GWS Formosa

Yep. Put together carefully with the same attention to geometry that you'd use for a pattern plane, and using some of the many hints off the web (such as carbon tape down the insides of the fuse halves and accross the top and bottom of the wing) it will do very nice clean and accurate pattern manouvers.

I have one that now has approx 300 flights on it. I was very surprised at how well it does pattern manuevers. Knife edge has quite a bit of coupling but is easy to hold with elevator. Rolling circles are pretty easy with this little fella and they look good. Slow rolls , point rolls look real nice. Actually, since I'm not really a pattern flyer , it has capabilties beyond my ability. I did nothing to mine except add a PJS 550E 3D brushless , 30 ma Jeti ESC and 3s 1500 lipoly. I get about 10 min flight time with a little throttle management and almost unlimited vertical.

Take offs are very easy and I go to a knife edge sometimes right off the deck and climb out on knife edge. I have flown most of a flight on knife edge just for fun. It can also do rolling circles forever almost effortlessly. Landings are a little different story. Does require some power on and you have to maintain speed or the wings geta little wobbly and it does like to drop quickly when this happens. A lot of this could be me , but after all these landings I think it's the airplane.

I have other aircraft .....glow powered up to 1/4 scale , but I fly this fella most every day. I usually do about 5-6 flights each evening. I charge up my batteries the night before and have a ball the next day. I can fly this about 5 minutes from from my house. I have another new one in the box to replace this one as soon as it's wore out (almost there) I bought the slope soarer version which was only 24.99 since I don't need the motor. I love this little guy and it looks pretty good , especially in the air.

It's a great airplane to practice with or just have fun.

Ken Day

The Formosa is a great "pattern-style" aerobat, no doubt. People sa

that they have managed to break off the entire tail but I have no managed that... I have broken off the nose, though!

In my opinion:

- keep it light

- avoid the twist that many get when gluing the fuselage side together

-- perttim

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Hi,

What sort of foam is the Formosa made from. I have flown (crashed) polystyrene plane and vowed never to buy another, but EPP looks muc stronger.... Thanks, Oliver

-- oliver

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It is not EPP. It looks like the white foam that is used for insulatio

(in places where there is a real winter), except the grains are finer.

It took me a seriously violent crash to break the nose off of m Formosa. It was not hard to fix, once I got around to it. (I do no want to remember how many times I broke the plastic cowl.)

I have not crashed for a while. The Formosa flies well as long as I a not disoriented

-- perttim

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It looks like you'll be disappointed then - the Formosa is polystyrene.

Not sure exactly what kind of foam it is. There are different flavors of polystrene. This is really tough and repairs easily. Sureflite once had a line of foamies made from this type of foam for glow power. May still be around. Don't think you'll be disappointed with this little airplane.

Ken Day

I think the difference with expanded polystyrenes is the density. Sheets of foam seem to be fairly light while packing foam for TVs tends to be denser, while the GWS foam is denser still.

I fully agree though, the Formosa is an excellent plane. I'm just finishing my second one.

OK four days straight flyin and I've come to the conclusion this is one of the best deals in RC. Was having some probs with glitching ...moved esc further away from Rx today and only a few glitches in 25mins of flying. KE certainly has some coupling...pulls to the belly and rolls quite a bit. It seems I missed all the posts on the built-in fuse twist and mine is noticeable. I'll probably slave a few degrees of ele to rudd and ride the ails fairly hard for ok KE. The only problem is the speed has to stay 80-90% of what the A20-22L & GWS 10x6DD prop can give in order to sustain it, and even then its just enough. My 5.5oz pack is back, right next to the servos and I still have almost an 1/8" of UP ele. Even with all these issues this plane tracks great and for its weight is very solid. Eventually I'll build another one and add maybe an inch to the rudder after building the fuse straight ( :

You can fix the fuse twist - you need to fix it on a bench with supports front and back to hold it straight, or even twisted a bit further in the other direction, then heat it up (I used a heat gun on low heat played over the fuselage - careful as too much heat in one place will cause the foam to goosebump) and leave it for a few hours (or longer just to be sure). It's a few weeks now since I did it to my new one, and the fuse is still straight.

That said, from memory, my previous Formosa, which I had succeeded in building straight, still required a bit of riding the ailerons and elevator to get it to track straight when on edge. It met a premature end when I had a mid-flight ESC shutdown due to a pack with a faulty cell.

Poxy... but if I straighten out wont my stab be out of alignment? I'd hate to have try and get that straight.

No but I ordered some...$10. I have no idea of how to mount them tho. Seems I need 2 sets of gear...whos done this ?

Apparently I got lucky when I bought mine. No twist in the fuse on the first , and I just started assembling a new one and it has no twist.

Ken Day

My impression is that the twist is introduced when gluing the fuselag

sides together. There is a little play in how you line up the sides. I you only pay attention to getting the seams looking neat, instead o seeing if the tail is straight, you might get a twist

-- perttim

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Thanks. You're right , but if molded properly it wouldn't be a problem. Maybe GWS has fixed it. Mine lined up by the seams and the tail is also straight.

Ken Day