After cleaning dirt off the nose with a wet bit of kitchen roll, I found hardly any damage, couple of bits of embedded dirt and very little actual damaged depron. I have seen this little plane go into the ground pretty hard. Too many times actually, its pretty tricky to fly, especially right after flying planes with undercambered wings. It has a lot of torque roll, which is ok, but trying to get enough trim on the elevons means a lot of drag so I decided to tweak in a bit of up on the left wing trailing edge, this helped a lot. It can fly relatively slowly but the controls become less effective the slower you go. It is happy around half throttle and becomes a little rocket on full power. Amazing little plane, I just need to learn to fly it better, it is small, so I expect it to be twitchy. My friend had a shot, thinking it couldnt be that hard, managed about 20 seconds with some hairy maneuvers then managed to hit himself with it and half tore the wing off. If it didnt have the fibreglass tape 'spar' top and bottom, it would have just torn off. I used tiny amounts of uhu glue and a 1 inch square of fibreglass tape to repair. The motor cooling seems to work, the prop hasnt moved, even after a couple of javelin type landings. Lol.
I am still amazed that a 33.7g rc plane is even possible! And its fast, tough, cheap, and runs for as long or longer than most glow engined planes I have had.
Total depron cost is probably £2.30 (The average sheet price for my assorted pack) a motor from dead quadcopter, battery from an e-fag, pushrods from a bamboo blind, with paperclip ends. I have run out of 1mm carbon for pushrods, its lighter than the bamboo. Then £13 for the board which can be moved between models easily. Incredible, and a bit of recycling too. I forgot to mention uhu glue, probably about 10p? I have built at least 10 models from the tube. From a poundshop.
Removing the cost of the radio bits leaves a £2.50 airframe, more if I use carbon. And they store easier than my 1/4 scale K8 glider! It was considerably more than £2.50 though, its worthy of very careful storage. Lovely kit, I was in two minds whether to cover it or not.
Anyway, I hope to get better with the micro jet and get a decent flight on video.