FT old fogey Review

Hello, this is going to be a review on the FT Old Fogey.  I hope to share my experience building and flying this great plane, but I am rather new to this so it may not be very good.  I will first show the build process, then my experience flying it, and last, a few notes on how the plane performed.

         I built the plane in about 3 hours. It was very easy to build, with the exception of the landing gear.  The landing gear was very hard to bend.  I think the best way to bend it is with a vice and pliers.  Or maybe I'm just a weakling.  Josh bent the wire pretty easily in the video.  I wonder if the kit wire is the same as the wire in the video?                                                                                                                                                                         

I think the wire could be straighter, but I doubt if I could get it there.  (I dont have a vice and I can't seem to get it it better.)                                                                                                                                                                        

Here's the wing all done.  I put packing tape on the wing breaks to make it stronger, but I dont think you actually need it.  The wing is pretty strong by itself.                                                                                     

The fuselage was a little trickier to make because of the control surfaces, but stil easy.  I have the servo tray in, and control horns istalled.

I used some yellow tubing I had laying around for the wire guides.

Heres my power setup.  I'm using a ar6100 rx with a DX5e.  At the time I bought the power pack the picture showed a xt60 connector but the description said it had a jst plug, so I ordered it and decided to buy a battery after it arrived.  When it arrived it had a xt60 so I bought a adapter to use it with my old 1300mah 3S.  I wanted to use a 1000mah lipo, but I didn't want to wait forever for a battery.

 The plane is finished now, I minwaxed the outside of the fuse, and top and bottom of the horizontal stabilizer.  I just need to fly it now.

THIS IS THE END OF THE BUILD PROCESS.

I took the plane to a park nearby for the maiden flight.  On my first hand launch, It went about 4 feet before hitting the ground.  I removed the landing gear to save wheight, which i probably should've done in the first place since I was hand-launching.  On my second throw, the Fogey flew great!  I had not flown a real rc plane for about a year, but practiced a bit on an iPAD simulator.  I flew it around the field a few times before coming in for a rough, belly-flop sort of landing.  I could feel tail-heavyness in it, so I moved the battery forward a few times before getting it well balanced.  I have flown it at home about 12 times now.

  This plane flies great in calm weather.  Wind pushes the plane around a lot so I wouldn't recommend flying on windy days.  The motor is way overpowered for this plane. You can get almost vertical at full throttle!  I rather like this though because whenever I get too close to a tree or whatever, it powers right out of there at almost a 45 degree angle!  I fly pretty nose heavy, and the plane keeps its speed up very well when gliding.  Below I will list a few problems I had.

• Every time I landed, the battery would fly out becasue the velcro couldn't hold it in place too well.   I made a velcro strap to go around the battery and hold it in. 
• The rear bbq skewer pulled out of the foam when I crashed once.  I glued it in but it happened again.  I cut up a hotel card and glued it over the skewer to keep it from tearing.

  

• My reciever lost connection on one flight and I suspected it was because the rx was too close to the ESC. (Is this possible?)  So I made a velcro strap to hold the receiver up high.

So that is all for my review.  This is a great plane that is easy for beginners to build and fly.  I recommend flying on a simulator before flying this plane, but that probably goes for all planes.  Its a good trainer, and very forgiving when it crashes.  I hope this review can help someone who wants to kow more about the FT Old Fogey.  Please leave suggestions, in the comments.  Thank you for reading my post.