FMS 80MM Dassault Rafale

[Evan D]

Same person that did the Arrows twin 64 F-15!

[DCORSAIR]

I just can't stand the factory paint scheme so ended up repainting mine. I want my war-birds to represent front line fighters, not some airshow plane. Spent the better part of the afternoon painting panel lines. For base gray I used Tamiya gray surface primer spray can. Panel lines are done with Tamiya acrylic flat black. Still WIP.

I really wish MRC can bring back the original Mirage 2000 without the Tiger Meet.

Looks nice, makes you wonder who was thinking that more people were going to like that stock ugly yellow scheme over a real front line fighter scheme...

[Flanker271]

I just can't stand the factory paint scheme so ended up repainting mine. I want my war-birds to represent front line fighters, not some airshow plane. Spent the better part of the afternoon painting panel lines. For base gray I used Tamiya gray surface primer spray can. Panel lines are done with Tamiya acrylic flat black. Still WIP.

I really wish MRC can bring back the original Mirage 2000 without the Tiger Meet.

[RudyD54]

Well I finally got around to uploading the video of my maiden flight off our grass field. She's definitely not the fastest in my fleet, but she's by far the most relaxing to fly. I was able to get 3 flights on her before the winds began gusting to 30mph and a torrential downpour came through. I got 3:15 on a 4500mah SMC lipo which I may be able to extend a bit more as a become more used to it and I get the CG shifted further back to shorten the take-off run. Setup was as easy as I could ask for using a Spektrum AR637t. Once I get my setup perfected I'll go ahead and post it.

[Hugh Wiedman]

Here's probably the world's first vid of the new FMS Rafale 80mm EDF flying on real grass runway !!!

Enjoy the vid

If RudyD54 would get on the ball, he'd upload his flight video of his FMS Rafale also flying off of grass recently. I know it did, I saw it!!

[Pogo]

Some in-flight fueling footage, starts around 1:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYIk8gTI_wQ

Tom

[Icarus the 2nd]

Here's probably the world's first vid of the new FMS Rafale 80mm EDF flying on real grass runway !!!

Enjoy the vid

[JLambCWU]

LIVE flight demo on FB

[xviper]

^

[JLambCWU]

@JLambCWU My dipomacy (or lack thereof) is not always well received over on that "other" forum so I'll say it here. Yours is the "REAL" review that we've been missing till now, so thanks for all this. So far, it's only been infomercials to sell product (or at the very least, to NOT lose sales). Your review says things that "reviewers" don't dare say in an infomercial for fear of losing sales. Where you issued CAUTIONS, we've only seen a long pause before the next video and the words "tweaks" added to the monologue.
The "flaps" on this plane (or crow in reality) aren't really flaps but as you already said ...................... "speedbrakes" (something I would prefer to use after touchdown). Actual flaps on a delta would simply make the thing take a nose dive into the dirt if nothing else is done. We all know that the mixing board does the crow for you, but in your last picture of the flaps menu, you show % for ELE compensation. Does this mean that the outer "elevators" can be adjusted for different deflections by the user for each "flap" setting?

The flap deflection and trim are indeed controlled by the numbers you set in for “flaps.” The confusion of what they technically are and how they function/we control them especially on Spektrum, led me to write it how I did. So I did my best to try to not confuse people with words.

Changing the flap settings elevator compensation controls how much the outer elevon deflects up.
Also the outer elevon and canard reflect how much elevator compensation you add. This of course needs to be a positive or UP elevator compensation.

(Corrected after reading my previous explanation.
The mid and full “flap” values are set by the board but you can change the outer elevon and canard with the elevator compensation.) On Spektrum.

I started with a previous aircraft configuration I had saved and then tweaked them to what looked about right to me for the maiden. I found that i initially had a tad too much elevator compensation as I was holding down elevator with them deployed at full to descend without slowing too much. It looks really scale in the air at my current settings and takes minimal pitch inputs once on glideslope with them where I posted the settings. Mainly just power for glideslope control now, much like the real jets I fly. Again this is affect by CG and I was flying around 125mm with 4000-5500mah RTs, it was difficultly to get that aft with Admiral 6000 HDs as they wouldn’t go quite as far back.

I appreciate the diplomacy. We can agree to disagree at times. I spend a fair amount of coin and always post my actual findings. So when I say the 70C 4400mah RT is the sweet spot, I truly mean it. 3:30 was mixed flying on a 5500 and you get around 3:00 with a 4400mah. Of course if you’re out doing a power show, or dragging it around the pattern with the “flaps” out, adjust accordingly.
All about bettering the hobby right?

Cheers

[xviper]

with a Roaring Top 5000mah 70C pushed all the way back, she flew perfectly. Flight time was 3:30 with 3.7v/cell.

I can live with 3:30. The first couple of videos indicated around 2:20 flight time. That, among other things, was a real downer. I may revisit this plane later this summer. That will give time for more "reveals" to come along, like this ..........................................

One QA thing on his and another friends is the inner hinge on both flaps is loose and you can move the surface fore and aft a good 2-3mm. It's not a glue thing, it looks like the holes in the flap that the pins/ balls on the hinge are supposed to go into are way too big.

For now, it's been replaced with the new Draco. HH didn't lose anything in terms of overall sales from me.

[Evan D]

When I set one up last night I found that flaps settings responded basically to off, half and full. The owner initially had 0-50-100 for flaps and brought it to me since he couldn't get a no flaps position. He had thought he was on a new fresh model in his radio but had used a prior model with subtrims, some odd travels and the above flap set points. once I zero'ed out everything and made the flaps -100 0 +100 (no elevator numbers in the flap screen) and readjusted the wings push rods everything worked as it should.

To me it almost seemed like the mixer has specific set points and tries to make it fool proof. I like how it worked. My only concern is that to me it looked like there was no way to have different pitch trim with the flap settings but maybe that's what J was able to achieve.

I really like the look of the plane, especially the curves under the fuselage at the intakes. The top decals are not water slides, they are printed vinyl. The landing gear is really nice with bearing'ed wheels. My biggest gripe is that of a lot of FMS/ EFlite planes with the hard plastic ball links. I also don't like the little sheet metal screws that hold them to the flap control horns.

I like how you can remove the one screw that hold the tray the mixing board is mounted to and pull it out to check it. It would also be a good spot to place a separate gyro if you need a spot.

One QA thing on his and another friends is the inner hinge on both flaps is loose and you can move the surface fore and aft a good 2-3mm. It's not a glue thing, it looks like the holes in the flap that the pins/ balls on the hinge are supposed to go into are way too big.

[xviper]

@JLambCWU My dipomacy (or lack thereof) is not always well received over on that "other" forum so I'll say it here. Yours is the "REAL" review that we've been missing till now, so thanks for all this. So far, it's only been infomercials to sell product (or at the very least, to NOT lose sales). Your review says things that "reviewers" don't dare say in an infomercial for fear of losing sales. Where you issued CAUTIONS, we've only seen a long pause before the next video and the words "tweaks" added to the monologue.
The "flaps" on this plane (or crow in reality) aren't really flaps but as you already said ...................... "speedbrakes" (something I would prefer to use after touchdown). Actual flaps on a delta would simply make the thing take a nose dive into the dirt if nothing else is done. We all know that the mixing board does the crow for you, but in your last picture of the flaps menu, you show % for ELE compensation. Does this mean that the outer "elevators" can be adjusted for different deflections by the user for each "flap" setting?

[JLambCWU]

MAIDEN FLIGHT AND REVIEW

Spring has sprung here in the mountains of northern Utah!

The Rafale goes together really quick. From the box being delivered to my porch to being ready to fly was less than :30 min. The finish is great, but the paint scheme is LOUD. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though as I fly late into/after sunset and the scheme helps with orientation.

I set the aircraft up in my transmitter as a normal wing with aileron and flap. The internal mixing board handles the rest. (See my included picture for flap rates and settings.) Position 0 is flaps up. Position 1 is approach flaps. Position 2 is landing flaps. At approach flaps, I have 18 units of nose up elevon and canard compensation. At landing/full flaps I have 24 units of nose up compensation. I have the book high rate elevator for landing with the flaps, and use book medium rate for landing without flaps, more on that later.

I have book low, and high settings for aileron, elevator, and rudder. I also have medium rates in the middle of those.

For the maiden flight I went with low aileron and medium elevator rates, with a Roaring Top 5000mah 70C pushed all the way back, she flew perfectly. Flight time was 3:30 with 3.7v/cell.

I fly off a long smooth asphalt strip, and 200ft into the takeoff roll she smoothly rotated and lifted off. The takeoff speed was fast, but i was trying to avoid the pop off the ground others had demonstrated on early YouTube videos from Asia. With the 5500mah Roaring Top pushed all the way back, the CG sits in the aft half of the recommended range at 125mm from the reference mark. Roll was about right without flaps, but pitch was just slightly sensitive at this CG on medium rates with 40% expo for both.

The model is moderately fast in the 105-110mph range, but the airframe is draggy. She slows quickly even without ordinance drag, and even more so with. She has a beautiful Airframe howl above 80% power at speed, and will cruise comfortably in the clean configuration with 50-60% power on a good battery.
Stalls were accomplished gear up and down, they were pretty tame without rapid pitch or wing drop unless doing an accelerated stall. Gentle stall entry with rudder work gives a nice falling leaf descent without wing drop at full aft elevator.

Flap deployment was smooth at approach and landing flap settings with no pitch up or down when configured per my settings. The model will rapidly sink below half power once flaps have been deployed at approach settings, and even more so at full. The flap “crow” setting built into the mixing board puts the elevons down on the inner surfaces and up on the outer surfaces to act as flaps. This functions as a flap but also a speed brake, with the canards deflecting up to compensate for nose down pitch. In the real aircraft this allows the jet to have the motors spooled higher which the Rafale uses for carrier ops.

CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION
Because of how the mixing board deploys the flap function, you have less pitch authority once they are deployed. I found myself running out of pitch authority as soon as I slowed to a speed closer to where a lighter model would have been ok, especially on my medium elevator rates. Post maiden flights showed that landing with approach and full flaps required HIGH elevator rates to have adequate pitch authority to flare for touchdown unless landing very fast. The model lands fine on MEDIUM elevator rates without flaps in a nice nose high flare at a SLOWER speed than with flaps.

Takeoffs were accomplished clean and I also tried half flaps. With half flaps the takeoff roll was longer and needed a much higher speed to have pitch authority to rotate. This was tried on medium and high elevator rates. On high rates she will rotate faster, but rapidly pops off the ground once the speed is high enough to get pitch authority. Probably suitable to grass ops, but the takeoff is very unscale.

The 80mm Rafale is a beautiful model. She is no speed demon but is powered well. The model is heavy for its size and doesn’t float or high alpha the way the Freewing Gripen will, but this was expected with the weight difference. I test flew everything from a 6000-4000mah battery with 15 flights on the maiden day. Lighter batteries of course give the aircraft more acceleration and vertical, and let it fly a little slower and high alpha a little better with the lighter wing loading. I flew 6 different brands of batteries in her and the best performing was the 4400mah 70C Roaring Top. It’s the right punch for the weight and the sweet spot on this model. Aft and Forward CGs were all attempted too. Aft becomes squirrelly in pitch and roll even at medium rates, and forward requires a lot more pitch with HIGH elevator rates.

The mixing board is well done and the flap function is fun to play with, but again, the model actually lands slower without the flaps. CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION again, the flap function requires higher power and speed even at aft CG ranges or you will run out of pitch authority before you’re on the ground even with High rate elevator.

Overall a fun and well executed model.

[Quickstop]

Once someone starts getting free product and is making money selling the same product they are no longer objective, regardless of what they claim. That’s just the way it is

[kallend]

I agree. I've even seen people say they fly great during the unboxing. Then there are those here on line that say the same with reference to the real aircraft and physics or other models.

I'm not aware of any aircraft, full size or model, that doesn't obey the laws of physics.

The issue is whether the writer understands the laws of physics.

[SanExup]

Like politicians, we can count on honest reviews and idealism until the money starts flowing and the debt is owed. From that point on, it's all salesmanship. Then they can't find enough amazement, adjectives and adverbs, or yippees, to describe how incredible (insert new model here) this thing is!

[radfordc]

I don't think that's what Cap. Moron was getting at. The old saying, "You can tell more from what someone DOESN'T say than from what he said", applies here. Rich is trying to be as diplomatic as he can (for reasons that are obvious to most people) and of course, he's being a "pitch man" for the company where the products came from. You can tell when something isn't a good or desirable thing, he doesn't say anything or he says it in such a way as to redirect what he really thinks about it. You can also tell a lot from the tone of what he says. It's like listening to and watching a politician on TV. It's got nothing to do with being "stretched thin".

As long as you understand that he is "selling" more than "telling" and take most of his hyperbole with a grain of salt you should be OK. I made the mistake of jumping on the E-flite Su-30 based on his reviews (you know...greatest plane to ever fly, etc, etc.). Turns out there is a lot to not like about the Su-30 that he didn't mention. Wish I had done more due diligence first.

[Evan D]

I agree. I've even seen people say they fly great during the unboxing. Then there are those here on line that say the same with reference to the real aircraft and physics or other models.

[kallend]

He didn't say holy smokes enough. Perhaps the flight time was so short he only got a few in.

I actually wish the "reviewers" would do a fourth or fifth flight review. Where we.can see the strengths and weaknesses of the given plane. Instead of the initial unveiling maiden flight of a new product to showcase.

It's like the written reviews of planes that say, "this plane is the best plane I've ever owned, I can't wait to take it fully out of the box fly it for the first time."

Uh, fly it for a day, then tell us what you think...

I wouldn't call them reviewers - they are infomercial hosts.

And just because someone has a slick video editor and a Youtube channel does not imply that he is knowledgeable about R/C modeling.