremely quickly and be in the air before you know it. The LongEZ is for "bank and yank" RC flying. This means that it's super simple, using just two servos for the elevons. Even if you don't want to install electronics, this RC model can be assembled as a super fun chuck glider. If you want to go down the RC route, simply throw in a motor, ESC, and two servos from Power Pack A.

What you need

Free Plans

Coming Soon (on this page)

Journey from Free Flight to RC

Building the FT LongEZ is as simple as it gets. One sheet of foam is all you'll need if you're cutting this out of our favorite Flite Test Water Resistant Foam Board. If you're using Adam's standard Readi Board, you'll be able to make the LongEZ for as little as $1. How cool is that?

If you're an absolute beginner to airplanes, either RC or free flight, making your own LongEZ is a good way in. Using your components, you can learn the simplest of techniques needed to make any of our Flite Test airplane designs.

With some balancing and a few adjustments to the control surfaces, you can throw your newly completed model skyward and watch it soar. Flying with friends is always fun, no matter how high or low tech you make it. It's surprising how fun a game of airplane catch can be!

After exploring free flight, you can very easily install some electronics to power your airplane. Unlike some other designs, the LongEZ makes retrofitting a breeze.

If you bang up an old airframe, no need to worry! A new one could cost as little as $1. You could also order a few speed build kits at a time to keep the flying going strong.

The FT LongEZ Story

The origins of this new Speed Build Kit comes from our fantastic FT STEM. We wanted to design a few simple, slot-together chuck glider kits for the kids who attend classes, the events we run (like Flite Fest) and school clubs. We have some other chuck gliders, with a few looking more like fighter jets, but the LongEZ has always been popular.

Alex has always been a fan of Burt Rutan, the famous aerospace designer behind projects like SpaceShip 1 and the Rutan Voyager. The Rutan Model 61 Long-EZ is an airplane designed by Rutan back in the 1970s. It has canards and a fighter-shaped fuselage. In short, it looks pretty cool, so Alex decided to take a shot at converting the glider to RC. It shows how going from free flight to powered flight is in this plane's DNA!

Josh saw the potential in Alex's simple mod and went about producing a full kit for the airplane. As with all of our planes, we're also releasing a set of free plans (coming soon) so that you can cut out your own plane. However, if you want to save some time, support Flite Test and have some super nice laser cut parts to work with, you can always buy a Speed Build Kit.