Cermark Fantasy Racer

[19000rpm]

This version of the Cermark Fantasy Racer is a P N P.

It came very well packaged and complete with no defects or damage save some over spray on the paint.

Price: $109 plus shipping.
Material: EPO
Wingspan: 51"
Length: 41"
Wing Area: 453 sq."
Fling Weight: 3 1/3 lbs.
Motor: NEO 10 1000kV
Prop: 12X6
ESC: 50A
Battery: 2200 3S 20C or better (Pilot supplied)
Rx: 4 CH. (Pilot supplied)
CG: 2.5-3.0'' from the wing root
Parts Availability: Good

First impressions and observations:
1) This is an exceptionally well built model. Foam thickness is more than adequate with no molding imperfections with the exception of the mold release marks.
2) Hardware is very good with dual aluminum spars and snap on wing connectors.
3) Very stout landing gear system.
4) Two huge equipment bays. One for the battery and an under canopy area for the Rx.
5) The clevis(s) are glued on. Lots of glue. Sloppily applied.
6) EPO only Aileron and Elevator hinges

Here are a few out of the box Pics:

[akent]

These are great flying planes!
I love mine!
They love it on their sides just about as much as upright and inverted!

I would recommend putting either a stiffer wire to the elevator, or putting some carbon tube over the stock one. I did the latter. The stock rod is very flimsy and you will have a hard time getting to it later, as it's in the middle of the elevator.
Your clevises look to have a lot of glue. That's a very good thing! Mine were hardly glued at all. I could pull lightly on those and the servos and they came right off.

Those servos are not robust. Especially on the rear end. If you bump the rudder or elevator, they will strip.
I replaced mine in the rear with HXT-900's. These are MUCH more durable, if you can believe that. Better would be some metal geared ones, but my cheapies are holding up fine so far.

When you are ready for more power:
The motor and ESC are great units! They will handle 4s with no problem.
The prop however draws too much current. It looks a lot like an APC, but it's not.
A real APC 12x6E on 4s will pull right around 50 amps with a fresh charge. It will drop below that in the air and after a few seconds.
This gives it UNLIMITED VERTICAL! The cool part is that you really can just cruise around at 1/2 throttle, and it will be about as fast as the stock setup at WOT.

These would be awesome planes to pylon race with. There is a club somewhere doing that. These turn extremely well!

Oh, and you will want all the aileron you can get, and not much elevator. You don't need much rudder either to knife edge with.
The manual is a good starting place, but you'll see!

I think you will love your FR!!

Added: I glued the wings on mine. Hard turning can loosen the joint where those plastic clips are, allowing the wings to bend up and down. After gluing mine, it is rock stable. I poked holes in the foam where they join with a toothpick and then used epoxy to glue em on. You could use other glues, too.

Kent

[akphill]

Where did you find this plank do you have a link by chance ?

[19000rpm]

Here ya go phil www.cermark.com/products/Fantasy-Racer-.html

[Doozer]

Just got mine in the mail today

Got the PNP version for $101. Ordered it Sunday, came today. What made me go ahead and buy it was that I was in my LHS for parts for the Pitts and sure enough, they had one on the shelf. I would have bought it from him but the sticker said $179... and that's not out the door, that's before $17 worth of tax. When I told the guy who works at the shop that I can get it online for $101 dollars he didn't believe me. I told him that I could get the RTF version for $177. Said the lowest he'd go was $160 and asked whether I could get local support for my plane should something go wrong. That would have been $176 out the door. I like to buy local when I can but I couldn't afford to do it this time, and I told him that. I paid $113 shipped to my door in less than 3 days.

Anyway, can't wait to get it in the air.

[19000rpm]

Good going there doozer! As much as we'd all like to support our LHS money is money.

I've been tinkering with mine. Adding cockpit detail and a pilot. Cleaning up the edges of the paint and adding scallops to the rudder...

The grass/pavement isn't dry enough to fly it yet (don't want to mess up those purty wheel pants on the maiden), but with the way winter is going, with so little snow, I may be getting it in the air soon.

[akent]

Nice work on the cockpit and rudder!
That looks great!

[19000rpm]

Thanks kent. Just having some fun; as usual.

I don't know why, but of late, I'm getting real anal about having pilots in all of my planes. If a plane doesn't come with a pilot I start searching for one. The Fantasy Racer driver is an eflite pilot cut down a bit to fit.

OOPS, forgot to mention I replaced the Rudder and Elevator servos with digital metal gear units from PKZ.

The control rods in my PNP, for the Rudder and Elevator, seemed of adequate strength, so they may have updated that. Just to be on the safe side I put CF tubing over the Elevator control rod.

And, I decided to go right to the 4S setup with the 12x6 APC right out of the box. May as well get right to the max fun ASAP. ;D

[Doozer]

Nice pics. I haven't cracked the box yet. I'm waiting until I get the Pitts engine running this weekend before I break anything open.

By your pics it does look like they were in a hurry pumping these out i.e. overkill on the glue and the massive amounts of over-spray on the paint. I guess that's why they're as cheap as they are.

I don't think I'm going to make any modifications. I'm just going to try not to break it. Gonna go with 3S 2200 and a 6100 rx.

[19000rpm]

Yep, the small things are no big deal.

Having good foam and a great motor and ESC shows where the priorities are. Not enough makers are doing that and hardly any that are selling at so reasonable a price.

Nothing wrong with the stock setup. I have a tendency to go overboard. If it calls for 3S I'll go 4S. If it calls for 4S then 5S it is...It's a disease. I caught it from kent. You better get inoculated or you'll be coming down with it too. ;D

[akent]

Heehee!
Also don't forget that along with more power, you need to double the throw too, most of the time!
With this plane, I would recommend having a high setting beyond high, only for the ailerons. The elevator and rudder throws are fine.

Doozer, these mods are to keep a very nice plane from crashing. The servos that come with this plane are, well, sub par (crap). If you bump the tail, you can strip a servo. If you are extremely careful, you might not. These are worse than the $2.50 servos from Hobby King.
And when you build up your plane, you will see how flimsy the elevator rod is. That rod WILL bend when you are flying.

Oh, and 19k, you might want to put a wattmeter on your plane with the bigger battery and APC prop. Someone on RCGroups said his was drawing huge currents. I don't believe him, but that's what he said. It could be possible that different motors were put in these. Mine and a few other folks are just fine.
And I think you will love being able to fly at half throttle pretty fast! And unlimited vertical is there!

I agree completely about Pilots!! I now MUST have one if the plane has a canopy!

Here's mine:
Sorry, the plane is on my back wall and I had to lean over to get a picture.
Barney was actually one of my daughter's squirt guns from when she was young! Yep, I've been raiding her old toy boxes for pilots!

Attachments:

[19000rpm]

OK, I'll crank up the ailerons.

I usually put a watt meter on these kind of set ups. Thanks for the reminder.

I picked up the APC 12x6 prop today.

I like that pilot!!

[Doozer]

Feb 17, 2012 21:59:31 GMT -6 akent said:

Doozer, these mods are to keep a very nice plane from crashing. The servos that come with this plane are, well, sub par (crap). If you bump the tail, you can strip a servo. If you are extremely careful, you might not. These are worse than the $2.50 servos from Hobby King.
And when you build up your plane, you will see how flimsy the elevator rod is. That rod WILL bend when you are flying.

Yeah I re-read your post about the mods. Sound advice. Mine will probably take a beating so.... I also went over to RCGroups... did some reading (saw your post about the prop). The guy from Cermark (Chao) seems to really have a finger on the pulse of what's going on with these planes. That's really cool. I'm planning to fly it 3S still.

What size and length cf tubing did you use? I'm working but if you answer before i leave for home I can stop by the LHS on the way home and pick some up. As for servos, I've got some micro sized Hyperions in the box o parts I can use. Thank god I'm a parts hoarder.

[akent]

Wow, sorry about the delay in responding, Doozer.
You can use ANY servo that will fit. ANY servo will be better than the ones that come on this plane, for the rear end. The stock aileron servos are Ok, as these don't take much stress.

As far as CF tubing to go over the stock rod, I can't tell you right now. Just take your rod and find one to go over it. Then when it's installed, drip some CA down into it. It will be infinitely stronger.

3s should be fine. It just won't have the power for unlimited vertical and it will lack serious punch. That should be fine! Remember that I love speed and maneuverability!

I think you will love this plane!

When are you all going to fly yours?
Kent

[Doozer]

Built mine up over the last couple nights. Took about an hour overall. At first, I was actually kind of upset. The foam on the wheel pants came split at the glue joint (like not enough glue was used). I fixed that. The manual was pretty sparse on instructions and some the pictures were wrong. It showed the hinges for the rudder on the fuse section of the plane. The hinges came pre-installed on the rudder control surface. There were no slits for the hinges in the fuse. I had to make my own. This wasn't hard, but it wasn't explained so I was unsure how they wanted me to install the hinges.

The spinner has a wobble as well. I read the instructions and the change sheet that came with the instructions and it stated not to over-tighten, because that causes an unbalanced spinner. I was as careful as anyone could be and no matter how many times I fiddled with the spinner it still wobbles.

Then the wings wouldn't "Click" into place. I had to finally get my son to help me and I had to use more force than I wanted to use to secure the wings. The wings still don't butt up nicely against the fuse.

Then I installed an AR6100 and tested the motor... dude... that made me forget everthing I just typed above. I was using a 15C 2S Lipo just to get things fired up and the power was unreal. I felt the plane tug on my hand. It was impressive. I can't wait to fly it now.