Yup, usually the area outside of what ever reinforcement we make breaks instead

I'm gonna take off with the retracts then land on skids (which I've installed) until I get comfortable with it's landing characteristics n speed.

fwiw, when u have had enough of the mech retracts as most of use have , and to save some weight , i turned them into fixed gear . pulled the servos and put stop collars on the linkages holding them in the geardown position. this gets rid of weight overall but also makes balancing easier, w/ less weight behind the cg.

set up like this is how i got down to 42 oz w/ a 3000/ 4's and flaps . lost some cool factor , but cured the issues w/ those f*****g retracts

chuck.

It did crossed my mind too when I blew the 2nd retract servo.

I just left it alone for weeks and worked on other projects just to get over the frustration.

But I still dont trust it to stand up to much abuse, which is y I added skids for landing

Im in, just orded mine, ive been looking at these for a while and i have the lander hunter and f16 nice kits, setup will be my tried and tested cs 10 fan, eflite bl32 2150 kv, 80 esc, 3300 6s nano tech lipo, i have this setup in nearly all my jets now sounds fantastic, heres a video of my hobbyking t45 hawk with this setup

HK T-45 cs10 fan 6s BL-32 motor 6s 3000 Who needs a turbine. (4 min 48 sec)

Hi ... Finally had a chance to maiden mine (hand launch HK EPS version)...



For the record setup is L2855 2300 kv on 5S 3000 mah and CS10.

With the help of cold dense air and a bit of head wind the first handlaunch went OK.

Plane was a bit out of trim so first minute was bit hairy, but after a few clicks of down and left trim things went back on track although the plane still showed hints of tail heaviness, with elevator on the toutchy side... Did two more flights before running out of batteries, slightly moving CG forward each time. Should now be close to the sweet spot. A bit of fine tuning on the throws and expo and she 'll be perfect.

I'm very happy with CS10 L2855 combo, sounds great with the upper cheater open and the perforated screen at the bottom ... Quiet and turbine like. Plane is fast enough for more than scale flight , definitively faster than my HK vampire that uses same combo. Guess the Lander Panther is more streamlined than the Durafly Vamp..... a quick look at both wing trailing edge shows it all.

Longuing for next W-E to log some more flights in

Originally Posted by Manu Simon

Hi ... Finally had a chance to maiden mine (hand launch HK EPS version)...



For the record setup is L2855 2300 kv on 5S 3000 mah and CS10.

With the help of cold dense air and a bit of head wind the first handlaunch went OK.

Plane was a bit out of trim so first minute was bit hairy, but after a few clicks of down and left trim things went back on track although the plane still showed hints of tail heaviness, with elevator on the toutchy side... Did two more flights before running out of batteries, slightly moving CG forward each time. Should now be close to the sweet spot. A bit of fin tuning on the throws and expo and she 'll be perfect.

I'm very happy with CS10 L2855 combo, sounds great with the upper cheater open and the perforated screen at the bottom ... Quiet and turbine like. Plane is fast enough for more than scale flight , definitively faster than my HK vampire than uses same combo. Guess the Lander Panther is more streamlined than the Durafly Vamp..... a quick look at both wing trailing edge shows it all.

Longuing for next W-E to log some more flights in

well done , they like the forward cg!

Originally Posted by Manu Simon

Hi ... Finally had a chance to maiden mine (hand launch HK EPS version)...



For the record setup is L2855 2300 kv on 5S 3000 mah and CS10.

With the help of cold dense air and a bit of head wind the first handlaunch went OK.

Plane was a bit out of trim so first minute was bit hairy, but after a few clicks of down and left trim things went back on track although the plane still showed hints of tail heaviness, with elevator on the toutchy side... Did two more flights before running out of batteries, slightly moving CG forward each time. Should now be close to the sweet spot. A bit of fin tuning on the throws and expo and she 'll be perfect.

I'm very happy with CS10 L2855 combo, sounds great with the upper cheater open and the perforated screen at the bottom ... Quiet and turbine like. Plane is fast enough for more than scale flight , definitively faster than my HK vampire than uses same combo. Guess the Lander Panther is more streamlined than the Durafly Vamp..... a quick look at both wing trailing edge shows it all.

Longuing for next W-E to log some more flights in

Well done cant wait for mine to arrive and start the build, i also will use the cheater holes, have you a better pic of your cheaters for reference as i like how you have done yours

Disho

This is a close up on the cheaters



I guess the important thing is to smoothen the inside edges on the fan side

Originally Posted by Manu Simon

Disho

This is a close up on the cheaters



I guess the important thing is to smoothen the inside edges on the fan side

Excellent i will be adding cheaters same as yours looks cool

Maiden did not go as planned. Rained soften the runway. Wet soggy sponge tires dont help too . Possibly my 3S 3700mh pack was not able to push out the needed watts also. Struggling thru the muddy runway, it sure didn't looked like it was ready to fly.

Any idea how much runway I would need for a 3S setup to get up and go?

Originally Posted by disho

Excellent i will be adding cheaters same as yours looks cool

As you may know those top cheaters did exist on the real one too !

Too heavy battery...I flew my Zippy 4S-4000 yesterday just fine and all went well. I put in a 50C ChinaLine battery that has gobs of power but it was just a bit too heavy and put CG a little too far aft and it wouldn't rotate at all. I ran out of runway (about 200 feet worth) and onto gravel and then the nose wheel mount came loose. I fly with a Nano-Tech 4S-4500 also and it is just as heavy but not quite as long so CG doesnt change as much.

FYI to all of you out there in the Panther Squadron...

Russ

CofG too far 'aft' should not affect rotating at all.... nose heavy affects that.
But too far aft would have made an interesting, or possibly disastrous, flight after taking off! LOL

This thing would surely fly fine with even 1.6Kg or so AUW. It has higher than an average jet's lift.
All my 70mms are 1.4 to 1.7Kg (Panther in the 1.6kg area... but unflown)

I also think I'm underpowered with eflite 15 and het 4blade. Just doesn't hv enough takeoff power but fine after develop enough speed. I'm thinking of putting a CS 10-blade in there that I have taking up room in the garage. That should give it the ooomph it needs to get it's tail in the air quickly.

Decided to uproot the 4375kv setup and have placed in a Scorpion HK2221-8 3595kv motor with the lander rotor. Getting 746W at about 50A on 4S

Should be fine now