Great Planes Factor 3D Radio Controlled Electric-Powered Almost Ready-to-Fly One Meter Sport Airplane

Exactly what I wanted

Well, I had high hopes for this as I missed outdoor 3D flight when my Jacknife took a dive from a failed ESC, and was not repairable. So this was my next option. Unlike others, I will go into detail about the model.It came in a box very well packed. Looked like a very well build plane. When you assemble it, you will find the directions do not tell you which screws to use and fail to tell you that you will need servo screws. The servo's they suggest do not come with the mounting screws. I would suggest getting 4" - 6" extensions for the wing servos, they will be too short to make it to the Rx. The wing mounting is a great design, using 2 thumb screws to hold the wings in, but are so close to mountings frames that is is very hard to screw them in. The cowl is fairly cheaply made, my came cracked in the top slot. The directions in installing the servos are hard to see, as I ended up downloading the directions and blowing them up on my 27" screen. There is a pull string for the servo wires which worked well. The hinges are not installed in the elevator and are cheap. I should of bought good hinges and put them in instead. All of the installed hinges are very stiff, so stiff that the servos struggle to move to the end points. Even after flexing them several times, the were still very stiff. The engine mount, and center wheels went very well, but the rear wheel was another story. They have you glue a pin to the surface of the rudder to steer the wheel. Not the best design I have seen, it could of been better. The location they give and directions for the ESC also were flawed. Mounting with double sided tape under the battery and a thin frame? At least they have a hook/loop strap hold the battery and esc in place. The suggested battery is too short for the slot provided. I ended up gluing in a small scrap wood to made up the difference. Build time was about 5 hours. Glue set times added a large amount of time.After the model was build, it looked great! Now the final steps..... CG!!!! Again, using the EXACT materials they suggest, there was no way you could balance this model without adding a lot of weight. The nose was way to light, not just a little, but way to far off. Now to add weight that I rather not do. It took over 32 grams under the battery to get the CG correct. I ended up using a 1/4" thick plexy glass with a 5/16" uni strut nut glued to the end. Tipped that over, making the battery go in at an angle, and it worked well, but 32 grams I hated to add.The balance from side to side was fairly close.Radio set up: I use a Futaba 9C with a TS-7 (2.4 GHZ adapter). This is fully programmable radio making set up very quick and easy. Programmable radios are worth every penny. They allow you set up many planes in it, switching from one to another is a few seconds. Adjusting endpoints, air brakes and limits with ease. The only issue I had was my ESC died in the first few seconds of running. As I did not want a repeat, purchasing a ESC for more $$$ should have been good. Replaced it with a cheapy and it worked great. (Check my reviews for which ESC I had and ended up with).FLIGHT TIME: I live in Wisconsin, as we have a great park system, I use them to fly in. Take off in short grass was not working. Could not build up enough speed for take off. Moved to a baseball field, used the infeild as a runway. It took about 20-25 feet to get into the air. After it was airborne, the model wanted to lean left real bad. After that I lowered power to bring it back down (under 2' in air). Everything looked fine as it slowed down and the nose dived down, the back came up which should of been no big deal. The back broke in half. Just behind the wing on the Fuselage. I was in shock, as after flying many models over the years have never seen this one before. It was as if this was a weak spot in the design, and re-enforsement should of been better in this high stress area. I plan to use CarbonFiber to put this back together, it will be stronger than before. Also I will look for other high stress areas and correct them to.Pros - The model is good looking, lots of wing area and can be built by anyone in under 6 total hours (Note glue dry times)Cons - Kit does not come with all hardware needed, short screws and servo hardware. Weak spot in design could cause model to brake in half. Wheel size is small and not good for grass. CG (Center of Gravity) is hard to achieve, and will require adding a lot of weight.I would not suggest this plane if you are not a expeianced 3D flyer or do not know how the rebuild planes.Hope this helps - Good flying!