rcdude07
70cc twin V2
UM AS3X P-40 Warhawk Review
I received this little bird as a gift from my wife. I'm officially a P-40 Warhawk fan and wanted the micro bird to accompany my Top Flite P-40E Gold Edition kit.
Unboxing:
The UM P-40 is a beauty. Lots a scale lines to give it the scale appearance.
Large/beefy wheels. Compare to previous generations of ultra micros whose wheels were useless, these wheels are big enough to give the plenty plenty of prop clearance on smooth surfaces.
I made my new model and setup the throws per the manual on my DX8 then bound the two in typical HH fashion.
I was running on stock battery charge, so I gave a quick taxi test on the berber carpet, was plesantly pleased with the taxi performance.
Right aileron was dropping so I dialed in some sub trim on the TX.
CG check:
Admittedly I didn't do a very proper CG check, I guesstimated at the CG spots according to the manual, and set the plane inverted on my fingers. I found the idea HH suggests with the edge of a ruler to be a bit difficult for balancing. Almost no wiggle room. The plane looked okay with the battery back and wheels on.
Maiden flight #1:
Wheels on, battery all the way back and just a little bit of right aileron subtrim.
Flight was about 10 seconds long.
After review, tail heavy was the reason. She just pitched straight up and wanted to roll left due to the drooping aileron.
Maiden flight #2:
At first the RX acted like it wasn't binding or getting powered. I rebound and things were good.
Wheels off because the outside retainer of one of the wheel came off on the maiden and it's not worth digging through the grass for it because I knew I'd be taking the wheels off for flying 99.9% of the time.
Flight was about 20 seconds long.
I brought her back in to fix the aileron problem with sub trim.
Battery was still all the way back. Still super tail heavy.
Maiden flight #3:
Again, RX acted like it wasn't getting power. Then I remembered, AS3X, need to keep still for 5 seconds before it'd initialize. So I stopped holding the plane and set it on the box. It powered on and was ready to go.
About 10 seconds flight. Doink'ed nose first in the pavement (purposely did so). With +53 right aileron subtrim to fix the drooping aileron, I had no right turning on the plane. She went off behind me into the parking lot. If I when left, it would have been in the trees and right was not working.
Maiden Flight #4:
Cut the right aileron sub trim down to 23 and I moved the battery as far forward as possible, which helped out. But she still rolled left severely and she still pitched up, but not as badly. Still tail heavy, but manageable at 50%-70% throttle. She still wanted to roll left a little, but not as bad so I could trim it some.
First decent flight, second pack:
Now she's flying manageable after all of the above changes. She's a solid performer. Tracks straight, looks good in the air. Surprisingly was the glide ratio. Unlike the original UM P-51 this bird will glide if you cut power. Stalling she just noses down. Due to the aileron issue, turns to the right required right rudder to be effective. Turns to the left were fine. I did not see an issue with banking and yanking. Then again, I was flying wide turns as typically UMs don't do sharp turns well. Split Ses and Immelmans were not an issue. Loops require speed. Need to dive it a little and go WOT to pull through a large symmetrical loops. Just pulling and holding up elevator from level flight is not enough. Snap rolls are large, and aileron rolls are crisp. Inverted flight was nice as well, just a little bit of pushing the stick was needed.
Due to the camo color scheme she washed out quick against the trees at distance. Due to the scale of the plane, I found myself performing straffing runs and making machine gun sounds.
I flew 2 more packs following the same flying style.
Maiden flight damage report
Nose dive into pavement due to no right aileron and being tail heavy caused some scuffs to the spinner. Trying to gun 'n go after a slow low pass resulted in a cartwheel when the wing tip grabbed the ground (and being tail heavy).
Telemetry
These micro AS3X RXes transmit some basic telemetry back to the TX. I noticed the word telemetry on my DX8 when binding, but didn't think much of it. After talking to others who have AS3X micro birds, it transmits the number of drop frames and holds. I haven't spent any time monitoring this information, but will do so in the future.
Overall Impression:
Pros:
- Pretty little plane.
- Scale details
- AS3X makes the plane fly bigger than it is
- Flies significantly bigger than the original ultra micro P-51 I have had for 3 years.
- Telemetry
Cons:
- Super tail heavy out of the box
- Balancing instructions from HH don't allow for much wiggle room and I'm not a fan of balancing a plane right side up.
- Drooping aileron out of the box.
- Won't loop with out speed. (in fairness, the full scale version was not known for its high altitude maneuverability, so I chalk this up to flying scale like).
- AS3X initialization when holding the plane may not work, as in my case several times. Must remember to set the plane down and keep it still/level for 5 seconds to hear the RX come on and be ready to go.
Conclusion:
Good plane. It's going to be a regular in my hangar. May replace my original UM P-51 as the plane I grab during the week to get some before work or lunch time flying at the local park. However, if you want a plane you don't want to muck with out of the box to get it to fly right, this is not the plane for you. You'd want to go with the new UM P-51. Also, if you want a straight up aerobatic micro warbird that can loop from level flight at 50-75% throttle, this is not the bird of choice.
Modifications after the maiden flights:
1. I marked the CG at the top of the wings with a small dot of a permament marker
2. Cut out foam from the nose to move the battery pack forward. It's ugly, but the foam isn't thick and I wanted a somewhat level spot to put the velcro on the foam. Now the pack will be more suspect to damage on hard belling landing and plopping as it sticks out off the plane a full battery thickness. I also dialed out all of the down trim. A CG check now has the nose slightly slightly lower than the tail. The foam here was not super thick and it's a large cavity inside, so this contributed to the tail heaviness of the plane
3. Against my desire, I cut the tape and opened the fuse of the plane. I adjusted the aileron control rod to bring the ailerons level. I also dialed out all subtrim and trim on the ailerons.
Post modification flight report:
TBA
