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A friend of mine purchased and built a Birdie 10. I did the one, and
only (so far ) test flight with it. Here are some opservations of
building, dealing with Hobby Shack, and the first flight, as I can
remember from talking with him.
1. The kit arrived with a few pieces of bad quality wood. Doug called
Hobby Shack to request new wood, they sent hin an entire new kit.
He still has the old one, so he has plenty of spare parts.
2. This plane absolutely requires micro-servos. There just isn't any
room for anything else (additional expense )
A micro reciever would also help, as some of the larger (ie; 6
channel futaba conquest FM reciever) won't fit. He was able to
squeeze an AM 4 channel reciever in it.
3. The plane was underpowered with an O.S. 15 on it ( although he had
a silicone extension pipe on it which may have reduced power ).
The .20 should work well, may be a little tougher to fit.
4. The fuel tank was also difficult to fit, as again, there isn't
much room inside. You are limited in size to about a 4 oz? tank.
5. The wheels are really too small for a grass field, so I would
either increase in diameter, or discard, hand launch, and land
deadstick
Flight characteristics:
( The one and only flight was limited to 2 minutes, as the engine
threw the prop in flight. )
It didn't seem to do too well in a fairly brisk wind ( although more
power would have helped )
It flys similar to an Electrostreak (small electric pattern plane),
and should be fairly precise once trimmed out.
Bottom line:
The Birdie 10 is a nice small plane, that should be fun to fly
(with adaquate power).
Don't let the extremely low kit cost fool you. As with electrics,
the internal hardware can pile up the cost
pretty quickly.
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