Before the Graupner bankruptcy was finalized I bought a bunch of the Graupner Epic Victory-S foam jets. A lot of these went to my buddies, but I do have some left. So hurry and get one quick!

These fly amazingly well. Super slow flying is possible with stability that you just have to fly to believe.

http://www.xtremepowersystems.net/pr...rod=GRAUP-EPIC

You forgot to mention.............

This item is not available for sale to customers outside of the USA

Sorry, that's only because of the high shipping costs!

Don't feel bad Graeme, I'm 100 miles north of the Montana border -- can't get one either.

Well, you guys could get one - but it would be expensive for shipping. The price shown includes free shipping in the USA, but only because I struck a deal with Fedex ground service.

Thought I would post here about how the build went and my upcoming maiden flights of the two Epic Victory S ships I bought from Jim a few weeks ago.

The instruction manual's instructions are pretty clear, but the photos were not and could have been a lot better.

The fit and finish of the foam was excellent and Graupner put a lot of work into engineering a kit that went together very easily. Case in point was after I got it all assembled, I tested the fan and controls and then after shut down, looked down into the cheater hole on bottom of fuse and was shocked to see the loose aileron extension cable just hanging within a couple of inches from the fan. It could have easily been sucked into it, and I cringe to think what would have happened if it did. I took the wing off to figure out a way to secure the cable without making it difficult to remove/install wing and on closer inspection, Graupner built in a pocket in the wing to stuff the wires and a foam crevice like area (for lack of a better description) that securely retained the rest of the short exposed wire. Kudos to them for doing that, but onions that it was not in the manual for newbies to EDF planes like me.

I decided against installing retracts, even though I have a set, as I wanted to keep the airframe as light as possible, and I will be flying at a school on grass. The balance came out right on, and it helped that I moved the EDF unit back and inch or so to give more flexibility for the Lipo size and position in the battery box.

I've got the window stickers done and just need to complete the rest of the fuse stickers. Even though non-scale, I might add a touch of contrasting paint for better visibility.

Also, I have the Nano poking out of the false air intake on top of fuse and need to install the plug so that just the antenna is visible.

The 2nd Victory I bought for my brother, and his is almost ready to fly too. He has installed LED lights so that his can be flown at night.

We are using the Hobby Partz 70mm EDF combo package that Jim recommended and it seem to have plenty of power.

Will let you all know how the maiden flights goes.

If this plane flies as good as it looks, it will be a shame that they are no longer in production.

SpadCat

Edit: Just added photo of almost finished Victory. All I need to do now is slot the air intake plug so that I can hide most of the nano.

Sweet! Mine is still in the box, waiting. I did take it out and checked the parts thought. On mine the piece that fills in the wing doesn't fit completely flush. I'll have to do some trimming there.

The weather was nearly perfect with a very light variable wind and high clouds. So I loaded a lipo in, tested controls (I was a little concerned about the large amount of book recommended elevator throw of 15mm) and launched her into the air. The plane would not climb and I gently landed her about 30' away. Well, that was not good! This is a plane that is under the recommended AUW and it should jump out of my hands, but this is my first ducted fan and I know that they can take a longer run, so I retrieved her and this time did my best high power level launch and it still would not climb out, so I let her settle down and land. This time it was almost a 100' away.

So I almost took her home to find a way to increase power, but decided to try one of the other 3s 2200 lipos. I tested the fan, but did not notice any real difference (maybe a little), and launched her again and it went into a climb out like I thought she should. I was very careful with the elevator and after I got to a safe altitude I tried a hard turn and sure enough, it snapped. After recovery, I set it up for a loop and it snapped immediately, so I tried several more loops and using very little elevator, was able to make nice round ones. Aileron rolls were too slow for my liking, so will increase throws.

To land, you have to treat it like a sailplane as it takes awhile to bleed off speed, so it took me 4 or 5 passes to get it low enough to make the landing. There are houses near the base leg so cannot go further out and I do not feel comfortable flying lower over them even with little or no throttle.

After landing, I reduced the elevator down to 67% and increased aileron to 100% and that made the Victory into a totally different and comfortable plane to fly. Now I could loop and roll it just how I like it.

The Victory is a lot of fun to fly and looks beautiful in the air.

I might try a 4s 2200 that I have on hand, but the 2nd 3s 2200 I used had provided plenty of power.

I am sure glad I painted the wing tips red, as that made it much easier to see against the clouds.

SpadCat

Something must be wrong with your 1st pack. It should really climb out fast. I think the throws are recommended because of the super slow landing speed needs quite a bit of elevator, but its too much for high speed flying with a lot of stick movement. The German pilots have very short throws on their planes

The manual does say "These settings must be done separately for each model; they are only guidelines and depend on the centre of gravity." which is true of any model.

Anyway, my first lipo was low on voltage, so I must have accidentally installed in a used pack.

I have attached a photo of my brothers lighted Victory which at this angle looks like a Klingon ship ready to launch a photon torpedo!

SpadCat

Had an excellent flight this morning. Used a 4s 2200 this time instead of a 3s and wow, it really makes the Victory move! The 3s is just fine, but I wanted to see how a 4s worked. My 3s was producing 414 watts and the 4s 800. Motor is rated for up to a 5s. Amperage was 39 and the ESC is rated for 60 amps.


Also solved the snapping problem by lightly rounding off the wing leading edges from the tips to about 5 inches from fuse. This really settled the Victory down and it now just mushes in a slow speed stall. There is a bit of wing rock, but nothing to be worried about. Landings were much more pleasant.

SpadCat