HobbyKing Estrella Sport/Aerobatic Plane 50E Balsa 1500mm (ARF)

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An underappreciated, excellent flying plane

Mar 14, 2018

I've now have a couple hours of flight time on my Estrella, and I enjoy it more every time I fly it. For starters, it's beautiful. I know some people may not care for the in-your-face Orange and Blue coloring, but I like it. Besides the covering, the shape of it is just fantastic. It's like a slimmed-down P47. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I've yet to meet anyone that didn't like the Estrella.
Looks aside, it's a nice flier as well. It tracks well, and minimal rudder is needed in turns to keep it from sliding "tail low". It's obviously not a 3D aerobatic plane, but it will handle any aerobatic manuevers I've thrown at it so far. I originally had concerns about the strength of the tail, but after numerous high-G snap rolls and tumbles, it has held up just fine to my abuse. It's a fast airplane, being so slim with stubby wings, and it sails a looooooong way on final approach. With no flaps and a narrow fuselage, it doesn't side-slip well to scrub speed, and getting it slowed down for landing is sometimes a challenge for me. As with all elliptical wings, it will tip stall if provoked, but it happens gently and is easy to recover. It slows down to a crawl before stalling given the large wing chord, so you'd have to be a fool to stall it accidentally. The flight envelope is wide with this one. Given the potential for speed, no dihedral, and aerobatic capabilities, i'd say this is one for an intermediate to advanced pilot. It isn't a difficult plane to fly, but it's certainly not a trainer either.
Assembly was easy, though the instructions are not great. If you've built a plane before you'll have no issues with this one. If this is your first build, you might consult the online forums for some tips if you have issues. Nothing is difficult once you see how it goes together.
I'm flying mine with a 5065 540kv motor, 14x10 prop, and a 4s battery. The setup was ideally suited to 6s, but even on 4s, vertical is unlimited on the Estrella, and I didn't see a need for more power. It balanced perfectly with a 4s 4000mah battery up front.
If you're on the fence with this one, give it a shot. I don't see how anyone can be disappointed with it. It flies really well, has a large flight envelope, and looks so, so pretty.

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Nice plane - missing or wrong hardware

Nov 04, 2017

I noticed this plane has a very nice covering and did not have any wrinkles. I have a lot of spare hardware that I had to use to complete this plane and of my 4 standoff mounts, 1 was shorter than the other 3. I beefed this plane up with a 550kv motor and a 6s battery.

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Great flyer and good looks

Oct 13, 2017

It took me a year to finally buy the Estrella, but I'm glad I finally did. Very good build quality, however, one of my ailerons was so badly warped, that I had to make an oven from a long tube, and used hot air injection from a blow dryer to soften and twist the aileron straight..... this took 3 attempts, but I finally got the twist out of it.
My setup is 4S 3300mah 60C-120C Turnigy "Heavy Duty" Lipo, 70A Opto ESC, the cheap Big Donkey motor (820kv) ...
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/hobbyking-donkey-st4010-820kv-brushless-motor.html
I don't recommend this motor unless your build is kept under 2.3kg AUW, and you fly moderately, if you're the pilot who must fly ball's out most of the time, then get a bigger motor. I find the Donkey gives me good half throttle performance with all the vertical burst speed I need, but I know it's a marginal motor for this plane. (Also, I just burned two magnets off of another Donkey while testing props on a 2.6kg Space Walker!) I'm a fan of the Donkey, (it's Cheap!), I've flown a 3.1kg 60" Yak-55 with them, and they are a great test motor while you wait for your good one to arrive form HK :)
I also use small lipo with the "Turnigy 3 Function Switch w/UBEC, Voltage Display" to provide power to the Rx and servos.
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/turnigy-3-function-switch-w-ubec-voltage-display.html
Before I bought this plane, I read about cowl paint mis-alignment, which was worrying, but I found that by correcting to the proper downthrust angle, the cowl fit and aligned perfectly, also fixing the nose's aesthetics, giving the Estrella the look it deserves. One other thing worried me, the short undercarriage! I like big props, so I used the boxed undercarriage as a pattern, and cut new, longer undercarriage struts from an old Dell Alienware PC side cover :) ..... extending the undercarriage length by 30mm, giving the model a much better stance on the ground, looks great, and allows up to a 15in prop, though I have settled on a 14x7in prop with the donkey motor I have fitted.
One surprising thing about this plane, with it's eliptical wing, you start thinking of the Spitfire design similarities, but there is a surprise here, it's not the Spitfire, but the early P-47 Thunderbolts that the flying surface profiles are modeled after, even the vertical stab is practically identical to the P-47, check it out in my uploaded pics here in the uploaded files section!

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Estrella 50EP

Nov 14, 2016

colis bien arrivé carton très solide, l'avion ne peu pas être abimer, très sérieux bravo HK.
le kit est magnifique. inventaire il ne manque rien je suis très satisfait de mon achat.
je recommande ce produit.

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Customer Rated

Sep 29, 2016

I mean not to have received the entire contents of the package.
In my opinion something missing hardware, such as wheels, spinner, hinges and what otherwise should be to complete the plane.
I enclose a picture of the extracted airplane.
And a picture of a kit accessorie, perhaps missing in the package.
Am I wrong.
Finn

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Customer Rated

Jul 17, 2016

nice model, goes together well, everything fits together easily, very nice quality, very smooth to fly with no stall, reccomended power set up is perfect.

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Customer Rated

Jul 11, 2016

The Estrella is a great looking airplane. My major complaint is that the "manual" (on a mini CD) has many incomplete or missing points necessary for the construction of the Estrella. Personally, I used these instructions only occasionally. The steps that have a photo would benefit greatly with larger and better defined photos to clarify the descriptive narrative. The pre-cut hinge slots on the wings are off center requiring me to cut new slots on center and in line.

Would I buy another one? ABSOLUTELY!