Phoenix 2000

lobstermash

Propaganda machine
Mentor
If I didn't already have a great glider I'd be very tempted by one of these... I've got the FPV Raptor and am pretty impressed. The wings are even interchangeable! Almost 'swappable'...
 

cgetman02

Member
Maiden flights completed this morning. I'm smiling, she flew well. The only things I did to her was added flap servos, added a SportBEC from Dimension Engineering, and this afternoon I moved the battery tray back by one set of holes. Was having to push the battery back so far 1/2 was hanging off of the tray. Not a problem now. Oh, I also cut the shrink wrap off of the heatsink on the stock ESC. Didn't motor fly just used the motor to gain altitude and the see how long I could glide. No problem with heat so far. Running 1600ma Nanotech 3s batteries. They are used from flying my planes. They are OK but, I think I'm going to go with the Std. Turnigy Lipos from now on. The Nano's seem to get kind of puffy where the Turnigys don't.

FWIW, Crash
 

Fishbonez

Active member
Cool Cgetman. Glad you are enjoying this plane. Was out flying mine today in about 18mph winds. Flew great. I also have installed the flap servos but have not noticed much change in speed so I may need to adjust my mix some. What mix do you use and do you see any difference when you apply them?
 

cgetman02

Member
I'm using a DX6i and used this setup. I have as much deflection as the flaps will allow right now. It makes a huge difference in the speed. It also causes ballooning which I will try and adjust out.

http://www.bladehelis.com/prodinfo/Files/Radian_Pro_DX6i_setup.pdf

Don't know if this will help, guess it depends on your radio system. Maybe it will give you some ideas at least.

I'm going to try and get out to fly again tomorrow so, will give an update after another session.

Later, Crashmaster
 

cgetman02

Member
Update on todays flights. Had another great day. Charging batteries hopefully I'll sneak out this evening for some more flights.

Calmed down enough to check on some things. With the above setup for the DX6i I had to change some of the settings to get the desired CROW function. On Mix 1 I changed the UP -65% to +65%. On Mix 2 I changed the -20% to +30%. These two changes of the above setup gave me the desired CROW function. She really puts on the brakes with CROW enabled. With the Gear/F Mode switch in the 1 position you get flaps 0 position no flaps (providing you have the Flap/Gyro switch in the 0 position). With the Flap/Gyro switch in the 1 position and you flip the Gear/F Mode switch to 1 you get CROW. (Flaps down and Ailerons up, still having Aileron control)

This explanation makes sense to me but it may just be confusing to others. If you need some clarification let me know.

Had to do some minor wing repair (after dumb thumbing it into the ground with the elevator on a final approach) Also worked on securing the internal components better. ESC tied down, BEC stuck down, Battery cable extension deans cable tied together to prevent rough landing disconnection.

FWIW, Crash
 

Fishbonez

Active member
Wiped mine out today on a bad landing and busted up the wing but fixable and will have her back up in no time. Made some adjustments on the Flap setting on my DX8 still no change in slowing her down. May just have to forego flaps for the time being.
 

Fishbonez

Active member
RIP PHX2K

Ok I have decided that I no longer like this plane and do not recommend it to anyone her is why of course this is only one mans opinion and you can take it for what it is worth.

First of all let me point out the what I think is good about the model.
1. Fuselage is tough and sturdy (imean its a type of plastic. You cant break it)
2. The ESC. Contrary to what others have said in the past I never had any problem with the ESC burning up or anything similar to what has been said. Just fine in my opinion.
3. the motor and blades. Put simply as often as this plane has crashed. Into trees, darted into the ground and like today came straight down from 1000 feet at probably 50+ MPH. The motor has always functioned, blades in tact and never had to use the spare blades that came with the model.

Now lets talk about why I think this plane is bad
1. Transportable not in the least bit. The wing is just to long. You can remove it from the fuse but the wing can not be split. I drive a truck with a 6 foot bed and it just barely fits length wise. If you leave the model assembled .
its pretty much the only model you are going to take safely. When I get to the flying field can take up to 15-20 mins to get this bird ready to fly. For an electric pilot that flies in an area where the weather changes at a drop of a hat. This is a lot of time wasted.
2. This model stalls very easily and the only way to pull out of stall, that I am aware of, is with a lot of power and in my opinion the power and the elevator is not enough to pull out. An example I would use is the plane was at approximately 1000 feet when she stalled. Unsure if it was a tip stall or what a stall none the less. She went straight down and with full power and no elevator to pull up with well you can guess what happened. (admittedly might be pilot skill)
3. This plane does not handle wind well, yep I said it, again some I am sure is pilot skills however in 15-20mph winds she is tossed around like a rag doll in a tornado. Requires plenty of adjustment just to keep this plane from stalling. In theory this plane should love the wind a glider right. Well in my opinion it stinks in comparison to other gliders I have seen.

All in all if you want a glider that requires constant attention from the moment you leave your home to the time when you return. Then this plane is for you. Me I have spent more time adjusting repairing and trying again then I have had flying/soaring it or gliding it. If you are in the market for a glider as a beginner or intermediate glider pilot in my opinion this is not the glider for you. I will attempt and will fix this plane again and it will fly again but I am definitely in no hurry to make it happen and I will constantly be reminded of the money and time wasted wishing I had made a better choice of models.
 

cgetman02

Member
Fish, Sorry you are having a hard time with the plane. You have been at it for a while. I'm still having fun with mine. Time will tell. One of the things that concerns me is the lack of replacement parts. I usually try to purchase aircraft with parts available. I guess with such an inexpensive plane it doesn't end up being as much of an issue.

Keep flying!

Crashmaster
 

Fishbonez

Active member
Fish, Sorry you are having a hard time with the plane. You have been at it for a while. I'm still having fun with mine. Time will tell. One of the things that concerns me is the lack of replacement parts. I usually try to purchase aircraft with parts available. I guess with such an inexpensive plane it doesn't end up being as much of an issue.

Keep flying!

Crashmaster
I would not say I was having a "hard time" with the plane. More a long the lines of I am not impressed with the plane. In my opinion it should perform a lot better than it has. I am glad you are enjoying yours. I personally will no longer recommend it to anyone. As far as spare parts go. I would have to agree the plane is pretty cheap. The only parts one would need as spares is wings (too expensive to ship at the price might as well get another plane) and maybe props or motor but like I said I have yet to break any. It is a sturdy plane for the most part. The wings are not and the plastics for the screw mounts just is to sharp (digs into the wing) so have a rough landing guess where your wing is going to break.
If you own one by no means I am not trying to discourage anyone. Fly it until you blow the wings off have fun, I know I did. Just when you think ""I may need to purchase a replacement" don't there are far better models out there for about the same price. If you are thinking of purchasing this model don't for the same reason you would not want to replace it.
 

bozman

Junior Member
Got one of Ebay for $20 never built

I have a feeling that the motor that can with this one ( and the speedy ) are not the origional ones that come with the kit. after my second flight she came down with a really bad burning smell and the firewall had melted.

I have since bought a better motor and esc and I have cut a firewall from a durafly mustang firewall (got it from hobby king). It also has a little right and down angle on the motor so that should help counter act the new motor that I have plus it will add a bit of disance between the motor and the plastic frame as its about 1/3 on an inch thick.

The flights that I have had with this glider are really good , after I maiden her with the new motor I am going to add my Go Pro to the top of the wing and it should get me so awsome footage.
 
i have a phoenix 1600. I installed a NTM 28-30 1100kv motor and am pretty happy with it, it's no rocket but it climbs well and has enough power for how i'm flying it. It balances pretty well with a 1300mah 4c 3s pack.. tracks like an arrow, unlike the OP i haven't had any bad stalls but I can't say i've made any overly tight turns either. I running a frisky X8R, a high precision vario, and a lipo monitor. I want to add FPV to it eventually but I'll need to see if I can fit a slightly bigger pack to increase flight time.

otherwise It's one of my favorite planes!

- Jes
 

HawkMan

Senior Member
To be honest, the Phoenix is a nice sailplane that can do some light acro, but the motor is mostly meant to get it up and with soem good thermals you can keep it up.

if you want to do FPV or camera work, I would consider getting a Firstar 2000/FPV raptor V2 instead. it's essentially the same plane, but with the front of the body modified to a pusher motor design and a drone/camera style front. with LOTS of room for big batteries, I can comfortably fit two 3s 2200's in there, others fly with 5s 5000's or bigger for really long flight times in it.

Depends on what you want to do though, you can do some more action filming with the phoenix, The firstar I haven't really dared do much fancy flying with after my first unbalanced flight where I went into a crazy dive stall coming out of a loop :)
 

Bayboos

Active member
I got one PNP from HK with the factory installed motor: VolantexRC B4023 850kV. It does get hot when you run it constantly at high power (3s), but I can't imagine why you would want to do that. Unless heavily overloaded, this plane climbs pretty well and accelerates pretty fast in level flight; up to the point when it's not happy with the speed anymore. It tracks nice, but pulls high g's at every stick movement due to significant airfoil thickness. The wing construction is not ready for "tons of g's" - it handles moderate aerobatics well, but may not survive hard pull-out from max speed dive.

I noticed that sometime ago Fishbonez said three things he don't like with this plane; and I feel I need to address all of them:
1. Transportable not in the least bit. The wing is just to long. You can remove it from the fuse but the wing can not be split.
Unless you have the wings glued together, that's not true. All versions of the Phoenix glider (1600, 2000, 1500/2500) have at least two separate wing halves (1500/2500 have four part wings). You do need to join them together before installing on the fuselage; and I do admit the way they are joined is not the fastest one in the world (four wood screws). After that, you still need to connect all the control wires (up to four) and then screw it on to the fuselage (four more screws). But with a tiny bit of practice it doesn't take more than 5 minutes to have the plane ready for take-off (including battery instalation/connection); there are times when assembling my Storch takes longer (due to huge and light wing; even the slighest breeze turns the assembly into battle).

2. This model stalls very easily and the only way to pull out of stall, that I am aware of, is with a lot of power and in my opinion the power and the elevator is not enough to pull out.
I'm very surprised with this statement. My Phoenix does in fact stall easily when flying very slow in thermals; but a tiny bit more speed and it practically can't be stalled at all. And even if it does stall, it does break the stall by itself. It doesn't want to enter the spin unless forced to do so. It's true that She does not recover from a dive without any control input; but that's also expected for the plane that tracks very well. Being sensitive to the elevator input, recovering from dive is farily easy even without any power.

3. This plane does not handle wind well, yep I said it, again some I am sure is pilot skills however in 15-20mph winds she is tossed around like a rag doll in a tornado.
And again, I'm pretty surprised. The plane is a bit on the heavy side (mostly due to unbreakable but heavy fuselage) and is close to neutral stability (that's why it tracks so well). Remembering that it is a sailplane (not a warm/hotliner), you should not expect it to ignore the wind (and especially wind gusts) completely; but it definitely handles it pretty well.

You may want to check a YT channel by Adrew Newton. He does own a Phoenix 2000 and flies it on the slope in high winds (no motor installed) doing some aerobatics. The plane handles all of this just fine.

All of the stated above makes me believe that there was/is something wrong with the Fishbonez's Phoenix. Perhaps it was damaged at some point and the wing no longer holds it's shape/stiffeness, contributing to all unexpected behaviors; and being glued together it can't be disassembled anymore. But that's nothing like the original plane in good shape. My Phoenix is in "almost new" condition and I can't say anything bad about it. It's not the best sailplane on the market, that's for sure; but it's a decent one, and with the HK's price tag (currently it's $83 for PNP) you can't beat it with anything else.
 

HawkMan

Senior Member
Yeah, I've never really had issues with stalling this plane, I do tend to fly it relatively fast though. well that's not true. when I'm doing my 40-50 minute on stock motor and a 2200 battery, I'm usually cruising slowly on thermals. usually there's a bit more wind up there so it's not as slow as it looks, but even on non wind days I just let it cruis at it's "natural" speed where it slowly glides forward losing altitude as slow as possible while I get lucky and find a thermal in my noobishness.

As for wind, this plane has been my go to plane on windy days. it handles great in the wind. unless it gets to windy, but then it's usually to windy for anything. the issue is usually that I often need to land with the wind... and both this and the firstar/fpvrapto brother, don't like ground wind or stale ground air on hot days with no wind giving turbulence. As long as it's in the air it's great, cvlose to the ground, she can get a bit unstable and require being very vigilant on the controls. unless you have a nice slow head on breeze to land against, of course then landing is a challenge because to crazy glideslope you get even with max crow :p