E33 S.E.5A 800mm Wingspan PP Foam RC Airplane Fixed Wing Biplane Warbird KIT+Power Combo - (KIT+Motor+ESC+Servos)

The media could not be loaded. I bought the ARF version, which includes the servos, motor & ESC. My comments relate to that version. The materials are high quality, as is the engineering (part fit) of the kit. I'll reserve comment as to the quality of the electronics until I've had a chance to fly it a few times. But there is one catastrophic error in the design, if you intend to fly this plane. And the instructions are pretty bad, and wrong in some cases.The instructions are pictogram for the most part. They incorrectly match the wrong wing part number to the internal rib structure. Thats easy enough to sort out, since the ribs are sized to fit in only a particular wing set; upper vs lower. They also would have you installing the wing servo after having fully enclosing the inner rib structure into the foam wings. If you do that, you'll have a frustrating challenge in trying to feed the servo lead back through the internal structures to the wing root opening. The catastrophic design flaw is with how the motor mounts and the angle the motor PTO makes relative to the planes longitudinal axis ( axis of roll). The design has the PTO aligning precisely with the roll axis. The rotation of the motor inherently makes the plane yaw to the port. An airworthy design would angle the PTO to the starboard a few degrees to offset that affect from the motor spinning. And the drag from that large upper wing will tend to pitch the nose of the plane up when flying. Again, a flyable design will have the motor PTO angle down to counter act that drag from the upper wing. These can be corrected by shimming the motor mount with washers to achieve the appropriate angle on the PTO. But it takes a bit of trial and error to tune that angle for best performance with test flights and adjustments to the motor mounts. This will be a challenge to make into a good flying bipe.You'll need experience in kit building and RC aircraft design before attempting this build. Especially if you intend to fly the finished plane.Update (6/12/25); My preliminary build is done. Other than the angle of the motor PTO, I did some other corrections/mods. If you look at the photo of the internal structures (near the empenage/tail) you'll notice I added some trussing to stiffen the tail structure. I also split the foam skin down the center. I did that so I could line up key openings on either side of the fuselage, like servo openings and cabane strut holes. Then I buttoned up the top with gorilla glue when I have all correct. That way I kept good alignment of that skin with the opening, which is not possible if you attempt to stretch that uncut skin over the top and to the other side. I also left the front fuselage closed with ace bandage clips so I can open it up later to add an electronic gyro....if the test flights goes well. Also, note on the head on shot that the motor PTO angles down and to the starboard for reasons noted on the initial review. Other than that, make sure you read the special instructions and program the ESC so you get max rpms out of the motor. All sub-assemblies aligned fine with attaching the wings and struts, and the electronics seem to work fine. I'll take it out for a test flight and share a video of success or maybe a crash. Stay tuned.

So far it’s been a good build. Parts seem to fit nice with a little sanding. The foam / bass wood hybrid model kit it very innovative and should be a sturdy air frame. Will up date once complete.

needs to have better instruction could not complete wings did not line up

Just What i was looking For - Thanks Ed

This is one of the hardest kits to assemble I've ever put together. The foam is stiff and springy and glue-ing it to the ribs and frame is very tricky. It is possible, but you may very well need more than 1 kit's worth of parts to get everything right and figure out how you're going to go about putting it together.