E-Flite Radian XL

[dkalwishky]

They did? I'm not aware of this. As far as I know, the Radian Pro is a "full house" saliplane (complete with AIL and Flaps). I'm also thinking that the Radian Pro "XL" will just be around the corner, as well as the Radian XL PNP.
You may still have a lot of fun with a full house sailplane but personally, after having several of those, I'm no longer inclined in that direction. I don't miss the ability to do rolls or mess with crow, reflex or full span ailerons or flaps/spoilers. Most of the time, I forgot which switch to throw to get the various different functions and ended up not using them.

I meant with the XL no ailerons.

[xviper]

I meant with the XL no ailerons.

Got it! The Radian XL is a direct progression of the Radian, which is also a "rudder, elevator" sailplane. The high wing dihedral makes it so and AIL aren't necessary. If and when they produce the Pro XL, it will be a "full house" sailplane.

[Tom]

Tom; I've got a $25 off code from HH for taking their survey. Any chance that can be used at MRC or can I only use it at HH?

Yes, absolutely. We accept any HH coupons.

[dkalwishky]

Great! my code expires on Monday so I hope you get the plane listed quickly! :)

[Flygirl]

Great! my code expires on Monday so I hope you get the plane listed quickly! :)

Glad you asked DKal cuz I have a code too! :)

[Tom]

Guys, if you have a code that expires, just go ahead and take a picture of the coupon and send it to our support email address. We'll get it setup. We've got the pre-order live on our new web site but we may not set it up on the current web site. The new web site will go live very late Monday night. Don't worry, we'll make sure the coupon is honored even if it is Tuesday. Again, if you take a picture and send it in now (attach it to a ticket), we'll get it setup so you can use it on the new Motion RC 2.0 web site. You are about to see a total web site revamp. I hope you guys like it.

[Flygirl]

Guys, if you have a code that expires, just go ahead and take a picture of the coupon and send it to our support email address. We'll get it setup. We've got the pre-order live on our new web site but we may not set it up on the current web site. The new web site will go live very late Monday night. Don't worry, we'll make sure the coupon is honored even if it is Tuesday. Again, if you take a picture and send it in now (attach it to a ticket), we'll get it setup so you can use it on the new Motion RC 2.0 web site. You are about to see a total web site revamp. I hope you guys like it.

Thanks Tom!!

[Flygirl]

Guys, if you have a code that expires, just go ahead and take a picture of the coupon and send it to our support email address. We'll get it setup. We've got the pre-order live on our new web site but we may not set it up on the current web site. The new web site will go live very late Monday night. Don't worry, we'll make sure the coupon is honored even if it is Tuesday. Again, if you take a picture and send it in now (attach it to a ticket), we'll get it setup so you can use it on the new Motion RC 2.0 web site. You are about to see a total web site revamp. I hope you guys like it.

Tom, I have pre-ordered the Radian XL. If you would be so kind to apply the HH code I sent in I would appreciate it! You guys are the best! (order 162396W)

[Tom]

Thanks for your order Lauren! Devin processed a $25 refund on your order. I'm also eagerly anticipating the Radian XL so I can add one to my personal collection.

[Flygirl]

Thanks for your order Lauren! Devin processed a $25 refund on your order. I'm also eagerly anticipating the Radian XL so I can add one to my personal collection.

Thanks a bunch! Like you I can't wait! Last time I flew my regular Radian it "almost" got out of sight on me. It's funny but, I sort of get into this gape mouthed trance flying the thing and the next thing I know it's just about a dot. Bet this will be the same way :) Let's hope they come in on time!

[Flygirl]

They have started shipping the first ones at HH! Shouldn't be too long now! The only thing I am worried about is I don't see my order in my list of previous orders. I assume that is because it was a because it was a pre-order?

Excited!

[xviper]

Thanks a bunch! Like you I can't wait! Last time I flew my regular Radian it "almost" got out of sight on me. It's funny but, I sort of get into this gape mouthed trance flying the thing and the next thing I know it's just about a dot. Bet this will be the same way :) Let's hope they come in on time!

After losing a couple of sailplanes due to extreme lift at altitude, I have "Return to Home" and telemetry on all my sailplanes. 4 of us here should have our XL's hopefully next week from our local hobby shop. After the maiden, trimming flight, all of them will get these:

http://www.rc-castle.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=277&product_id=4922

http://www.rc-castle.com/index.php?route=product/product&manufacturer_id=79&product_id=3787

We haven't lost a single sailplane since using them. A couple of us even have the Lemon failsafe Rx and if contact is lost, the plane automatically sets throttle and RTH. The telemetry tells us altitude, volts, amps and temp wherever the probe is placed. Nothing is foolproof as human negligence can always come into play (like when we don't pay attention to the volts or listen to the alarms). The only possible complication with the XL is that the AS3X and the stabilizer on the Bigaole "might" fight each other but I'm thinking that by turning the gain down on the "Biggie" to a minimum, it should all work.

[Flygirl]

Wow! You lost them? So far I guess I've been lucky. I came close twice so far, once with the Radian and once with a Graupner Cirrus. The Cirrus was the worst one. I actually did lose eyesight with it when it went in front of a cloud (white on white) so I turned it back towards me hoping to catch a view again but I didn't. So I put in a bunch of down trim and prayed. No one could find it in the sky among about 5 people until finally someone shouted, "There!!" when it was about 100 yards away. I had gotten incredibly lucky to have turned it exactly back towards the field and with the down trim it was really zooming. I retrimmed it slowly because I'm sure the wings were ready to break and brought it in for a landing. That was a real WHEW! moment....

[xviper]

I lost 2 due to high winds aloft and extreme thermal lift. I should have said that I eventually got them back. My first Mystique RES got sucked up into a low lying cloud and disappeared. Winds started off light near ground level but at around 900 feet, I noticed that the plane started getting small very quickly. That's about the time that the chinook winds (Google it) reached ground level but they started up high. That's when I realized what had happened. Before I could do anything about it, the plane disappeared into that cloud. I cranked the controls to try to make it spiral down and put full spoilers on. There were 6 sets of eyes looking for it come down. After 20 minutes of searching the skies, I gave up and went home. 2 weeks later, someone came to the field to say they found a big airplane when they were walking their dog. As it turns out, the plane eventually came down only 300 yards from where I was standing, crashed into a tree. At least I saved the fuselage and all the electrics. Same thing happened with one of my early Radians. The winds aloft were so strong the plane didn't have enough thrust to fly back. It was flying backwards. I put it into a dive and it went down just over the hill about a mile away. 3 of us went out looking for it and I found it. A RTH would not have helped in that case. However, telemetry would have told me how high they were and I would have stayed at a reasonable altitude. 1000 feet is about my limit now unless it's a perfectly calm day over farmland.

[dkalwishky]

Mine shipped today, I'm so excited!

[xviper]

Horizon just released this video. Our local hobby shop has 4 coming hopefully this week. Our small group bought them all.

[Flygirl]

Mine shipped today, I'm so excited!

Mine too DK! Fun this weekend!

Hey Vipe, get a vid of formation flying!!

[xviper]

Mine too DK! Fun this weekend!

Hey Vipe, get a vid of formation flying!!

Hehe, I'll try. We usually fly between 500 to 1000+ feet. On Mobius, they're just little dots in the sky. We'll try to do a "fly by" down low for the camera.

[xviper]

People have been receiving their XL's of late. There's even a report of one maiden. The bottom line is .............. "this plane is a WINNER". All the doomsday prophecies from "know it alls", all those who proclaimed this plane to be too heavy, bad sailplane, all those armchair aeronautical engineers who did all the calculations about terrible wing loading ............................ It would seem they were all WRONG.
One thing of note: Several XL's, once assembled, have a twisted tail section. IE, the horizontal stabilizer is not parallel with the main wings. Some are worse than others.