Bee Wonder!

The inspiration for this plane came from two sources. The first one being my daughter - she is 18 months old and loves Winnie the Pooh, especially the part when Pooh Bear is trying to get the honey in the tree and you guessed it... the bees come out and swarm Pooh to the ground. She starts to freak out and yell beeee!

The second source of inspiration comes from Flite Test, of course. Since they are so family oriented they drove me to build something that my daughter would enjoy seeing fly and that is how the Bee Wonder concept was born.

The airframe took me about two weekends to build, I used the Minwax technique to coat the surface and then sprayed it with yellow Rustoleum paint. For the black striping I used a mix of decal sheet and black duct tape.

My electronics are from hobbypartz.com and also from Grayson Hobbies. My radio is a Fly Sky 6 channel setup, I used some 9 gram Solar servos from Hobby Partz. My motor and speed control are the combo 370 equivalent setup, and I have a 1300 mAh 3 cell 30c lipo powering the plane which are all from Grayson Hobbies.

Once I had everything put together it was time to fly, needless to say my first flights were a bit sketchy. I ended up hitting the ground about three times before getting the feel for the plane. The most I have ever flown was a Champ RTF setup which is far more docile, to say the least. Getting used to the “bank and yank” idea took a while but by the end of my last flight I was actually able to make clean landings.

Overall the flight characteristics are pretty awesome. I finally understand what people mean when they say a plane is "flying on rails", this plane has that feeling for sure. Once you set the plane in a direction it keeps going there like it is on a mission. I played with the acrobatic abilities some. I did not want to push the limits too far but I can defiantly say that barrel rolls are no problem. The only major issue I had setting up the plane was with the CG. On the Bloody Wonder V2 plans (the ones I built from) the CG location was unclear. My first launch was super tail heavy but I was able to save it. I ended up moving the battery all the way forward, this seems to get the best flight characteristics out of the plane.

My daughter loves seeing the plane fly, she starts freaking out and yelling "beeee!" so I think this build was a success. Thank you Flite Test for coming up with these great ideas and making the hobby affordable again. I was in the hobby a while ago in my teenage years (when I had no living costs like rent to worry about) but I am now able to enjoy the hobby now with my family.

Bottom View of the plane.

Close up of the bee head.

Top View.

Side View.