I had the opportunity to unbox and build one of the FMS 64mm F-15's tonight. I thought that even though it is an older kit, it is still being manufactured, and I would share my thoughts. They may or may not relate to the newer, and possibly larger FMS jets that may, or may not be coming out.
OVERVIEW:
All of the parts of the plane were packaged nicely, the fuselage had sheet foam wrapped around it, and all of the flying surfaces were individually Ziploc bagged(no other protection)
The landing gear were in their own bag, and the elevator pushrods were bagged separately with an extra set of control horns, clevises, and tubing type clevis keepers.
The instructions were horrid. The booklet was 1/3 a standard sheet size, blurry, and all of the building directions were crammed onto one page, and impossible to read or follow.
THE BUILD:
All of the flying surfaces are glued onto the fuselage. I had to remove the paint from all the joints, as the parts were completely painted. No effort was taken to keep the gluing surfaces clean. Everything did fit nicely, and all of the panel lines matched up on the wing to fuselage mating.
I was very disappointed in the nose cone. It is hollow, injection molded, 1 mil plastic. It was ill formed, and had to be forced to fit on the protruding foam on the fuselage. With a fair amount of work, I got it to seat mostly correctly, and it looks okay. It will break the first time that it contacts anything more solid than air.
I had to play with the main(fixed) gear in order to figure out how they went into the retaining blocks. It turned out, after I thought they had been manufactured backwards, that there is a hidden slot that they slide into. The nose gear had the flat spot filed onto the wrong side of the strut, and it subsequently had to be installed with the coil facing forward. This is fine, except it looks ridiculous.
The servo connections to the internal Y in the fuselage to the aileron servos glue into a hollow on the bottom of the wings, and remain visible after completion. Installing the control rods for the elevators went without any friction, though I had to unscrew the clevises about 7-8 turns to get them to the proper length. There was still plenty of thread left in them, so no issue there.
The armament package is a joke, and in my opinion, should have been eliminated from the kit. There is no way to put them on and take them off. You will have to install your own magnets, and braces if you want to do this.
SETUP:
Out of the box, all of the servos worked correctly, and there was no buzzing or any other indication that there were any issues with them. The included, installed 5 bladed fan seems to be out of balance, as I am getting a very loud hum and vibration at lower RPMs. It goes away as you increase power, but none the less, I am still going to have to balance it. Maybe, as this is already a V2, FMS will produce a V3 and put their new 11 bladed fan in it. All of the control surfaces move smoothly, and they are all hinged with nylon Du-Bro style pinned hinges.
FINISH:
The paint on the model is medium gloss, and is not even close to an accurate finish for a modern combat jet. I think that there are a lot of excessive panel lines for a plane at this scale, that are unnecessary, and detract from the overall look. Scale fidelity is almost non existent, but it is a 64mm model. It is a basic representation of the F-15, and nothing more. The stabilizer does not utilize a full flying stab, but rather has elevators cut into it, and there is no rudder control(common at this scale).
PRE-FLIGHT THOUGHTS:
The plane all up, with an Admiral 3S, 2200mAh, 45C PRO battery weighs in at just over a pound. This is a nice weight for a model this size, however, the thrust seems rather lethargic during bench testing. We will see how it translates on takeoff roll. The model has a negative incidence sitting on the gear. I moved the nose gear down in the sleeve as far as it would go, and to get the model level, there is close to a half an inch of air under the nose gear. This is going to complicate rotation, especially from my grass runway. There are no provisions( though it is mentioned in the manual) for finger holds for hand launching the plane. I have a size-able hand(hand launched the Freewing A-6 for years) and I can not grasp both sides of the intakes. I have left the ordinance package off of the airplane, and I will be attempting its maiden flight this weekend(1/14/17).
FLIGHT REPORT:
Mostly clear skies, 6-8 mph wind
For everything this plane lacks on the bench, it makes up for in the air.
Takeoff roll in the grass was about 60 feet and the plane literally jumped into the air. I was quite surprised by this, and I have to say, rather impressed. In the air, a few clicks of down, and two clicks of right trim were all that was needed, and we started doing some aerobatics. The roll rate is fast, but not so fast that you cannot keep up with it. Loops were tried in widening arcs, at about a 60 foot loop it was struggling to get over the top. Anything below that was handled like a champ. Inverted flight required slight pressure on the stick, but handling was as good as normal flight.
I cut the throttle to half, and did a lazy circle over the field, and intentionally set up for a cross wind landing. The wind tossed it around a little but it was controllable all the way to the ground, even without rudder control. You will see the little bit of struggle that I had with it if you watch the video, which I have linked to. This is only about the last minute of the flight, and you must forgive my wife's filming skills. She has a bit of trouble following the plane.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
For the money, 149.00 PNP, you could do a lot worse. I give the plane 3 stars, and that is mostly due to its flight characteristics. If you are in the market for a fun, easy to build, small jet with good performance out of the box, this little diamond in the rough may the jet for you.
OVERVIEW:
All of the parts of the plane were packaged nicely, the fuselage had sheet foam wrapped around it, and all of the flying surfaces were individually Ziploc bagged(no other protection)
The landing gear were in their own bag, and the elevator pushrods were bagged separately with an extra set of control horns, clevises, and tubing type clevis keepers.
The instructions were horrid. The booklet was 1/3 a standard sheet size, blurry, and all of the building directions were crammed onto one page, and impossible to read or follow.
THE BUILD:
All of the flying surfaces are glued onto the fuselage. I had to remove the paint from all the joints, as the parts were completely painted. No effort was taken to keep the gluing surfaces clean. Everything did fit nicely, and all of the panel lines matched up on the wing to fuselage mating.
I was very disappointed in the nose cone. It is hollow, injection molded, 1 mil plastic. It was ill formed, and had to be forced to fit on the protruding foam on the fuselage. With a fair amount of work, I got it to seat mostly correctly, and it looks okay. It will break the first time that it contacts anything more solid than air.
I had to play with the main(fixed) gear in order to figure out how they went into the retaining blocks. It turned out, after I thought they had been manufactured backwards, that there is a hidden slot that they slide into. The nose gear had the flat spot filed onto the wrong side of the strut, and it subsequently had to be installed with the coil facing forward. This is fine, except it looks ridiculous.
The servo connections to the internal Y in the fuselage to the aileron servos glue into a hollow on the bottom of the wings, and remain visible after completion. Installing the control rods for the elevators went without any friction, though I had to unscrew the clevises about 7-8 turns to get them to the proper length. There was still plenty of thread left in them, so no issue there.
The armament package is a joke, and in my opinion, should have been eliminated from the kit. There is no way to put them on and take them off. You will have to install your own magnets, and braces if you want to do this.
SETUP:
Out of the box, all of the servos worked correctly, and there was no buzzing or any other indication that there were any issues with them. The included, installed 5 bladed fan seems to be out of balance, as I am getting a very loud hum and vibration at lower RPMs. It goes away as you increase power, but none the less, I am still going to have to balance it. Maybe, as this is already a V2, FMS will produce a V3 and put their new 11 bladed fan in it. All of the control surfaces move smoothly, and they are all hinged with nylon Du-Bro style pinned hinges.
FINISH:
The paint on the model is medium gloss, and is not even close to an accurate finish for a modern combat jet. I think that there are a lot of excessive panel lines for a plane at this scale, that are unnecessary, and detract from the overall look. Scale fidelity is almost non existent, but it is a 64mm model. It is a basic representation of the F-15, and nothing more. The stabilizer does not utilize a full flying stab, but rather has elevators cut into it, and there is no rudder control(common at this scale).
PRE-FLIGHT THOUGHTS:
The plane all up, with an Admiral 3S, 2200mAh, 45C PRO battery weighs in at just over a pound. This is a nice weight for a model this size, however, the thrust seems rather lethargic during bench testing. We will see how it translates on takeoff roll. The model has a negative incidence sitting on the gear. I moved the nose gear down in the sleeve as far as it would go, and to get the model level, there is close to a half an inch of air under the nose gear. This is going to complicate rotation, especially from my grass runway. There are no provisions( though it is mentioned in the manual) for finger holds for hand launching the plane. I have a size-able hand(hand launched the Freewing A-6 for years) and I can not grasp both sides of the intakes. I have left the ordinance package off of the airplane, and I will be attempting its maiden flight this weekend(1/14/17).
FLIGHT REPORT:
Mostly clear skies, 6-8 mph wind
For everything this plane lacks on the bench, it makes up for in the air.
Takeoff roll in the grass was about 60 feet and the plane literally jumped into the air. I was quite surprised by this, and I have to say, rather impressed. In the air, a few clicks of down, and two clicks of right trim were all that was needed, and we started doing some aerobatics. The roll rate is fast, but not so fast that you cannot keep up with it. Loops were tried in widening arcs, at about a 60 foot loop it was struggling to get over the top. Anything below that was handled like a champ. Inverted flight required slight pressure on the stick, but handling was as good as normal flight.
I cut the throttle to half, and did a lazy circle over the field, and intentionally set up for a cross wind landing. The wind tossed it around a little but it was controllable all the way to the ground, even without rudder control. You will see the little bit of struggle that I had with it if you watch the video, which I have linked to. This is only about the last minute of the flight, and you must forgive my wife's filming skills. She has a bit of trouble following the plane.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
For the money, 149.00 PNP, you could do a lot worse. I give the plane 3 stars, and that is mostly due to its flight characteristics. If you are in the market for a fun, easy to build, small jet with good performance out of the box, this little diamond in the rough may the jet for you.
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