Banana Hobby's R/C F/A-18 DiamondBack Electric Jet

I have been flying R/C airplanes on and off since I was about 12 years old. The airplanes I had were all nitro (gas) powered engine airplanes, which anyone who has flown those types before knows how messy and problematic they can be.

It was a couple years ago that I decided to try electic powered airplanes. I wanted to get away from the hassle and mess of gas power. I was amazed at how much the electics have improved over the years with the introduction of Lithium power batteries. Back in the day, the only option was NiCad, which are very heavy batteries. I had always had an interest in jet aircraft, but the cost was so far out of my reach that I just set that idea on the back burner until this year.

In February, I happened to stumble on a website, bananahobby.com. In that site, I was amazed at the number of electric jets the company had to offer, and I was very happy to see that there were some large jets to choice from as well. One that I was particularily interested in was the 90mm F/A-18 Hornet. The quality of detail and scale was very appealing, and the price of only $650 for a "plug and play" model was attractive as well. There were three seperate paints schemes to choose from. The black and light grey Jolly Rogers, the Blue Angels, and the bright red and light grey DiamondBack Demonstration Team styles all looked great, and took several weeks for me to decide which one I wanted to order. Ultimately, I chose the DiamondBack. Actually, my wife had to choose FOR me.

Within a week and a half, UPS had delivered a large box containing my new airplane, and I wasted no time in ripping it open and start putting it together. I kept saying "WOW" everytime I pulled out a new piece of the airplane, as I couldn't get over the detail of the parts. Armed with some 5-minute epoxy, I soon had an airplane so large that I found it difficult to move around the house in being careful not to run into something to avoid damage!

The "kit" had ten pieces that needed to be glued together. Wings, tail stabilizers, fuselage, and canopy etc. But the build was fast and easy, and I had it together in two hours. I was also happy to see that the retractable landing gear was already installed, as well as all the servos, push-rods, and engine and ducted fan unit. When the build was completed, I stood the big jet on it's nose on the floor, and was amazed that the tail came almost to my chin, and I'm six feet tall! It wasn't long, and I was charging the included five cell LiPo battery for some setup of the control surfaces and retracts. The kit is available as a "plug and play", or "receiver ready" version. If you choose, you can get the jet with a transmitter and receiver, or you can use your own radio and receiver. I chose to use my own transmitter. All I had to do was plug in the receiver and fly.

The first problem I found, was that the retractable landing gear was hard to adjust. I tried for several hours to get the main gear to lock in the up and down positions in sync with the nose gear. In trying to do so, I stripped both plastic gear servos in the main landing gear, which then needed to be replaced. Instead of ordering the same type in servos, I ordered four metal gear servos, which would handle the load much better than the plastic ones. Once installed and adjusted, the gear cycled much better. The next problem I found was during high speed taxi tests. When close to rotation speed (takeoff speed), the nose wheel cranked to one side which resulted in the wing tips being sanded down by the asphalt road. Upon inspection, I found that the pre-installed nose gear assembly had loose screws in the strut, and had all kinds of slop in it. I returned home without flying that day to make some repairs and some adjustments. After hours of tinkering, I got the nose gear assembly tightened up, and re-tested the taxi. I was satisfied, and happy to see that the jet tracked a much straighter line on the ground. With a much lighter touch on the rudder stick of the transmiter, the jet took to the air with authority and a steep climbout. After getting some altitude, I started the jet in a left turn to come back my direction and pulled off a little power to allow me some time to stay ahead of it. It looked so dominant and tough as it flew by, drop tanks and rockets visible under the wings and landing gear retracted. Being a once in a while propellered airplane driver, I was extremely impressed at how easy it was to control the jet, and realized that there was no shortage of thrust for some awesome speed. There are no rudders on the vertical stabilizers, so crosswind landing are a bit of a challenge, but not hard. I decided later to add leading edge wing slats for more lift and slower speeds for takeoffs and landings, as well as added an eleventh servo to make working rudders. I have not yet flight tested the jet since the modification.

Overall, the Banana Hobby DiamondBack F/A-18 is a beautiful airplane, and fun to fly, but it is NOT for a beginner, and should only be flown by experienced R/C pilots! The only thing I recommend is that you take out the original plastic geared retract servos from the landing gear and replace with some good quality metal geared servos.

Good luck and happy flying!!