72" GoldWing Corvus

Review :

What a beautiful plane this is!      April, 2020

Positives:
    - Very nice Oracover film finish - very nice design and just a little more shrinking required.
    - I like the cowl attachment method - actually fairly typical of planes this size.
    - Very well glued up airframe - nice and solid. 
    - The undercarriage mounting is very sturdy! The double 'L' beams running fore and aft from the undercarriage plate is a great innovation (for strength).

    - Very nice carbon undercarriage.

    - I like the wheel stub axles. Did however replace the provided wheels with Dubro low bounce that fitted into the spats.
    - Very nice canopy slide clips. They did require a bit of trimming and lubrication to get them to slide well. 
    - Ball jointed push rods are great.
    - Rolls Royce tail wheel assembly!
    - Lastly, the oracover finish design is beautiful....

Negatives:
    - Well, just one, the covering film is not the best quality!

Out-of-Box:

- Very sturdy packaging.

- All components nicely held and protected in place by bubble wrap, plastic bags and tape. 

Build:

- A turbo spinner was installed.

- The undercarriage structural support is well considered and very tough.

- I took a long time to install all the hinged control surfaces, making sure they are nicely located and quite free of glue mess etc.

- In general, the build went very well. Rudder nice and square to the wings. The rear stabiliser required no shimming to get it parallel with the wings. I certainly like the innovative Goldwing method for building the stabilizer in one piece. Combined the elevator halves for single servo actuation.

- I employed  a rear-located servo for the rudder (with comensurate push-pull shaft operation). 

- The motor mount is a Goldwing-provided standoff. 

- Installed an arming switch (XT90 version) and 20 amp regulator. The regulator is connected to just one of the batteries and is armed when the arming switch is inserted.

- Our rough, grass field made short work of the wheel spats. I now run naked wheels!!

Power Considerations:

    - Using the 2 x 5S 5000 50C batteries, Dualsky ECO5330-225 and 19x12 APC prop was supposed to yield about 2490watts at the ESC. This equates to a theoretical 571w/kg wellpast the 450w/kg considered a minimum requirement for an aerobatic plane. This plane's arse is on fire! Quite spectacular to pilot.

    - After a full 5 minute sequence, the plane lands with all cool components - nice.

    - The sound of the plane with this power system is very pleasing. Really quiet and powerful.

Comments after about 30 flights:

    - Even at high power the plane produces very low noise - pleasingly quiet in flight.

    - The very soft, "low bounce" Dubro wheels are very quiet even on the rough grass strip! The grease and snug tight wheel collars (no play along the shaft) contribute to this quiet performance. 

Overall Performance:

    - Altogether a very nice performing plane. I am well pleased. The FC-151 works very nicely to remove wind bumpiness.

    - I have added the provided SFGs (Side Force Generators) and the roll performance is great with quite adequate knife edge boyancy. The SFGs must be checked for parallel installation to avoid left to right oscillation during flight.

    - Super plane, top marks to Gold Wing. I especially like the artwork - very bold.