Maiden Flight : 10s! 90mm EDF Aero Foam Mig 17 from Banana Hobby

#mig17 #90mmedf #rcjet


Maiden flight of the Aerofoam 90mm EDF Mig 17.

I ordered this Mig from Banana Hobby, I have been following it online for anwhile. It used to be sold through Hobby King under the Avios brand painted in a winter camo livery and it was discontinued. Banana Hobby had since picked it up and changed the color schemes and also upgraded some of the components.

Ready to build it, I opened the package and immediately removed the stock edf unit, esc and white box (servo box) and equipped mine with a JP 1400kv 8s 90mm edf, Castle 160hv, powered by SMC 3600 10 cell flight pack (6s and 4s in series weighing 820 grams). Rx is powered with a Castle Pro BEC run off a separate 450mah 3 cell pack.

Also ran the control surfaces on their own channels and maximized all the throws. I enabled tailerons and crow landing flaps, also have thrust reverse.

Even added a Freewing tail flame afterburner which I glued to the JP tail cone with some etc silicone. I’m seeing a static load of 172 amps and 6200 watts at wide open throttle.

CG: Set it up to balance on the main gear favoring the nose so it will drop back onto the nose when tipped back onto the tail and released.

As far as I can tell, all the servos are metal gear except for the landing gear door servos which are plastic and one died after 4 flights so I replaced those with some analog emax metal gear servos I had on hand. (I tried a digital emax servo first but it kept buzzing) The landing gear sequencer must have been updated because I don’t have any of the issues discussed in other videos and posts on the forums…It works great.

Did the maiden flight and three more for a total of four flights. She takes off clean, flys nice and is predictable and stable….and for a guy that only started landing edf jets with landing gear on a runway for the first time last week, she lands pretty easy.

My model has the goofed up rudder, and it needed lots of right aileron trim to get it to fly straight. I was able to reduce the amount aileron trim buy adjusting the left elevator to induce some right roll, I’ll keep playing with sub trimming on the other control surfaces to try and spread the needed right trim around the whole airplane.

After getting it trimmed she flies very nice. The control surfaces (being small) of course aren’t super responsive…typical of all the mig 15/17 models I’ve ever flown. It is a pleasurable model to fly predictable and forgiving…very good and enjoyable….that is until you throw monster power at it.

So yeah, after getting it trimmed out and flying it around I was excited to see what the power combo I installed could do. It did not disappoint. Tons of power and the vertical is awesome. Approaching the upper end of the power range, the model hits a critical speed and the fuselage calls it quits and becomes unstable. I will put a gps in it to determine what that speed is but it is really moving. Flying straight at full throttle, it gets going faster and faster and then suddenly, it banks left all by itself, full right input cannot even counter the turn, even with tailerons enabled (though they do help). The only way to regain control is to back off the throttle…she quickly settles down and I am able regain control without any trouble. I feel like the wings and tail are not very rigid as compared to other models (Freewing, FMS). The wings almost feel loose when you grab them and wiggle them and the tail is flimsy and bendy (nevermind the goofed rudder)

After flight inspection also revealed the aluminum wing spar bent, probably during one of the “out of control high speed events”. I’m looking for a carbon rod to replace it with.

So that’s my only real complaint I guess, she cannot handle the speed generated when you add a lot of power. I’ll try it run it on 9s next week and see if it settles down and if it is still too fast, I suppose I’ll just do the 8s the edf was spec’d for.

My first thoughts on this model were that is sloppy, though to say that probably isn’t fair since I’m not flying it stock. (Though it is a bit sloppy 🤪) I think I’m just used to offerings from Freewing, FMS and others, where you can double or triple the power and the fuselage just takes it and performs.

Shortcomings aside, I really like this model. I’d even call it my favorite. It really does fly nicely at normal speeds and it just has a presence in the sky that draws your attention. I have most of the 80 and 90 millimeter EDF jets currently available and this is the one I am most excited to fly or just look at…In fact, I ordered up a second one to have on hand because I love it that much and would really miss it from my fleet if the unspeakable happened 😬. I understand why many of the other reviews of this model discuss all the problems with it but in the end, they say you should still buy it. If you like classic Migs and bigger RC jets definitely get this model, it’s worth the trouble.😁