I have had this plane for a few years, but up until recently it has been a hangar queen. After taking out flying this weekend, and seeing how well it flew, I thought I would review this older kit.
Construction
This model is, as the company name implies, a fairly basic kit. It is in no way an ARF. Some experience with balsa building and with vacuformed parts is recommended before trying to build one of these kits. The fuselage, empennage, wings, and nacelleces are all made of a type of depron skinned with a plastic-like coating. Balsa and plywood bulkheads reinforce the fuselage and nacelles. The wing has a balsa spar the runs the length, but no other reinforcement. The nose, cowls, exhaust, strut covers, pilots, and other details come prepainted on several large vacuformed sheets. One really impressive thing about the Flying Styro Kit models is that they have a full cockpit tub. All of the walls are very detailed and very easy to add custom detailing. The finish on the skin of the model is fanastic though! Since it is plastic coated, there are no foam cell marks, and panel detail is sharp and clear.
The model is designed for up either fixed gear or belly landing and with brushed motors and nicads in mind. I wanted to add full retracts and gears doors to mine. I used the lightest electric retracts I could find: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...arehouse_.html and silver soldered together an adapter that allowed the stock fixed struts to plug into the retract. I also used the stock vac formed strut covers and wheels. I also cut a small recess in the bottom of the wing to accomadate the tire when retracted. To mount the gear, I made a 1/8" plywood base and sanded it to correct for dihedral. The inside of the wing was also reinforced with carbon fiber strips above where the gear were mounted.
Other reinforcements and mods were made to the fuselage. 2 thin carbon flats were epoxied to the inside of the boom the riencorce the structure. Carbon was also added to rear of the spar. In addition, the stock wing joiners seemed fragile to me, so I made new ones out of 1/8" plywood. The spinner backplate was also reinforced with 1/8" plywood.
I also added a Robart #122 tail retract in the rear for the full scale appearance, and hinged the main gear doors. A band of elastic was used to pull the doors closed when the gear retract.
Also, leave the nose as a last piece to glue on!! That is were you will probably need to add lead to make it balance.
Propulsion and Electronics
For the power system, I used 2 2216 880kv T-motors turning the props from the FMS B-25. The stock props were flimsy, and did not counter-rotate, so these were a huge improvement. For ESCs I used 2 Hobbywing 25A controllers, and a castle BEC to power the whole setup. The stock electronics bay is tiny, so I cut out the bomb bay area and located the tail retract and rudder servos there. I used HS-65s on all surfaces, probably overkill, but better safe than sorry. All of this runs off of a 3S 2200 25C battery. Only a thiner 3S battery will fit well in the compartment. The admiral pro fits very nicely.
Paint and Decals
Both of these were well done. The decals are all highly quality waterslide type, and blend right into the the paint job. However, during building I messed up the stock paint, so I repainted it in the same scheme with airbrushed tamiya colors. The pilots and cockpit details were hand-painted with model masters.
Flight Characteristics
I balanced the model gear up at the forward CG mark. In the manual, there are 2 CGs called out, one for "test flying" and one for "normal flying". I highly recommend the forward "test" CG. The model handles excellent there. The plane flies like a huge balsa model overall in terms of stability. It is very locked in and was unfazed flying in a gusting crosswind. Takeoffs are a piece of cake with the counter rotating props, and it has more than enough power. I generally fly at below 50% throttle. It can slow down to hardly and airspeed and maintains excellent stability and authority. Also, believe the suggested throws in the manual!! It hardly take any throw from the elevator the pitch the model. I had extra elevator throw on my maiden flight and it was quite scary. Flight times are an impressive 8 minutes of scale flying with aerobatics, and landings are as easy as can be.
Overall
This kit is hard to find, is a lot of work, and is fragile. If you crash it, it will not be easy to put back together. But, it is also an extremely rewarding flight experience with an unparalleled scale appearance. If you are a builder, this is worth it 100% many times over. I love the FSK models because they look and fly like accurate replicas of the
full scale aircraft. If you are not a builder, find the PZ mosquito, because this is not a great first project.
So, maybe you've decided you want one. Now there's just one problem.. Where do you get one? Personally, I would contact them on their site, and find out if what you want is available: http://www.flyingstyrokit.com As far I know, nobody over RCG has received an order from them since they restarted after an unfortunate factory fire. Best bet is likely the RCG classifieds. I hope maybe someday Motion would consider working with them as they really do make some fanastic models. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll be happy to help!
- Scale 1:13
- Length 870 mm
- Wingspan 1150 mm
- Weight 660-760 g
Construction
This model is, as the company name implies, a fairly basic kit. It is in no way an ARF. Some experience with balsa building and with vacuformed parts is recommended before trying to build one of these kits. The fuselage, empennage, wings, and nacelleces are all made of a type of depron skinned with a plastic-like coating. Balsa and plywood bulkheads reinforce the fuselage and nacelles. The wing has a balsa spar the runs the length, but no other reinforcement. The nose, cowls, exhaust, strut covers, pilots, and other details come prepainted on several large vacuformed sheets. One really impressive thing about the Flying Styro Kit models is that they have a full cockpit tub. All of the walls are very detailed and very easy to add custom detailing. The finish on the skin of the model is fanastic though! Since it is plastic coated, there are no foam cell marks, and panel detail is sharp and clear.
The model is designed for up either fixed gear or belly landing and with brushed motors and nicads in mind. I wanted to add full retracts and gears doors to mine. I used the lightest electric retracts I could find: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...arehouse_.html and silver soldered together an adapter that allowed the stock fixed struts to plug into the retract. I also used the stock vac formed strut covers and wheels. I also cut a small recess in the bottom of the wing to accomadate the tire when retracted. To mount the gear, I made a 1/8" plywood base and sanded it to correct for dihedral. The inside of the wing was also reinforced with carbon fiber strips above where the gear were mounted.
Other reinforcements and mods were made to the fuselage. 2 thin carbon flats were epoxied to the inside of the boom the riencorce the structure. Carbon was also added to rear of the spar. In addition, the stock wing joiners seemed fragile to me, so I made new ones out of 1/8" plywood. The spinner backplate was also reinforced with 1/8" plywood.
I also added a Robart #122 tail retract in the rear for the full scale appearance, and hinged the main gear doors. A band of elastic was used to pull the doors closed when the gear retract.
Also, leave the nose as a last piece to glue on!! That is were you will probably need to add lead to make it balance.
Propulsion and Electronics
For the power system, I used 2 2216 880kv T-motors turning the props from the FMS B-25. The stock props were flimsy, and did not counter-rotate, so these were a huge improvement. For ESCs I used 2 Hobbywing 25A controllers, and a castle BEC to power the whole setup. The stock electronics bay is tiny, so I cut out the bomb bay area and located the tail retract and rudder servos there. I used HS-65s on all surfaces, probably overkill, but better safe than sorry. All of this runs off of a 3S 2200 25C battery. Only a thiner 3S battery will fit well in the compartment. The admiral pro fits very nicely.
Paint and Decals
Both of these were well done. The decals are all highly quality waterslide type, and blend right into the the paint job. However, during building I messed up the stock paint, so I repainted it in the same scheme with airbrushed tamiya colors. The pilots and cockpit details were hand-painted with model masters.
Flight Characteristics
I balanced the model gear up at the forward CG mark. In the manual, there are 2 CGs called out, one for "test flying" and one for "normal flying". I highly recommend the forward "test" CG. The model handles excellent there. The plane flies like a huge balsa model overall in terms of stability. It is very locked in and was unfazed flying in a gusting crosswind. Takeoffs are a piece of cake with the counter rotating props, and it has more than enough power. I generally fly at below 50% throttle. It can slow down to hardly and airspeed and maintains excellent stability and authority. Also, believe the suggested throws in the manual!! It hardly take any throw from the elevator the pitch the model. I had extra elevator throw on my maiden flight and it was quite scary. Flight times are an impressive 8 minutes of scale flying with aerobatics, and landings are as easy as can be.
Overall
This kit is hard to find, is a lot of work, and is fragile. If you crash it, it will not be easy to put back together. But, it is also an extremely rewarding flight experience with an unparalleled scale appearance. If you are a builder, this is worth it 100% many times over. I love the FSK models because they look and fly like accurate replicas of the
full scale aircraft. If you are not a builder, find the PZ mosquito, because this is not a great first project.
So, maybe you've decided you want one. Now there's just one problem.. Where do you get one? Personally, I would contact them on their site, and find out if what you want is available: http://www.flyingstyrokit.com As far I know, nobody over RCG has received an order from them since they restarted after an unfortunate factory fire. Best bet is likely the RCG classifieds. I hope maybe someday Motion would consider working with them as they really do make some fanastic models. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll be happy to help!
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