[Admin Note] The Sky Surfer may be a better alternative to this.

Opened up the AXN Floater ordered from Hobby City by my brother.

http://www.hobbycity.com/hobbycity/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=8359

To my surprise, on the wings and the assembly manual all referred to a "Clouds Fly" instead (it looks exactly like the pictures of the AXN Floater).  Guess they are the same thing.

The packing was very good, the inner box itself had lots of plastic air bubble thingys (both the small and large air sacks).

It came receiver ready, with a 1300mah to 1500mah lipo as the recommended battery. Even the foam glue to be used is included.  Servos are pre-installed, only a bit of assembly is needed on the tail, and the wings.  A big hollow CF rod is supplied, with an appropriate cut in the wings, with a flap to cover it ! 

A 20amps ESC (brand AOXAN) is supplied, with a brushless motor and two props.  The control rods are already routed though the fuse.

And the part I liked really was the the canopy had a magnetic latch 

Now if this can glide to a safe landing  when power is cut during upright forward flight, then I would have found the perfect (or one of the perfect) starter electric gliders.

Will report after test flights (pending my brother getting involved, as he wants to do it himself).  If this works great, I would recommend the local hobby stores try to carry it.

Forgot to mention that this is a full 4 channel plane with ailerons too. 

A good landing gear mod, and life should be good. 

The HC forums have people reporting that it can glide/float under no power, looking forward to that !

Superb, Definately a nice option for beginners. It's Cheap and an arf, but again customs a big problemo...

Anybody in india has imported them ? Mr.Sai you plan to import this ?

A Flight video, i already love this..Anwar can you please post a video of your flight, if possible..

Actually customs should be not be as difficult as importing radio gear.

Yes, will get a flight video when my brother flies it (could be next Friday).

I just converted my multiplex easy Glider Pro  to a pusher  so as to make it a floater and suitable for FPV and UAV applications .
Will  have a separate thread on this soon  as I shot a Video and some pics of it today  .

It is like a Big size easy star.

Sai

PS the problem for such products individually is not so much the customs as the freight cost

Freight cost from supplier to you, or from you to end users ? 

If you do bulk orders with surface transport (ships!), it should be reasonable for the first part, right ?

Yes but the issue is the  volume in India  does not justify a  large qty of a single product   and I have asked AXN earlier but they don't reply  and they don't have  to many other products as well. so it ness. has to be air frt . it is  a catch 22 situation.
Sai

What is considered large quantity ?  Of course you may choose to not respond, if it is considered business confidential information.

If this aircraft flies as good as the initial looks seem, and can handle a decent amount of abuse; then a quantity like 50 seems sales worthy in a few months.  You would need to get the word out a bit more though.

Found that this uses Elapor foam, which is another advantage (handles crashes better, and can be fixed easily after crashes).

http://www.rc-model.cn/802.htm

Hi anwar,

I have few questions on setting up this plane for a first flight.

1) How did you fix the wings ? Did you use the glue to fix it to the fuselage. or was it just pushed in to place and flown.

2) What are the most vulnerable points on this plane , that may get damaged when hard landing? I may use packing tape and carbon fibre rod to strengthen those points.

Regards,

Ram G

My brother and I flew this a few times for the first time today.  It was a very windy day, with 10 to 17knots wind, yet, we were able to fly it with some effort.  Due to the wind, I was not able to completely test the floating abilities, but it seems to do fine at zero throttle along with the wind (not into the wind).  Have to do more testing later.

To answer your numbered questions :

1.  It was pushed in place with the CF rod inside and flown.  The wing was removed after flying. 

2.  We didn't see any yet, in spite of couple of nose in crashes into sand.  Not sure how it would have worked out on hard ground, but being elapor, that should not be a big concern.

Overall, it seems to be one of the best $60 (plus about $35 shipping) ever spent on RC, according to my brother and others at the field.

I will post some more details in the "weekly RC activity" long thread.

[Update] http://www.rcindia.org/chatter-zone/what-rc-activity-did-you-do-this-week/msg10993/#msg10993

One thing I felt longing for is a bigger/better aileron control. Not at issue at all for normal flying, but I did feel that more aileron control would have helped in some of the "recovery" scenarios.

Hi Team  ,

We had the First Test Flight today , in our backyard. Also this was my first , first RC Flying after the Simulator training for around 3 months. The plane was great and flew well, but due to heavy high speed wind, it was bit difficult to control at low altitude. i have posted my videos in you tube for you to see.. I am Happy. will post about few issues in the plane ,latter.  

1) Is that an AXN Floater ?

2) The very first flight with a camera on-board ?

Good flight and great location, BTW 

Hi anwar,

1) Yes that was axn floater jet.

2) we had onboard pencam on my first flight !!

Hi Ramjin,

Dude congrats that was a great first flight.. One more thing dude you are hooked to rc  Welcome between us rc freaks..

In btwn can anyone import this axn for me ? I dont want to risk the custom craziness..

cheers

atul g.

Can you share with us your experience of procuring the same ? Did you order it directly from outside India, or did someone get it for you ? What was the customs experience like, if you ordered it online ?

And looking forward to your comments about "building" it also.  Did you glue the wings permanently ?

I had messaged ram about axn floater and did he pay any customs and all that. I believe he said a friend of his got it frm hongkong and he didnt have to pay for any customs.

I think this axn floater is a very nice deal since its an arf and is a very nice competitor to the easy star..They are in stock at the moment in hobbycity..selling like vada pav 

Congrats Ram , I hope tuning the Tx was not much of an Issue.

Sai

Lucky that a friend of me, offered to carry it all way from HK to India. I ordered the items in two sets via the website. One set for Tx ,Rx, Batteries and Charger and the other one for the plane. My friend came through green channal, they did ask him what it was and he let them know that it was toy. They left him through.

I did not Glue the wings !! , because you did not !. So after reading your post, left it as such in its place. But realised that the wing moved out a bit after few flights. So used a colourless packing tape to keep the wings in place.

I am just a starter, do not know much about building RC plane stuff, But added reinforcement to the plane with carbon tubes.  Bought 2 carbon rods, one is a flat one. Place the flat one underneath the leading edge of the wings.

And placed a pair of  carbon rod pieces of 15cm beneath the fuselage, so strong the crash was, the structure did not get damaged.  In the front of the plane fuselage beneath the battery, i placed the flat carbon pieces.

At last  i cut few of the bubble papers that came with the packing and placed them underneath the fuselage, in the front and at the underneath the wing ends which touch the ground hard.

Thank you Sai,  I had lost the default settings in the transmitter and copied a setting file from a forum website.
I am still yet to learn the details of Sub Trim and that too setting sub trim via a program.  It looks like maths..and i hate maths.   

Anyhow for flying i make sure the control surfaces are level and still learning to fly in the winds..  i have never considered Winds , while practicing in my simulator. I thought it would not be a matter of concern. I had around 10 flights today. And the last 2 flights were frightening, once it got struck to a teak tree, some 15 metres above the ground and the other time, had harrowing experience trying to land the plane. Now i realize , how important it is to land and to take off.

The aircraft withstood all the hard landings and crashes. and i even switched of the motor and glided down during the wind. 

Regards,
Ramkumar G

We did not fly a whole lot of times, but even with couple of "incidents", the wing held its place.  We don't see the need for making a permanent joint (or even a joint using rubber bands) any time soon.

Also, I was wondering why you needed to reinforce the wing, when there is already a big carbon rod provided with the kit for the same purpose.

One thing about this plane is that even if the airframe is ignored, the electronics itself is a good asset.  And since each aileron is driven by a separate servo, you end up with 4 servos, instead of the usual 3 (or even 2).

I have put a duct tape to the bottom of the fuselage so that whenever you land the plane you don't take out the epp foam..The duct tape is quite strong and will also prevent breaking of the fuselage.

Here is a video.  The description says 25kph winds, may be it was not that high (at least not all the time, except for periodic gusts), but a very very windy day for sure, that we were able to hover the AXN floater with zero throttle for long long periods !



Watch the last 30 seconds !

 Try not to use the glue it came with. I always had bad results with the glue they send. And also,it is usually a slow curing glue. Just a suggestion