Dragonfly-1 review

The dragonfly-one is a fun Hobbyking Sunday flyer with very nice characteristics. Where it excels is at being a small, throw-in-the-back-of -your-car sort of model that is able to be put into the air at a moment's notice. The official HK definition of the Dragonfly-1 is: 


Made from EPP, this plane can be bent and crashed in all sorts of ways and still be flyable, thanks to it's ultra memory EPP foam and rear mounted motor.A great plane for learning to fly or light weight FPV.

This model is fairly easy to build if you have previous modeling experience: it is a fairly intensive build. The Dragonfly-1 came in a remarkably small box: only about 1.5 feet long by 6 inches wide and 3 inches tall, but it didn't miss anything. Unfortunately, this plane comes only in a kit format, so every thing in the electronic realm needs to be purchased separately, but the kit itself included all The components necessary to complete the models frame (I.E.: push-rods, control horns, glass fiber rods, motor mount, etc...) 

Remarkably, this kit is only $25, so you can still buy every thing else needed to make it fly (including the FPV gear) and still be under budget. My total came out to $145 including FPV gear. look expensive? Most of it was hobbyking's outrageous shipping. I had to split my order up into two parts to avoid import tax!

Parts list

Here is the electronics list for what I bought to use on this model:

fpv transmitter

https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=76392

1000mah lipo 

https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=21334

9G servo

https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=662

brushless motor

https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=12916

178x89mm GWS propeller 

https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=27407

Prop saver

https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=51826

20 amp ESC

https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=15202

Here is what I used on this model that I already had:

Transmitter

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__28494__OrangeRxT_SIX2_4GHzDSM2Comp_6CHProgrammableTransmitterw_10ModelMemory_Mode_2_.html

reciever

http://www.horizonhobby.com/radios/aircraft-receivers/ar400-4-channel-dsmx-aircraft-receiver-spmar400

fpv goggles

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__53706__Quanum_DIY_FPV_Goggle_Set_with_Monitor_KIT_.html

Fpv gear

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__43724__SkyZone_5_8g_600mw_32CH_FPV_Wirless_AV_Tx_Rx_Set_TS832_and_RC832.html

  generic board camera

Assembly

Assembly was relatively straight forward....if you paid close attention to the instructions. The build was intensive, however, and I ran into a couple of snafu's along the way. One of these problems was with the tail: I accidentally put it together upside-down!

 Before you think of me as a complete idiot though, this problem is easy to run into if you did not pay attention to the build instructions closely. Unfortunately, the glue dried before I realized my mistake. For all of you who are thinking about building this plane, when you glue the triangle shaped base for the horizontal stabilizer onto the glass fiber rod, PLEASE put the tail into the slot formed behind the boom. This will act as a reinforcement in the unfortunate event that your plane decides to shake the earth's hand at terminal speed. Although It now lacks reinforcement in the tail, it still flies great!

This is the slot where I should have placed the tail surface

Another issue I ran into with this model is the push-rods. If you look closely under the fuselage of the aircraft, you will notice a rats nest of glue, heat-shrink, and zip ties. This was caused by general lack of  instructions about the subject. In the end, I just attached the Z-Bend tips to the control horns then used the glass fiber rods to connect the two. I used this technique on both the tail and the elevator.

pushrod: mid-boom

What a mess!

Overall, this build was not very eventful, aside from the slight amount of problem solving I had to do along the way. I would recommend that this plane be built by someone who has either scratch-built a model before or has built a couple park zone models before. Otherwise, if you feel that you can problem-solve well, tackle it! It's only a $25 model!

Flight

After finally finishing the long and tedious build of the Dragonfly-1, It's time for a maiden! The weather that day was nice and sunny: a typical Arizona day. I set the plane down at the home plate of the park's baseball diamond. Always do a range test and check that your control surfaces respond correctly to radio's inputs. Nothing is worse than just lifting off the ground to find that your ailerons have been reversed! Another good idea with this plane is to do some high speed taxi tests. With the Dragonfly, I found that a heavy amount of left rudder trim is needed to keep the plane tracking strait. The CG is also very a back out of the box, so it is necessary to either get a much larger battery of some FPV gear. I went with the FPV gear, as I was intending to use it for a mini FPV trainer.

 After giving everything a twice over, I brought the model back to the home plate and prepared for takeoff. Goggles down! Slowly advancing the throttle, the Dragonfly advanced gracefully into the sky. An important note about this plane is that it will NOT take off until it is ready, which on one hand means no stalling after take off, but on the other, means full throttle is key to success. The model seemed a little bit twitchy after takeoff, but it was probably only the low airspeed, because it soon settled down into nice and even flight. My spotter was watching the video signal in my goggles while I flew LOS. Side note; It is never ever ever ever a good idea to fly a maiden through FPV, even with multi-rotors!

After the short flight, I brought the model back in for a less than graceful landing, but I am happy to report that there was no damage done to the model. The Dragonfly is made out of super flexible EPP which makes it extremely hard if not impossible, to completely destroy. Sure, you might break a wing tip, but the rest will most likely by fine. In fact, on my third flight with this plane, I flew into a tree on accident and hit almost every branch on the way down. Here's the battle damage:

A single nick to the elevator

Pretty impressive, huh? Here's some other pictures I snapped of the plane:

                                                            Flight video: Coming soon!

Conclusion

All in all, this plane has super nice in-flight tendencies, and although some problems need to be overcome in regards to assembly, it went together nicely. I would altogether give this kit a eight out of ten stars. It's a keeper! I plan to use this model in the future as an FPV trainer and I would highly recommend this product to any custom builder.

STATIK