Banana Hobby came out with the A4 SkyHawk last month. Since no one else sold this model I got one immediately. Banana Hobby is only 20 minutes from where I live. I drove down and picked one up. They have great customer service. They allowed me to inspect both the PNP and the KIT. I bought a KIT for me and a PNP for a friend of mine. He is not an experienced plane builder, and wanted the PNP version. I on the other hand wanted something that would fly as good as any of the Freewing 80mm or 90mm EDF jets. Having had some experience with LX (Blitz RC) models, I knew that no matter what, these planes would need some upgrades to make them fly right. I placed all freewing servos, 100A Freewing ESC and Freewing 2938-2085KV inrunner motor with 12bladed EDF. Both planes did not come with manuals. There is no online manual as well. So I contacted Banana Hobby and asked for the GC for the plane. They told me that it was 600mm from the tip of the plane. I figured that was an unusual way of measuring the CG. In my years of flying experience the suggested CG seemed wrong. So I set up my plane CG at 200mm from the leading edge of the wing. This CG was confirmed to be correct after the Maiden flight.
When I completed my build, we took both my LX A4 / Freewing hybrid and the LX A4 PNP to the field. We flew the LX /Freewing with a ChinaHobby Line 6S 4000mah battery ( battery compartment had to be carved out and modified to achieve the Required CG of 200mm). The reason we used the 6S 4000mah battery was to add more nose weight to compensate the heavier Freewing 70mm metal EDF at the tail area. The plane had adequate power,and sounded like a real jet. The flight time was 3 minutes and 28% battery left. It glided well and had a very smooth landing. It flew like the Freewing Mirage but not as fast. On the other hand, the more expensive $350 LX A4 SkyHawk with 5 bladed 70mm EDF 2100kv motor, sounded terrible, was extremely under powered. We flew this PNP model with Genesis 6s 3300mah battery and because of the lighter EDF, we did not have to make any changes to the battery compartment. Wtih this set up, the CG was the same as my set up of the KIT version. The plane bounced during landing, and as we tried to throttle up and come around for another attempt at landing, it did not have enough power to recover. Instead it did a high alpha and stalled mid air and torque rolled to the left and crashed. I believe if we had a different and a more powerful motor, it would have recovered nicely.
In my opinion, the KIT version is a plane that is built well but needs upgraded electronics to fly well. Aslo, LX models should have made this plane a 80mm EDF. The EDF compartment has enough room to allow you to put an 80mm EDF motor, but you may have to move the motor forward a bit and shoot some foam around it. However, the $235 price and the added cost of servos, ESC, EDF, and motor $200, brings you to a price point well over $400. I believe you can buy a better model for this price from Motion RC, without the 20 hour build time. I am posting some pictures of the planes, including one with me holding it for size reference. The difference between the PNP and the KIT planes is the black paint stripe in front of the canopy. The black strip in front of the canopy is rounded on the crashed A4 and the same black portion before the nose is squared off on my KIT version.
When I completed my build, we took both my LX A4 / Freewing hybrid and the LX A4 PNP to the field. We flew the LX /Freewing with a ChinaHobby Line 6S 4000mah battery ( battery compartment had to be carved out and modified to achieve the Required CG of 200mm). The reason we used the 6S 4000mah battery was to add more nose weight to compensate the heavier Freewing 70mm metal EDF at the tail area. The plane had adequate power,and sounded like a real jet. The flight time was 3 minutes and 28% battery left. It glided well and had a very smooth landing. It flew like the Freewing Mirage but not as fast. On the other hand, the more expensive $350 LX A4 SkyHawk with 5 bladed 70mm EDF 2100kv motor, sounded terrible, was extremely under powered. We flew this PNP model with Genesis 6s 3300mah battery and because of the lighter EDF, we did not have to make any changes to the battery compartment. Wtih this set up, the CG was the same as my set up of the KIT version. The plane bounced during landing, and as we tried to throttle up and come around for another attempt at landing, it did not have enough power to recover. Instead it did a high alpha and stalled mid air and torque rolled to the left and crashed. I believe if we had a different and a more powerful motor, it would have recovered nicely.
In my opinion, the KIT version is a plane that is built well but needs upgraded electronics to fly well. Aslo, LX models should have made this plane a 80mm EDF. The EDF compartment has enough room to allow you to put an 80mm EDF motor, but you may have to move the motor forward a bit and shoot some foam around it. However, the $235 price and the added cost of servos, ESC, EDF, and motor $200, brings you to a price point well over $400. I believe you can buy a better model for this price from Motion RC, without the 20 hour build time. I am posting some pictures of the planes, including one with me holding it for size reference. The difference between the PNP and the KIT planes is the black paint stripe in front of the canopy. The black strip in front of the canopy is rounded on the crashed A4 and the same black portion before the nose is squared off on my KIT version.
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