FT Storch light - perfect trainer (music video)

Sit back and relax, watching this FT Simple Storch Light soaring trough the air with peace and confidence only the best perfect trainer RC plane can give to even the most unexperienced pilots.

Original video:
   • FT Storch - perfect RC trainer  

I'm flying FT Simple Storch with minimum reasonable power setup:

hexTronik 24g outrunner
GWS SF 8x4 prop
Plush 12A ESC

The plane is powered by 1600mAh LiPo battery. It proved to be more than enough in terms of capacity, providing over 30 minutes of flight per one charge. It would not be recommended to use smaller battery because of CG issues; also with total weight in 750-800g range it handles wind gusts pretty well. It may not be the case when having it any more light.

This setup provides roughly one third of recommended power. As a trainer plane, FT Simple Storch does not need any more. Some of the previous flights were flown with motor/ESC/prop combination close to recommended; but it was quite difficult to apply precise and gentle adjustmends on the lower end of power settings range. This "ultra light" setup allows very precise control, resulting in very gentle landings and very dosile low-pass handling. It will not allow for almost any aerobatics (some loops and hammerheads were performed off the camera though), but it's not essential in case of beginner plane. As you can see on the video, current setup makes the plane fly slow and stable, giving a lot of time to apply any corrections any first-time pilot needs. If the need arises, being swappable makes the power setup change really easy anyway.

Scale-looking flight is a nice "happy accident" - with 80W of power, this plane have power to weight ratio similar to planes like Piper Cub. With it's size, it's pretty easy to fly it "like a real plane". Few extra aesthetic touches and it will look wonderful, especially on the pictures. You may follow the link below for few examples:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...

Many thanks to the Flite Test crew for this wonderful kit and their whole work providing us with such great designs.
Thanks for watching.