TonyS Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 This is to try to keep topics in the right place and continues form the conversations running in my Yak build blog.... As by now you'll all have guessed I'm not touching the Yak again today - already done enough damage and everything I touch today is going wrong so I thought I'd pick up on a debate that's been around a wee while. I've been flying a Starmax F-9F Panther. It was bought, almost by accident and long before I was ready, but 3 airframes later, I love it. Plus points for me are: The shape - just my cup of tea The performance, good but not scary Flight times with std kit and 1700mAh LiPo is 7 mins - not bad. It's hand-launchable (pretty much a must) It's designed to not need cheater holes Minus points: And this is a BIG to all Starmax stockists in the UK....Why can't you stock replacement parts / airframes you numpties . If you did, and advertised the fact, more people would buy the planes!! At present I have to go to eBay and buy the airframe from HK for a total inc postage of £64 - ludicrous. It's fragile - very fragile The Lander Panther has been recommended (By Dusty and others) . Is it hand-launchable? It does have cheater holes (does this detract from the look) What flight times can you get? What;'s the performance like Can you get spares / new airframes? Any other thoughts / views? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken anderson. Posted October 18, 2009 Share Posted October 18, 2009 tonyS-one of our club member's fly's the lander panther....he fly's it on a 4cell lipo....i've hand launched it dozen's of time's..no problem--------a very stable model with no nasty (hidden) vice's.......... ken anderson.......... PS...full throttle=4 min's............max......Edited By ken anderson. on 18/10/2009 09:18:02 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyS Posted October 18, 2009 Author Share Posted October 18, 2009 Thanks Ken, Sounds like it might be an option. I have a feeling that it's possible to buy just the airframe in the UK which I admit would be a massive plus (not that I'm intending crashing but, well, you know how it goes sometimes....) 4 Mins is short though do you know what battery capacity he's using? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken anderson. Posted October 18, 2009 Share Posted October 18, 2009 Tim, As Ken says im running the 4s version and the model has brilliant performance although you still need to run it flat out on the throttle. Im using a 4s Rhino 4700mah and get around 4 minutes flight before the motor dies. Here is a link to me flying the panther at my local club. http://www.bvrmc.co.uk/video_31.html (4th video down) Craig tonyS---here is the copy of his post off this site for you................ ken anderson........bvrmc chairman..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Stokes Posted October 21, 2009 Share Posted October 21, 2009 Tony I also have the Lander panther with their aluminium fan. I run it on 4s 3700mah 25C li-po's. Flight times 5 mins Sound, awesome just right at half throttle. I set it up as a hand launch and with flaps. In reality the flaps are not needed the air frame is light and it will glide effortlessly. This caught me out on the first few landings having to put a lot of down elevator in to get it to come down. Recommend it and the fan unit. Looks lovely in the air. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyS Posted October 21, 2009 Author Share Posted October 21, 2009 Thanks Guys, I love the shape of this plane and will replace mine. The real difficulty is that I have the motor, fan and servos from the Starmax so replacement will cost £69 - £48 for the airframe and £18 for the postage from HKong. Most peeved with Starmax and their distributors for not stocking in the UK...... To buy the Lander will be much more expensive as I'd need to buy airframe fan, motor and maybe different servos. £ lots !! Out of choice I'd buy the Lander - as you can see I'm not happy with Starmax - but it may come down to economics..... 5 mins isn't too bad though I'm struggling with Craig's 4700 mAh 4 mins and Stephen's 3,700 5 mins (Do you really fly flat out for 4 mins Craig!!!!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Carr Posted October 22, 2009 Share Posted October 22, 2009 Well done that man Tony (aka Mr Observant), When I made the original posting (ages ago on a different thread) I made a stupid typo and put the packs down as 4700 when Im actually using the same as Steven (4S 3700). Thought I had gotten away with it . Yep I tend to fly the model flat out for the whole flight. With the throttle open for the entire flight I can get 4mins 30 seconds but I have my timer set to 4 minutes to leave a 30 second window in reserve. Stephen, can I ask re your comment about loads of down elevator... My Panther does this really weird thing that as you approach touch down speed (I shut the throttle and glide in) the model raises its nose sharply and needs loads of down to correct. Does yours do that??? - Its balanced perfectly per the revised CofG and flys perfectly hands off with power on and on a glide....... it just does it at the final bit of the approach.... One club mate thought it may be the tail of the Panther is stalling before the rest of the airframe Craig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Stokes Posted October 22, 2009 Share Posted October 22, 2009 Craig Spot on with the glide characteristic. Power off and with a bit of speed she will almost hold level to the point of stall. You have to put in down elevator to get her down in a controlled manner. I set her up with 20 degrees of flaps for hand launch, with a very little (1 or 2mm of down elevator). If landing using flaps keep the power on and bring here down at around 35 to 45 degree approach to the strip, best with a head wind. I have also flown this in 10 to 15mph winds with no problem. A little head wind is best for hand launching. Have added a little sand paper in the wheel wells to help grip the thing when throwing it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Stokes Posted October 22, 2009 Share Posted October 22, 2009 CraigSpot on with the glide characteristic. Power off and with a bit of speed she will almost hold level to the point of stall. You have to put in down elevator to get her down in a controlled manner. I set her up with 20 degrees of flaps for hand launch, with a very little (1 or 2mm of down elevator). If landing using flaps keep the power on and bring here down at around 35 to 45 degree approach to the strip. best with a head wind. I have also flown this in 10 to 15mph winds with no problem. A little head wind is best for hand launching. Have added a little sand paper in the wheel wells to help grip the thing when throwing it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Stokes Posted October 22, 2009 Share Posted October 22, 2009 Spot on with the glide characteristic. Power off and with a bit of speed she will almost hold level to the point of stall. You have to put in down elevator to get her down in a controlled manner. I set her up with 20 degrees of flaps for hand launch, with a very little (1 or 2mm of down elevator). If landing using flaps keep the power on and bring here down at around 35 to 45 degree approach to the strip. best with a head wind. I have also flown this in 10 to 15mph winds with no problem. A little head wind is best for hand launching. Have added a little sand paper in the wheel wells to help grip the thing when throwing it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Carr Posted October 22, 2009 Share Posted October 22, 2009 Thanks Stephen, I also programmed in a mix on my TX to introduce a smidge of down when I move the throttle to power off, that helped a bit. Think Ill experiment with the flap settings as you suggest as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Stokes Posted October 23, 2009 Share Posted October 23, 2009 One more thought....The thing glides so well you probably don't need flaps.Save weight don't bother fitting the flap servos along with no retracts and wheels and fit a 4s 5000mah pack. The air frame can take the weight and this will give an estimated 6 or 7 min flight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shades Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 Why don't you just programme in flaps on your ailerons? That needs no extra weight and then you have the option. I find that with about 40 degrees of down, it glides in at a nice speed. The flaps seem to give more lift at slow speed rather than actually slowing it down. There isn't any more hinge clearance to allow more flap. Less flap is needed if landing into 10mph wind or more. With 4 cell 3700 35c the performance is fantastic, but as you say, 4 mins is max at full throttle. I have flown it with 5000mAh, it seems to fly almost as well, but takes a tad longer to get up to speed. I always hand launch mine with no probs. The sound from the alloy fan is brill. Don't bother fitting the supplied retracts, they are a joke. Far better to save the weight and have better performance. Also you won't need a seperate BEC as you only need 4 servos (with rudder). With full house you need at least 9 servos. IMO a bit over the top for such a small plane. Andy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dusty Posted March 31, 2010 Share Posted March 31, 2010 Tony, 3 Airframes later you could have had a fully kitted Lander Panther to the 9's! Couple of points... 1. The intakes are scale and not big enough to suplly the air to the fan hence the cheater hole! 2. WOT and having 4-5mins endurance on a EDF is awesome... cant help the lifespan of the lipos? 3. As mentioned a million times a HET 6409 fan is way up to standard! I use one with a cheap $16 Turnigy EDF motor and have 800W on a Rhino 3700 4s pack 4. For the cash you wanna splash a JEPE Mirage is 99 Euro at the moment! Errm I would never look back at another expensive foam 70mm model with poor ducting bla bla bla My 2p... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyS Posted August 28, 2010 Author Share Posted August 28, 2010 Hi Chaps, Just returned from the BMFA Nats and it really wouldn't have been a proper trip without buying just a little souvenir woudl it!! I'm afraid my passion for the F-9F did get the better of me and despite the many planes on offer I finally plumped for one of the massively reduced Lander Panther kits from the Overlander boys. I had to see how it compared to my old faithful Starmax Panther of which I'v managed to destroy 4 to date (See my thread ref my Tx having a fault and needing a repair). Firstly let me say that i loved the little Starmax plane. I always hand launched and with the stock motor and fan it jumped eagerly from a standing throw, flew for a good 7 mins on a 1700 mAh battery (into a slightly modded battery bay), and flew fast but predictably. I never had to fiddle with the CG and rarely had to give it much trim after checking that the elevator and ailerons were aligned properly on installation. I liked the slightly enlarged air intakes (rather than huge cheater holes) and for a relatively modest sum you could buy it virtually Rx ready (The hardest part of the assembly being the application of the water-slide decals!!) So..... the Lander has some big boots to fill!! First impressions out of the box are: Nice size!! The Lander is a good bit larger than the little Starmax. This can IMHO only be a very good thing. It's not that I think size is everything it's just that at speed, scale turns etc often put the model some distance away - size makes it that much easier to keep track !! (cont below) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyS Posted August 28, 2010 Author Share Posted August 28, 2010 The version I bought was an airframe only version with metal retracts fitted. I figured I'd have plenty of bits and bobs - fans / motors / servos to use from elsewhere so for £50 this seemed a good way to go. The second thing I noticed was that, to be honest the mouldings and paintwork were not quite up to the Starmax quality. My first job has been to fill the mould holes and strengthening spar channel in the underside of the wing with Model-lite. My second job will be to sand off the small mould pimples using fine grade Wet 'n Dry, cut out the flaps and re-spray the lot with foam safe silver paint. I'm very tempted to glass the thing but this needs a bit of thought. (My big problem is that I love the whole build process so I do tend to stretch it out a bit sometimes ) The nose cone looks ridiculously fragile - this is a seriously thin affair with moulded guns. I really don't like this and I'm thinking if I do nothing else this part would benefit from glassing. To do this I'd remove the "guns" first, then glass. The final observation is that the wing end tanks look much clunkier than on the Starmax. I'm not sure which version is most 'scale' but I'll reserve judgement as to which I prefer until I see this properly fettled together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyS Posted August 28, 2010 Author Share Posted August 28, 2010 OK. Moulding 'wells' filled and I'v decided to try to fix up some of the "smaller" jobs. Firstly I thought I'd cut out the rather horrible moulded pilot that is part of the canopy. Lander provide a much nicer one to fit in its place so I thought I'd do the swap. Having carefully removed the old pilot I discovered that the new one is fracitionally too tall to go into the plane without fouling the canopy cover. So, a bit of carving and colouring to do here. I've also spotted that the tail sections don't fit together - the horizontal stabiliser doesn't go into the rudder section. Also, rather oddly, the horizontal stab is gloss whereas the rudder section is matt paint...? Bizarre.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dusty Posted August 28, 2010 Share Posted August 28, 2010 Tony, Stuff the nose cone with some bubble rap = no more fragile nose cone! Fly off grass bin the retracts! handlaunch "yourself" with ease! many a way to power this plane so its a good test bed! You will have to live with the cheater hole as this is the only way to get air to the fan! You cant see it whilst flying anyway! You may want to read the RCG thread on this model as its like a million pages long with mods etc so should keep you intertained! I wouldnt bother with flaps either as its more weight, work and a nose diving panther when they deployed! Keep it simple and enjoy flying it! One of the better EDF models! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken anderson. Posted August 29, 2010 Share Posted August 29, 2010 hello tony-fellow forumite craig carr.......or ccc as he is known- flew a panther for a fair while...no retract's...we used to hand launch it no prob's...and the flying/landing was vice free as well----finally retired it after too many mission's...where it became tatty/battered... ken anderson ...ne.1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyS Posted August 29, 2010 Author Share Posted August 29, 2010 Bubble wrap! I was thinking about using expanding foam filler.... There seems to be a body of opinion building re the refracts on this kit I.e. Not great. Maybe I ahold have bought the hand launch version with the covers for the wheel wells and cheater hole after all! Too late re the flaps - already cut out....oooops Decided to glass it after all using lightweight cloth and Poly C. The foam is vetysoft and even handling it while I've been working has developed an accumulation of hanger rash. I'll check out the other posts. Thanks chaps. Now, off to the Nats again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyS Posted September 19, 2010 Author Share Posted September 19, 2010 Hi Chaps, Well nobody can say I wasn't warned.... On my return from hols yesterday i picked up some bits and pieces that had arrived in the post whilst I was away and today returned to the Panther. All assembled (still held together with masking tape while I finish fettling the wiring etc etc. I rolled the thing along the carpet at minimal throttle and guess what - the nose wheel just folded! I am now going to have to bin the retracts - as many have been telling me to - and convert to hand-launch. Note to Lander...... sort out the retracts - they are rubbish!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Hindle Posted September 20, 2010 Share Posted September 20, 2010 Go with the Lander electric retracts, I've got them on the cougar, too many flights to count and plenty of unexpected landings and still performing, no hassle, no problems, a bonus is that they don't bind / strip ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyS Posted October 4, 2010 Author Share Posted October 4, 2010 Quick update.... I've removed the retracts totally from the Lander and filled in the nose wheel well. This has massively simplified the wiring - three less servos, two less Y leads etc etc. The wing wheel wells are covered with glasscloth. During its short time with me the plane has accumulated a huge amount of hangar rash in the form of dings and dents. The polystyrene that this plane is made from is so soft.... It looks like a veteran already and I dreaded to think what a belly landing on anything but duck down would do so i took the plunge and decided that the weight saving from the removal of retracts could allow for glassing the vulnerable areas of the plane - all the wings, the front and underside of the fuselage. The double benefit is that I'm changing the colour scheme and the paint sticks well to the glasscloth / PolyC but terribly to the original paint. I was also worried about the nose cone which, as described earlier, is ludicrously fragile. In the case of the nose I cut off the rather badly moulded guns, filled it with expanding builders foam, then glued it on. The foam expands until it starts to pour out of the holes left by the guns. A word of warning - don't try to do this without leaving somewhere for the excess foam to go!!! i.e. leave a hole and put some paper underneath until it's all done expanding and setting. On reflection I was wondering about hand launching and whether I should have left the wheel wells open - it looks like it's going to be a difficult plane to launch. If this proves to be the case I'll cut out the cloth over the wheel holes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craig Carr Posted October 4, 2010 Share Posted October 4, 2010 HI Tony, I would close the wells, I made mine into a hand launch and the kit should include some little plastic inserts/covers to go where the retract wells are but are indented so you still have excellent hand launch holes where the mains used to be. I covered the underneath of the back end of mine with glass fibre tape (the sticky stuff on the roll) to protect it a bit. But eventually they do deteriote but I had 2 solid seasons out of mine before retiring it and moving thre gear into the Lander Cougar. My club mate Ken Anderson (Ne1 on this forum). Hand launched mine all the time with no problems... and he's getting on a bit in years now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyS Posted October 4, 2010 Author Share Posted October 4, 2010 Craig, I've just tested the set-up with a Wattmeter and this is drawing 785W on an Overlander Extreme 4S 30C LiPo at 55 A. The Ampage is OK for the 70A ESC I've installed but all the specs for the Lander 68mm fan show a max of 600W? This is the 3575Kv motor so it should be OK on 4S shouldn't it? Tony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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