| The three that I mentioned initially - the GP Slinger/Mini Slinger, the TT | Velocity, and the F-27 Stryker
I have a Slinger (along with my 10 or so other various flying wings)
-- it does not come with a battery, and the battery compartment is large enough to let you move the battery around a lot.
(It's also made with really crappy foam, I might add -- not very stiff, and even adding bunches of CF wouldn't fix mine adequately.)
| The Zagi XT, the only one I've personally gotten to see close up for any | period of time, also had a similar compartment and was bundled with a NiMH | flight pack for near-foolproof balancing so long as the instructions were | followed.
With that cavaet (all instructions were followed), all the flying wings will be perfectly balanced all the time!
| I have no doubt there are plenty of poorly designed flying wings available
They're not `poorly designed', they just require that you follow the instructions and be careful about the CoG, and you put the battery in the right place every time, because the margin for error is much smaller than with typical planes.
| With regard to the GP Slinger in particular however, I've seen pilots who | could barely fly their glow trainers by themselves have no problem flying | the Slinger around and actually look good while doing it. Sure, they can be | tip stalled or put into the flying wing "death spiral,"
They're prone to it, and have no banking stability. This makes them, all else being equal, harder to fly than planes with dihedral and your typical `plane' shape. And since the CoG is so much more critical, it's that much more likely that sombody will get it wrong (even with an RTF, after a few repairs, modifications or battery changes.)
| but these planes do generally bounce pretty well.
Yes, but I was pointing out that they're harder to fly. Not impossible, but harder.
| I can only relay what I've seen, and I've seen several pilots who weren't | particularly proficient with other aircraft fly Slingers and Strykers like | they were expert pilots.
Then they were better pilots than you gave them credit for. In any event, people can and do learn to fly on planes that are hard to fly.