New Wattage Odyssey is lame!

Don't waste your money on the new Wattage Odyssey park flyer.I bought one thinking it would be a fun little plane. The geared 180 motor is so anemic that you have to pray for altitude. It can't get out of it's own way. It won't do aileron rolls, it won't loop. It's a pretty sorry machine. I upgraded it to a 280 and still it wasn't impressive.

Don.

Reply to
Don
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Don, Our club is getting newcomers out at the field with these so-called parkflyers and we're finding that most of these planes won't get out of their own way. It sort of reminds me of the plastic junk u-control airplanes that a small engine manufacture (who is still in the business today) was selling to novices years ago. Most of those planes flew once, if at all. You have to pick and choose carefully in order to get into the air successfully with these airplanes. It aggravates the heck out of me that the hobby shops and mail-order houses are selling this crap like they're all great flying airplanes. P.T. Barnum is rolling over in his grave right now. Joe L.

Reply to
JosLvng

My Brand X plastic ready-to-fly planes flew just fine. What didn't fly well were the alleged young pilots that received them as Christmas gifts.

Control line flying is very unforgiving. You must know what to do before you need to do it, or it is too late. Most of the kids I knew had no clue as to what that flappy thing was for on the rear of their model. I used to pick the trash cans after Christmas, looking for my next year's supply of engines. I always got a few.

Ed Cregger

Reply to
Ed Cregger

Just putting a physically larger motor on the plane isn't necessarily going to get you more power. You also need to re-gear and re-prop to take advantage of the increased CAPACITY of the new motor.

Reply to
Mathew Kirsch

In article , The Natural Philosopher wrote: | | Most wattage planes seem to be very marginal on power.

?

I've got a Wattage Crazy Max and Tubby Cubby. Both are completely stock, with the Crazy Max having an 8 cell 800 mAh pack, and the Tubby Cubby having a 6 cell 800 mAh pack (these are the suggested packs) -- both have plenty of power. And put the 8 cell pack into the Tubby Cubby, and it's got *oodles* of power.

These are the only Wattage planes I can comment on personally, but they've got plenty of power. The Tubby Cubby is a pretty tame plane, but put the CoG back and give it 8 cells, and it'll loop and spin like nobody's business. The Crazy Max will easily loop without even diving to gain speed. Somebody once claimed here that theirs would even hover, but mine won't, not with stock equipment.

The props that come with these planes are pretty decent actually. They also have speed 400 motors with a gear box. Gear boxes are the key to lots of thrust in a slow flying electric -- direct drive is only really appropriate for racers or planes that are too *cheap* to include a gearbox.

| I have a wattage prop. Won't fly woryh a damn.

Most props won't fly by themselves :)

| Putting an APC E prop of siame diameter and pitch allowed the model | to leap into teh air..

Odd. | Needless to say it wasn't a wattage. | | generally the planes are OK, but the power trains are crap. Changing | packs/props/gear ratios/motors gets them to fly fine :-)

Actually, I'm impressed with the ones I've got. And they're cheap!

| Usually the better upgrade is to add an extra cell

Can't argue with that.

Reply to
Doug McLaren

Well Ed, I gort a Cox bilnae and pee-wee engine from a bloke at school who couldn't fly it. Flew fine! That engine went into severl other models, of whch teh most fun was a sheet balsa fokker triplane. Hugely amusing.

Don't knock teh parkflyers - the firebird type stuff is almost flyable with zero skill in flying or setting up a model, and loads of kids get a taste of RC this way. Lets hope some progress. Most won't of course, but thats life.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Ther you go., First of all I was thinking of the stiff I HAVE read about

-0 things like the EDF jets - which basically won't fly stock - and some other stuff.

Even you put an extra 2 cells in :-)

However compared with GWS or Multiplex, whose stuff tends not only to fly, but fly very weel stock, Wattage stuff seems oddly marginal in some cases.

Great. Those particular models I haven't seen reviewed or come across. I am all for gearboxes etc. And I fly lots of cheap can motors and get very decent performance out of them considering BUT it ios a bit of an art to finding the right combination of bits that actually work well. The received wisdom is that many wattage kits have not had this part done right. And benefit from 'tweaking'

Yes. That is generally the way to go on anything that struggles a bit.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

No kidding! Half of our club members now have park flyers in addition to their regular planes. Some have two or three. There's a heck of a lot of formation flying and horsing around being done with these little things and some of them are fairly high performance.

in addition about one third of our members are park flyers pilots only! Does wonders for the numbers at the field on the weekend, not to mention the treasury! A few are just starting to venture into glow so it does bring members into the fold.

best thing to happen to the hobby IMHO!

Last night we had six experienced flyers with electrojets going at it. You have to see this to realize how much fun it is. We have the odd midair but with those planes it's generally pick it, look it over, and toss it again.

I've been flying since 1975 and until last summer had never seen a midair. That season I was involved in four. Two of them I just flew out of. The other two knocked the planes to the ground with just a couple of prop punches in the covering. The light weight makes for little damage.

Several of the guys have LEDs strung throughout their airframes and transparent covering. Two weeks ago we had a night flying session (not with electrojects though). Really confused a local nighthawk. We could hear it squawking the whole time we were there and once or twice I caught a glimpse of it over our runway.

Parkflyers are a blast!!

cheers Papa Sharptooth

Bouncing about the living room, my three year old grandson declares he's "a kangaroo". "If you're a Kangaroo, what is Grampie", I ask. His reply: "you a dinosaur"

Reply to
astroflyer

| Ther you go., First of all I was thinking of the stiff I HAVE read about

If it works well, nobody says anything. If it doesn't work, people scream. You tend to hear the bad stuff far more than the good stuff :)

| -0 things like the EDF jets - which basically won't fly stock - and some | other stuff.

Ducted fans in a park flier are a bad idea. They look cool, and if you're making a model of a jet it's certainly more scale than a prop, but they're extremely inefficient. Give me a big prop and a gear box for anything but a racer.

| Even you put an extra 2 cells in :-) | | However compared with GWS or Multiplex, whose stuff tends not only to | fly, but fly very weel stock, Wattage stuff seems oddly marginal in some | cases.

I'm sure if GWS or Multiplex sells some ducted fan park fliers (I haven't looked), but if they do, they probably suck too :)

| > Actually, I'm impressed with the ones I've got. And they're cheap! | | Great. Those particular models I haven't seen reviewed or come across. I | am all for gearboxes etc. And I fly lots of cheap can motors and get | very decent performance out of them considering BUT it ios a bit of an | art to finding the right combination of bits that actually work well. | The received wisdom is that many wattage kits have not had this part | done right. And benefit from 'tweaking'

Actually, I originally had a GWS Lite Stick. It sucked with the suggested configuration -- it would barely fly. I replaced the 6 cell NiCd 150 mAh pack with a 8 cell 300 mAh NiMH pack, and it became a totally different plane. So this isn't just Wattage ...

Still, I'm much happier with the Tubby Cubby than I was with the Lite Stick, even with a decent pack on it.

Reply to
Doug McLaren

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