Amazing flying airplane! Tough too, builds nice and easy. Powered mine with a throttleable Cox 0.049 glow engine, rather than the recommended electric setup! Gave it a 4 ounce fuel tank, throttle servo, the works. Mine's incredibly overweight and, on a 6x4 Top Flite wood 1/2a prop and half a tank of 24% nitro 1/2a fuel on board, it still lifted off without a care in the world!
My maiden flight ended prematurely when the throttle servo came unglued and shut the engine off when it was low-and-slow; plane nosedived like a brick. Sum total of damage was a nose gear stoved in, I had it airworthy again with maybe 45 minutes of work.
If you're even half-tempted by an FT aircraft, this is a good one to start with. You won't regret building one of these!
I have had the FT Commuter for a couple of years, and here is my take on it.
Build experience:
The build of this plane is very fun and rewarding. It is more complex than your standard mighty mini speed build kit, so having a little experience with Flite Test build techniques would be valuable. But the way it forms together into a beautiful geodesic shape is really cool. If you take your time, you can make it really clean and good-looking. The landing gear is a little challenging to make symmetrical, but again, if you take your time, it can come out looking pretty nice.
Flight experience:
When it comes to flying, this little plane might be considered under-powered (I'm using a FT power pack A components with a 2 cell 800 mah battery). It has enough power to take off or hand launch, and to cruise around, but gaining altitude is a little difficult, and aerobatics are not really in the cards (it can do rolls, loops, and wingovers, but just barely). However, the power is pretty true to scale for a Cessna 150; it's not sporty, but it is fun to just cruise around nice and low, and do fly byes. The landing gear is definitely only workable on a smooth surface: no grass takeoffs, but landing on the grass doesn't seem to hurt it. And on a paved runway, you can glide it in for some really nice landings.
Comments:
The FT Commuter is pretty durable. I have experienced only one crash, which resulted from using an off-brand receiver which lost connection and sent me diving into the ground from 30 feet up. The plane sustained only minor damage in the form of crinkled cowling and torn power pod. Other than that it was fine.
I have a couple of thoughts about the design, namely the battery compartment and the wing attachment. There is a fairly large space inside the fuselage for servos, receivers, and wires, which makes the build process pretty easy. However, the wing is glued on, so any time you need to service those components, you have to cut it off, as I did when I replaced the faulty receiver. Would have been nice to have a removeable wing.
Second, the battery compartment. It's a really slick design, having a little hatch and slot for the battery to slide into; however, it requires that you have just the right size and shape battery. There's literally no wiggle room with the battery to adjust center of gravity, which, depending on how much glue you used in the build, could mean it's pretty out of balance with little opportunity for tuning. The battery that fits in the slot is an 800 mah 2 cell; at least my 800 fits in there; a little different shape may not.
These are a couple of gripes I have about the design, but I guess you have to sacrifice a little versatility in order to get this nice rounded, scale look in the final result. Over all, I think Ben Harber did a great job with this plane, and it was well worth the build. Since it is a little underpowered, I wouldn't recommend this to a brand new beginner, but it's not really hard to fly at all; it just flies a little more scale than your average Flite Test model.
Hope you found this helpful! Cheers!
-SpekitLe#1
I'm a beginner RC plane flyer but this is my experience. Also, I have other flite test planes and thoroughly enjoy them. I am in no way trying to bash or negatively sway others away from this flier. However, my notes here are just my experiences of flying this plane 30+ times and may contain inherited problems due to poor build. I would love help if my description identifies my problem and anyone knows a solution.
This plane is DURABLE. I have crashed this thing into concrete, grass and wooden fences with the most damage being bent wing tips and a pushed in power pod. Not even a propeller break! Also, the battery compartment fits the recommended battery perfectly snug. Hence, I gave it 2 stars.
The lack of 3 stars comes from the following:
Let me explain. I take off "runway" style. It takes about 20 feet at full throttle to self-lift at 90+% throttle. Less than 90% means I taxi forever. Immediately after lift off, it goes vertical and appears tail heavy. I solved this by adding 3 US quarters to the nose of the plane and not doing any movement after takeoff. If wind speed slowed or the need to correct a roll imposed by wind occurred, the plane does wild rolls from side to side, eventually crashing. Does this mean the plane is underpowered, or is this me my horrible flying and overcompensating?
The instructions do not explain the wheel system clearly either. After 3 taxi events, I noticed the wheels were eating into the glue "collars" and making the wheels rigid. I had to bend the wheel axel rod such that the wheel would gravitate towards the plane center, resulting in "positive chamber" configuration. I also had to re-glue and tape reinforce the front landing gear as the first crash tried to rip the triangular wheel mount off.
The placement of the tail servos in the same compartment as the receiver, ESC and other electronics meant there was potential for no servo movement if any of these components were to wedge themselves in the servo arms. This caused a crash or 2 for me. Consider creating a deflective shield out of the extra foam board to prevent this from occurring or implementing the removable wing idea explained later in this comment.
Usage of the single hole control horns and the 1st notch on the servo meant the throws were super short. Thus, my rudder and elevator do not move much. While elevator movement is not so critical, rudder is. Especially for taking turns while taxiing. I see videos of people turning while taxiing, I can't replicate that. My turns take 30 feet where theirs take 5 feet. My rudder only moves about 50% of the available space made by the design. I am not sure how to fix that since I've already added the coffee straws to the rods.
The tail servos should be inverted such that if a servo arm needs replacing or I want to use a longer arm, I don't have to drill a random hole in the wing top, thru to the canopy, to unscrew it.
It seems to me that the wing should have been designed to be removable instead of utilizing a tiny hatch in the bottom. Thus, giving massive access to the canopy, access to the servo arms for replacement and a greater ability to organize internal electronics. Is this an option and if so, would it be a Skewer + Rubber Band Combo? What are the downsides here?
The instructions do not address the usage of the straw covers to strengthen servo rod movement. I had to add these on the tail servos because the rod flex lessened tail control surface movement to almost nothing; especially under wind load.
Tape should be added to the power pod on all sides, especially where the skewer sticks are inserted to provide additional support for nose crashes.
The "wing support rods" with the skewer embedded did not have enough foam paper available to cover the skewer and over my crashes, the paper is coming off. Aesthetics but should be an easy fix.
Why are there no air flow exit points? Assuming it just won't get hot enough? I'm seriously asking because I also have the Mustang which seems to have plenty of air flow paths.
Food for thought, am I off base here?
I absolutely loved this airplane, it's a dream to fly and the geometric shape of the nose was delightful to build. You can do tricks like loops, rolls, and stall-turns. It has a calming effect every time I fly it, and its docile flights and forgiving characteristics make this airplane my favorite I've ever flown. Even after flying it for months, the crashes it endured have led to little damage and ones that can be fixed with some glue. Recently I had a rough crash, smashing the front of the plane, yet even with its nose squashed it still flew just as good. One of my complaints has to do with how the elevator is designed. The control horn embedded into one side of the elevator causes half of it to bend more than the other, causing the plane to slightly bank to the side. That's just my theory as to why it veers to one side, although I could be wrong. All in all, I highly recommend this airplane. It flys slow and smooth, and can take some relatively strong gusts, and just as hard crashes. Five stars!
This is a wonderful little plane. It’s definitely a challenging build compared to some of the classic Mighty Minis but I love the looks and it’s worth the challenge. The Commuter is very relaxing and graceful to fly, with minimal torque issues and almost complete silence from the new Radial A Pack motor. The landing gear was also a pleasant surprise in that I could both take off and land on it with ease, even with the fixed nose gear. FT has a real winner in the Commuter and I look forward to a bigger version someday.
