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Very interesting to read the varying opinions of Luna vs Typhoon.    They're both super models, of course.  I don't have either, but I have been flying my Erwin with both.  The Typhoon is very impressive - it just amazes me how good this latest generation of affordable mouldies is - but I have to say the Luna is amazingly good in lighter air.    I was flying the Erwin with the Luna in light air recently, and the Luna was performing so much better, it really impressed me.  It just flies so beautifully - graceful, fast and agile.  A first-time mouldie owner is going to feel that the Luna is amazingly fast.  Sure, in big air the rather more specialist Erwin is a whole lot faster again, but those days are in a minority.  For enjoyable general summer flying, I just think the Luna is such a lovely glider.   The Typhoon is great too, of course, and slightly faster than the Luna in stronger lift.  I guess if I had no 2m mouldie I might go for the Typhoon for my style of flying, but since I have the Erwin, if I were to buy another 2m glider it would be the Luna.   They're both so good I guess no one regrets buying either.          Edited By Gary Parker on 04/08/2010 09:33:16

You're right, that Graupner glider puts the Merlin price into perspective: a larger model also from an expensive German brand yet it costs 25% less than the Merlin.

Yes, the tests showed 2.4GHz was far better than 35mhz.  But let's face it, 35MHz is good enough 99% of the time.   I wonder if the author was sponsored by Spektrum - a lot of the tests seemed to find that Spektrum worked better than Futaba (the Futaba was good, but the Spektrum was better).  I'm sure it was unbiased, but nevertheless, as soon as I read results like that I get interested in where the author's allegiences might lie and what financial drivers might exist.  

Apparently you should avoid black heatshrink since many black pigments contain carbon to make them black.  So black heatshrink (or any black tube) probably has some radio-blocking carbon in it - although I suspect it's not enough to have a major effect.    

A lot of flying wings rock slightly.  I find you need quite a bit of reflex to launch any flying wing, but if you leave that reflex in place for normal flight, the wing rocks.    So you need a launch mode (with both elevons up say 3mm) and a flight mode (with both elevons up say 1mm).  Or reflex on a switch or something.    (Reflex is having both elevons slightly upwards, all flying wings I'm aware of need it, but too much causes that distinctive oscillating).    

If you slope soar in the south east of England you may be interested in this website which gives details of slopes to fly at.  It's updated monthly and the July update has just gone live.  It's not a commercial website, no ads, no junk, just details/maps/photos of 55 good places to slope soar near London, in the home counties, on the South Downs etc.   www.slopehunter.co.uk      

I just got one.  It'll take me a while to fit it and assess it in the air though.   Some US flyers have extended the aerials on the 'normal' Spektrum receivers with success.  Not the same as the genuine 9300 though, because that has coex grounded via special plugs onto the circuit board.  The modded normal receivers aren't grounded and so won't be as good in radio terms.  But people claim they're working good enough.   There is a £20 carbon extension receiver you can buy.  You could plug that into a normal 7000 or 9000 receiver.  Then you'd have two short aerials on the normal receiver and one carbon aerial on the extension receiver.  Might be good enough for your needs.            

I also bought two AR500s from Al's Hobbys at the Wings and Wheels show last weekend.  After reading Ausen Rover's problems I checked mine.  One is fine - instant reconnect, too quick to measure, far less than a second -  one is faulty, 6 seconds to reconnect.    Bizzarre.  Al's must have been taking them out of transmitter combos of different ages.  It's a bit shoddy of them to be selling really old stock without warning people.   So of course the faulty one is being sent off to Horizon to update - at 6 seconds to reconnect the plane would have been lying smashed on the ground for 3 of those seconds!      

Okay, this is picky, but what's really bothering me about the SLOM article is that he says it only afflicts the X chromosome ... not where I fly, it always seems to be men ... ie we of the Y chromosome persuasion ...  

Allegedly the Thunder Power 2200s I have are only 2000 even when new!  Apparently a lot of manufacturers slightly exaggerate their capacities...

Thanks Timbo, that's great info - I never knew exactly how much I should undercharge them at home when going to fly in the cold.  I generally just charged them to 12.3V or so (for 3S batteries) for winter flying and I've had no problems, my lipos give good performance and seem to last a great many cycles. 

Yeah, charging them in the cold and then putting them in a warmer place should be fine.  It's the other way around that can be damaging.  Letting the lipos get cold by flying high is not inherently bad, as long as they weren't fully charged in the warmth first.  You see, lipos don't mind getting cold as long as they don't enter an overcharged state.  If you charge them chock full in the warmth, and then put them in a plane and take it up to altitude where it might be minus 2 or something, they might enter an overcharged state.  Or maybe the power you used to get them up there would have taken off enough charge for them to be fine. Apparently some research suggests that charging them half full, then keeping them in the fridge, is a way to have them last a long time.  Can't be bothered myself...    

If you charged them in the house and then kept them very cold, they would have become overcharged (because lipos cannot hold as much charge when they're cold so they enter an overcharged state if you significantly reduce the temperature after fully charging them).   Sorry to say it sounds like they've had it.  If you charged them in the garage, it would be interesting to let us know, because if you charged them in the day at say 10 degrees and then they went down to say 4 degrees, I would have guessed that would be slightly damaging but not enough of a temperature variation to totally ruin them in the way you describe.

You should be fine with a 35A ESC.  When I started I had two planes that each had a 30A ESC with a 30A max motor and eventually both of the ESCs ignited!  So since then I've always used ESCs that are plenty big enough so I don't have to worry about them.

Yeas, that looks perfect.  The weight, power etc are about right - a little heavier and a little more powerful than the standard power set is exactly what you want.  The BRC motor's shaft is 4mm, same as the official motor, so the standard prop holder will fit.  I think you may have to knock the shaft through so it sticks out the other end since the motor needs to fit behind the firewall, not in front of it.  Or maybe that will work without changing the shaft, hard to tell from the photo. By the way, I suggest you use a 40A speed controller, don't use a 30A one, that would be cutting it too fine.  Don't you hate it when speed controllers catch fire?

If a wingtip hits the ground the wing will rotate maybe 10 degrees or so, just because the leverage is so high on that high aspect ratio wing, and the bolts are only flexible plastic screwed into plastic.  I haven't broken any.  Lately I haven't twisted it at all because the winds have been lower.  Had a good evening flying at Ditchling Beacon on the south downs yesterday.

My impression is that almost everyone is making their Blizzard powered.  I've heard various people complain about the wing/tail flutter in the powered version.  Mine weighs 850 grams, which isn't that much lighter than a powered version.  I reckon it must be prop wash causing the flutter becuse my unpowered slope soarer doesn't flutter no matter how extreme the flying.  Maybe it was a bit overambitious of Multiplex to offer a crazy 470 Watts of power in a little foam plane.  Slope soaring in 35mph winds I reckon I must have hit 80mph or so, plenty of high-g turns, yet no problems, no flutter at all.  Well, problems for me - it was too fast and hectic for me in those winds - but the plane proved it could take it.   

I've been flying the Blizzard for a couple of months now and I thought I would give a quick update report.  Mine's unpowered, used for slope soaring. First of all, the Blizzard's flying qualities are fantastic.   I can't think of anything to say to fault it.  Marvellous: fast, aerobatic, purposeful, predictable, no vices. Mine's had quite a hard life, as slope soarers always do.  The Multiplex plug connector hasn't lasted.  That's because it takes the stress if the wing hits on landing.  The wing is designed to move quite easily to protect it, but that means the connector gets twisted and eventually gives up the ghost.  So I've fitted a new Multiplex connector that isn't attached to the wing or fuselage.  I simply plug it in myself before bolting on the wing. The hinges are not robust.  This harder elapor isn't as successful at hinging as the other Multiplex models with their softer Elapor.  The aileron hinges tear slightly every time I have a bumpy landing.  I can't quite figure out what stress is causing that.  Maybe they're tearing in the air before I land?  It's easy enough to cyano them back together, but it makes them a bit stiffer, and eventually they're too stiff for the micro servos.  I can see that soon I'm going to have to cut them and replace them with silicon hinges. Apart from that, the news is good.  That plastic nose takes big impacts without breaking.  Everything else has survived well.  The Blizzard is a great plane to throw up first to check out the conditions before risking expensive moulded slope soarers.  I've flown it in ridiculously strong 35mph winds, and in weak 8mph winds, and it's proved it's up to the job.  Because it's robust and not worth hundreds of pounds, it's really good fun to fly hard without feeling stressed.

You raise good points.  I think your  "80% of the performance of a mouldy" figure is realistic.  The thing with the Blizzard is because it's small it seems faster, and because you dare to fly it low and close it seems faster.  So the impression at the slope is quite startling.  Even people who hate foamies have been impressed.  But clearly in reality if the Blizzard were evenly matched up with a moulded plane, the mouldy would offer higher performance.  The bottom line with the Blizzard is that for a modest scrap of foam it flies startlingly well and is a heck of a lot of fun.    

Actually you have a point there - I meant that its shape is the same as a mouldy, but the actual surface doesn't look that great with all those stiffening fibreglass struts in there. Fast ?  Well, mine's been the fastest plane in the sky every time I've flown - simply because the expensive mouldies got flown more gingerly.  But if all planes were flown with equal zest I'm sure the expensive mouldies would be slightly faster.  But only slightly - that's the weird thing about the Blizzard, it actually flies better than anyone would expect.  So much better than turning up with an expensive mouldy and then being afraid to fly it to its full capability!  (I have an expensive mouldy and I am afraid to fly it with the same speed and aerobatics as I fly the Blizzard!)

Sorry about that, I was in the review section so I thought I was posting a review, but it appeared on the forum ... it's all too complicated for me on a Friday ...

You are going to love this!  The Blizzard is a small, fast, high performance Elapor foam glider from Multiplex that flies a treat.  The Blizzard can be built with a motor (including an insanely powerful 470 Watt version) or as an unpowered slope soarer.  It arrives in a surprisingly small box - the wing is in two parts but gets glued to form a one-piece wing, 1.38 metres wide.  The model is sleek with thin, fast wings - it looks exactly like an expensive, high performance moulded glider, except that it is moulded out of foam - come to think of it, that means it is a mouldy! The Blizzard is made from Multiplex's well known Elapor foam (which is apparently polystyrene blended with high density polyethylene), except the Blizzard's foam is smoother and harder than the Elapor found in previous Multiplex models.  Assembly is straightforward.  However you receive an 8 metre reel of coiled thin fibreglass rod which you have to snip into pieces and glue into channels in the wing and fuselage to stiffen the model, and this is fiddly and time consuming.  The wing ends up with a strange herringbone pattern on it due to these stiffeners - unusual but effective.  The wing also has two long carbon spars in it.  This wing is not going to bend!  The fuselage has a tough plastic nose cone and a similar piece to hold the V tail.  The V tail can be built with one servo (no rudder) or two servos (elevator and rudder).  The model is easy to convert to and from power if you wish. The flying is the Blizzard's forte.  It flies like it looks - heck, even better than it looks - fast, purposeful and aerobatic.  As a slope soarer it handles higher winds than you would imagine, and flies so incredibly well that everyone who has seen it in action has been quite stunned by its performance.  In short, the Blizzard offers £400 moulded slope soarer performance for under £80.  Multiplex has another winner on its hands.

So many options ... the MVVS 3.5 (kv 1200 or 890) would be good.  I'd be quite tempted by the 890 just because I like large, slow-moving, quiet props.  There are cheaper options though.  You could go for a smaller motor if you wanted because the Cularis doesn't actually need a lot of power to rise upwards.  Or you might want a fast hotliner type motor.  You'll need to decide whether you want a separate receiver battery or not since many ESCs won't handle six servos (personally I prefer to get one good ESC with a powerful switching BEC - such as a Hacker SB Pro or a HobbyWing ESC from Giant Cod - but others prefer to go the separate battery or separate UBEC route).  Personally I reckon it's best to go for a 45-60A ESC rather than cutting it fine with a 40A ESC. Nothing wrong with the official Multiplex power set of course, except that it's not the cheapest.

I had a Futaba 6EX ... either its programming is pretty limited or I could never figure it out ...

Actually I agree about the Easystar, I find those rudder only models quite tricky to fly because they don't really do what you tell them to.  I added ailerons to my Easystar and that made it fly really well.