Driving to work and back is dangerous. Found this Extra in my car after a work day sometime ago.

Previous owner had reserved too heavy motor for it and sold it to get some bigger plane to match the motor. Somehow I happened to have one extra ~100g Turnigy 3536 motor and 45Amp ESC for this.

Hoping to maiden this in couple of days. I expect it to be quite nice flyer. It has 1m wingspan and AUW of under 950g with 2200mAh battery. Not bad. Build quality also seems to be quite ok. Can't wait to fly this baby!

I got this second hand Robotbirds P-51 Mustang about half a year ago and it was quite beaten originally.

Last week I was practicing 4-point rolls with it. Due to profile design it's actually pretty good in knife edge. During second battery I heard a "crack" and other side of elevator dropped from plane like a leaf. Fortunately a good warbird is fly-worthy with only half elevator and doing an emergency landing wasn't a problem.

The stabilizers had been re-glued in several places by previous owner(s). It was time to cut stabilizers away and build new ones using Depron. I also noticed that the rebuilt and ugly front of the plane was cracking again.

So simple fixes:

• Glue some plywood in nose (top and bottom) to strengthen it
• Draw stabilizers on paper using originals as template. Cut new stabilizers from 6mm Depron. I sanded stabilizers to final shape and used tape hinges.

The plane is not pretty, but it's strictly used as a low wing aileron trainer after high wing aileron training by my friends or then by myself for some specific aerobatic maneuver training or as a gusty wind plane. So I just try to keep it somehow airworthy without worrying about aesthetics. The repair was successful and only minor trimming was required after it....Continue Reading

Specification Sheet

• Wingspan: 1200mm
• Length: 1040mm
• Flying Weight: Including CG ballast in nose and electronics 1097g. AUW with 2200mAh battery 1272g.
• Motor: 100g 3536 ~1000kv, no exact details known
• Propeller: 11x5.5 Slow Fly
• Material: EPO foam

Introduction

MX2 is sold as a cheap kit by HobbyKing with motor, ESC and servos. Cheap price makes this kit very attractive for pilots wanting for an aerobatic model. As I've understood this is some older model repackaged. The plane is robust and foam quality good, but some details are no match for newer or more expensive models. For example battery needs to be inserted in quite tight space with somewhat limited access.

This is also a ARF kit, it's not RTF and you're required to spend some time building the model.

Contents

The kit comes with all required EPO foam parts for the model, cowling and cockpit. You're required to trim and cut some foam parts before build. The hardware kit supplied is of low quality. You'd better be prepared to supply your own horns and clevises. Push rods are usable as well as wheels.

The electronics also require consideration. Servos supplied are typical cheap 9g servos, you might want to use higher quality servos in this plane. The motor itself seems to be of good quality. It's a 100g 3536 model, with unknown kV rating (1000kV-1200kV). The ESC is said to be 30 Amps. It doesn't have any info on it and I highly recommend replacing it with at least 40 Amp ESC. In my tests the motor pulled...Continue Reading

I've been flying a lot lately. One task has been trimming & setting up my "cheapo MX2" for proper flight configuration. I used Orange 3-axis stabilizer / receiver on it. Idea was to get a plane for relatively gusty / windy conditions.

Before setting it up I was already familiar on how Orange 3-axis stabilizer should be configured. Still I managed to misconfigure it. I had thought that 12 o'clock gain setting would be good to begin with, but actually movements in my case were so small that both ailerons and rudder were reversed on gyro and I didn't notice it. Fortunately I also had configured the on/off switch and MX2 maiden flight was made anyways with gyro off. During second flight I tested it momentarily, it actually felt like I would have switched the high rates on, quickly took the gyro off. During post flight checking and some more googling / YouTube video watching I found this video, which describes the correct way to set up the stabilizer very well. First crank the gain pots to full gain, ensure directions and then decrease as long as the very easily noticed major decrease in the surface movement is reached. Then move a bit back to get more throw. This is very good start point.

The second MX2 flying session was made in gusty wind, around 5-8 m/s. Had hard time keeping the plane in my hand when walking to field and actually it was so windy that I hesitated a little to get the plane airborne. The gyro worked as dream and made flying almost enjoyable in those gusts. Landing also was a piece of cake as gyro made sure that plane approached just as stable as train (and due to head wind the actual land speed was something like walking speed).

Just follow the instructions in the video and you'll end up with a good gyro setup to start flying! I would conclude that Orange 3-axis stabilizer really works as advertised and it's hard to not recommend it. Great value if you're flying in gusty conditions!

I'm preparing a complete review of MX2, it will follow after few days...