Maiden of the ROBBE GROB 120TP

For my first article I wanted to share my experiences before, during and after the maiden of my ROBBE GROB 120 TP 1700mm. Since there is not many articles around the web of that plane I thought it might be intresting.

This is not only about the maiden of this plane, it is also about how intimidating it can be flying a plane for the first time.



So the plane was on my radar since I got into the hobby. I read an article in a magazine about it and it sounded just nice. Back then I wasn´t even able to launch nor land my Twinstar II. It just crashed every time I tried. Then, half a year ago I saw one on ebay, unused and nearby. So I took the chance and bought it. The Price in shops was always something around 350€, this one I bought for 270€. As soon as I got home I had to open it up and put the pieces together. It is a beautiful looking Jet Trainer with the following specs:

Wingspan: 1700mm
Length: 1305mm
Weight (total with 4000mah 4S): 2900g
Channels: Throttle, Elevator, Ailerons, Rudder, Flaps, Gear 
Specials: steerable nosewheel, 5-Blade Prop, Scale 1:6
made out of EPO-Foam

After I had all the Parts together I looked at it for a long time and realized:"If I break this beauty, it will cost me a fortune..." Thats when I got really scared of flying this plane. And until yesterday, I could not shake it. It was my wife who told me to simply fly it. She said: "If you break it, we will get spareparts and you will repair it."

Said and done. I charged the battery and packed all my scratchbuilds and other planes in my car as well as the GROB. At the flyingfield the first thing I did was flying a plane I knew. Just to build me up and make me very selfconscious. I flew all my planes until it was almost to dark to still fly. That was when my wife arrived at the flyingfield. She kinda knew I would try not to fly the big boy.

After a short motivation speech by her, I was kind of ready. Checked my CRAP, put the plane on the ground and hit the throttle. The groundlaunch was so uneventfull. The plane was gaining speed and then simply took off, just like that. No problems at all. I pretty fast had the impression that the plane is to fast for my skill-level so I wanted to throttle back just a little but I throttled back a lot. But instead of stall, that plane just went ridiculously slow and keept gainig altitude. What a crazy nice and docile flying plane. All the fear was gone in one moment. I put in some more throttle and started cruising around the flying site. Hit the gear switch and the landing gear was sucked into the plane. AWESOME!!! That was an undiscribeable feeling that I guess many of you had before.

Flight characteristics:
The plane flies unbelievably stable. It has a nice speed envelope from ridiculously slow to an ok speed for faster cruises. The rollrate feels very scale. All in all, this plane has a very friendly characteristic. You can do a some aerobatics with it, but not to extensive. But that is just my opinion (I am not the aerobatic guy...).

I must admit I could have done a softer landing, but I was after all still a little intimidated and nervous. Had to open up one of the landing gear servos to repair it. But that was not a problem... 

Summary:
The size of it might intimidate beginners who are used to smaller planes (FT RACER, BLUNTNOSE FT VERSA WING and so on) but once that thing is in the air, it is simply one of the best flying planes I ever had. It can be handled by anyone who is capable of flying a 4 channel plane. No shaking, almost no trimming. This is an out of the (huge)box funboy. The only dark side I could find is the batterytray. With my zippy compact 4000 there was no space for moving the lipo in order to find CG. I was able to fix that problem with a few weights in the rear.

I hope you liked my little story. I am looking forward to post more of these articles in the future. One project might be a 180% FT Duster.

DOOM