Estes 747 Air Force One

Among my Christmas gifts this year was a scale Air Force One (foamie) R/C plane by Estes. It is a very nice looking plane and has four brushed Electric Ducted Fan (EDF) engines. The plane is really marketed as more of a "toy" as it comes with a 27mhz controller and no control surfaces. The plane uses thrust vectoring for control, which means the left/right yaw is controlled by powering down the engines on one side or the other. Elevation is controlled by engine speed. Speaking of engine speed, the stock controller only has two speeds, full and 1/2, which is used in turns.

Maiden Flight - Another oddity was the inclusion of an "EZ Launch system", which is a stake and a long bungee to propel the plane forward. For the maiden flight I decided to go by the book and us the bungee. The initial launch went pretty well...at first I thought I would not gain any altitude but it did start to climb. I managed to make a very large turn to the right very low to the ground when I decided to land as I could tell I wasn't going to be able to control it very well. A second flight ended up about the same but I passed way to close to some walkers in the park. I came in for rough landing and popped two of the engines off. Luckily the engines are designed to pop off in a rough landing. The bottom line on this plane in its stock configuration is you need a very large area to fly and no wind. I tried to fly it again a week later with similar results. I have decided to ground this plane pending some upgrades. The plane is to follow in the foot steps of others on the Internet and add ailerons, elevator, new receiver, ESC and a lipo. According to one of the guys at our local field the plane flies nicely with these modifications.