Since the demise of my FMS super EZ; would the Freewing Pandora be a better option? Let me know!
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I've been helping my 75 year old Dad learn to fly on a Pandora and an Apprentice.
He would vote for the Apprentice hands down as a more robust and easier plane to fly, even after removing the SAFE receiver and has a lot more success with that plane in general.
I'm not certain what happened with your Super EZ but I haven't been impressed with the Pandora overall despite the glowing reviews on MRC. It seems of lower quality that some other Freewing planes I've seen in terms of hardware, etc.
It has a few issues that need addressed, in my opinion.
1.) It's significantly underpowered on 3S
2.) The stock nose gear breaks easily, for a trainer, on tricycle gear
3.) The tail wheel has issues on a tail dragger configuration
4.) The stock plastic LG covers will break, regardless, with a novice pilot landing the plane and I'd say it's best to just remove them
While no plane is designed to crash, my Dad's augered in the Pandora a few times now as well as the Apprentice and I can say the Apprentice takes damage and rough landings much better.
On 4S power with a good helping of additional thrust, it's smooth and predictable to fly, but the gear issues regardless of configuration are a major drawback for beginners compared to competing planes which are more robust. My Dad, regardless of how I tried to help get the plane set up, had issues getting it airborne without running off of the runway in tail dragger format. While that's mainly a pilot issue, it's something to consider. -
Hmm, interesting. Being a huge Pandora fan, I can relate to the LG issue. What I do with mine is wrap electrical tape around them first for added strength, it helps a lot.
The tail wheel clevis has a nasty habit of breaking, so I replaced that with a ball link style connector instead.
As for take off, the trick is to advance to two clicks of throttle (I have my throttle trimmed so that it will start rotating on the first click of throttle) to get her moving, correct your direction, add another click and correct, another and the tail should come up and your direction should be easy from there on. Tell your dad to think of the Beatles 'Twist and Shout' ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhhh, ahhh. About that speed. They are also great candidates for an A3L gyro. I have them in both of mine and they are excellent. Gear replacement becomes a thing of the past after awhile, but I keep a spare set in case. Have had the same set for about a year now.
I've wrote extensively on the Pandora in other threads. First thing I did was to change out the ESC to a 50A, the 30 is walking the line. Also, you may want to get rid of the foam tires and put some Dave Browns on instead. That allowed me to move the CG back so I could put the battery in the cockpit hatch area and the old battery hatch is where the new ESC is now.
Here's some pics of my two Pandoras, both have survived crashes and the red, white and blue one has had a fire, both still fly and I get great compliments on them.
You can see how I have my battery setup.
Hope this helps, also, if you look at the RocHobby Waco motor, its a great upgrade for the Pandora.
Grossman56Team Gross!Comment
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Thank you for the responses. The super EZ's landing gear is very robust and it does have plenty of power. I will wait for MRC to get some replacement parts in and try to get the super EZ back in the air.Comment
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