Rob, my video man, and I took the Phantom to our club field for the maiden flights. While the plane is small, I would suggest new pilots have an open area of at least 600 feet across as a minimum. Many sports fields with 2-4 football/soccer fields would be ideal. An experienced pilot can fly in less space, but if you are new, you want lots of room.
After fully charging the battery, I made sure no one else was on my channel. Then I performed a range check, as per the manual’s instructions. I also checked to see that all controls moved properly and that all surfaces were correctly aligned. Everything appeared correct so I made no adjustments. The plane comes correctly balanced, so no balance work was done.
At this point, let me offer a tip on landing gear. If you plan to fly from a hard runway, driveway or bare dirt, I highly recommend the landing gear. However my field has no runway, it is all grass and it is not kept especially short. Landing gear tends to catch in the grass when I land and flip the plane over, which has the potential to damage the tail. So I leave the landing gear off and I belly-land all of my planes. This approach works extremely well with the Phantom. This also removes the weight and the aerodynamic drag of the landing gear. If you are going to hand launch and land on grass leave the gear off.
I faced into a 4-mph breeze, went to full power and give the plane a firm level toss. It flew out smartly, lost a little altitude then started to climb. I gave it just a touch of up, back elevator stick, to help it along. Later I added in two clicks of up on the trims on the radio, which gave me level flight at 1/2 throttle, more level launches, and a better climb.
At full power the plane climbs quickly and is faster than I had expected. I found that I flew the Phantom at about 2/3 throttle most of the time. In this throttle range it flies very nicely and you can maintain level flight easily. It also glides very well with power off. If you just keep the wings level, the plane will glide into a landing and land itself very nicely.
The transmitter is rated at 1300 feet, which is plenty of range for a plane of this size. However I did test it by flying to the extreme edges of our field, which is about 1600 feet long. I observed no loss of control or glitching that I could detect. I will note that this was farther than I would normally fly the Phantom, so I feel comfortable that the radio system has plenty of range.
The white wings look great but can be hard to track against a blue sky with white clouds. I would suggest adding some dark color to the bottom of the wings. You can do this with broad tipped markers or colored packing tape that is often sold at hobby stores. A dark bottom wing shows up well against the sky and gives you excellent contrast between the top and bottom of the wing making it easier to tell the location and orientation of the plane.
The Phantom is no aerobat, but as a first or second plane if flies great! With ACT on I had no trouble managing the plane in the air in a 4-mph breeze. At full throttle, I was able to loop the plane easily, as you will see in the video. With ACT turned off it will do loops, tail stalls, stall turns, tail slides, an Immelman turn of sorts, and other types of aerobatics.
For those who have flown other HobbyZone planes, the Phantom flies like a small Aerobird Challenger meaning that if flies very well. However it seems to have a better power to weight ratio. I can loop the Phantom from level flight, which I can't do with my Challenger.
ACT, Anti Crash Technology, is one of the features of this plane that qualifies it as a Zone 1 plane. It is designed to help the new pilot get out of trouble. As I do a lot of teaching on these types of planes I wanted to understand how ACT could help a new pilot, working on his or her own. ACT is covered on pages 9-15 of the manual, a highly recommended read.
I turned on the radio and observed that the red light was on steady indicating that ACT was activated. When you turn ACT off, this light blinks. While not specified in the manual, I suggest when you first power up the plane leave the plane sitting for several seconds to allow ACT to orient itself. Note that when ACT is on, rudder input only moves one tail surface. This addresses the fact that most new pilots tend to over control the plane. Moving only one surface will make it harder to over control the Phantom. When ACT is off, expert mode, rudder input moves both tail surfaces making the plane much more responsive.
With ACT on I flew the plane normally and did not notice any unusual behavior. I then intentionally took the plane up into a steep left turn getting the wings to almost vertical position. I immediately noticed the motor went quiet and I lost control of the plane for a few seconds. This was a very similar feeling to being on a buddy box and having the instructor take control of the plane because I had gotten into trouble.
I released the sticks, the plane leveled itself, and control was returned to me. If I did nothing at that point the plane would go into a glide and would eventually land if there were enough room. ACT had control for perhaps 2-3 seconds.
ACT worked exactly as I have advised new pilots flying these kinds of planes. I tell them to let go of the sticks and go to zero throttle if they get in trouble. If the have enough altitude the plane will recover itself and go into a level glide. That is exactly what happened but it did it without my having to do anything.
If I put the Phantom into a steep dive, the same thing happened. Likewise, when doing a loop, as the plane went vertical, the motor cut and the plane worked to level itself. In fact it finished the loop and came out to straight and level flight. If it had not been for the motor going off, I might not have even noticed that ACT had cut in and taken control.
It should be noted that ACT requires working space. The manual says to fly at a height of at least 150 feet, which would be three times tree height where I live. Well, that is about the same thing I tell my students. Flying close to the ground, say less than 100 feet is asking for trouble as it may not give the pilot, or ACT, enough room to recover from mistakes.
If you are flying low, ACT can not save you. It will also not help you avoid flying into things. And finally, as a new pilot you should avoid windy days. ACT can do nothing to help you handle wind and it might even make it harder to fly in wind. For new pilots, less than 5 mph is recommended
I feel ACT can be a great aid to a self-training pilot or one who is practicing what their coach has shown them. However it can only help you if you read the manual, fly above 100 feet, and understand what is going to happen. ACT only takes control for a few seconds, then you have to take control again or the plane will wander off and perhaps hit something. After you feel comfortable recovering from these situations yourself, you can turn ACT off. Some will be ready for this after a few flights, for others it may be longer. Like training wheels on a two-wheeled bike, once you learn to balance, the training wheels actually get in the way.
Turning ACT off and going into expert mode is a quick process that you can do in the air. If you are giving a friend a first turn at the sticks of your plane, you can take off in expert mode, switch to ACT mode and hand over the radio. Then, when you take it back, you can switch back to expert mode.
To switch from ACT to expert mode, get the plane flying in a level attitude, then press down on the right stick, just a quick button push is all it takes. You get a tone that tells you the change has been made and the red light on the controller will blink. Now you are in expert mode, ACT is tuned off and you get both tail surfaces moving when you give rudder commands. In expert mode, the plane becomes more responsive. It will also allow you to fly it right into the ground, so be prepared because you are now in control. Battery and the Low Voltage Cut Off
I did not clock the flight time, but in mixed flying I probably managed 8-10 minutes on the included 300 MAh pack.
The plane glides very nicely and flies very well at 1/2 throttle. If you are going to fly at full power all the time, figure about 6 minutes to a pack, but test this in actual flight so you will be prepared. When I first started flying, I picked up a timer to warn me that I was running low on battery. This kept me out of trouble on several occasions.
When the battery gets too low, the LVC, low voltage cutoff kicks in and cuts power to the motor. This is a safety feature. By doing this you preserve power for the flight controls. When the motor cuts off, you have to glide. You can now land under control, but without the motor. Note that you might be able to get a short throttle burst, which I would save for the landing approach just in case you need a little boost to get home.
When training new flyers I always have them practice gliding with the motor off so they will be fully comfortable flying the plane if the motor cuts out. Eventually I also teach them how to thermal their planes so they can enjoy extended flying time. Thermal soaring with these planes is a lot of fun and flights of 30 minutes or more are possible.
Phantom Video: flight test
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