F9F Panther XTB w/ 68mm Alloy EDF Unit 4370kv (ARF)

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Customer Rated

Sep 11, 2012

This plane is a piece of crap i set it up just like the other one i had but it wasnt from hobbyking it was from somewhere else ive tried to fly it twice and both times it ditched and im sure its because its not by a decent manufacturer. I would not recamend this to anyone. Ive put all good hardware and it doesnt make any difference.

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Customer Rated

Aug 28, 2012

I have always loved the F9F Panther and liked the look of this model as a fellow club member had one and he said it flies great. I read all the mixed reviews on this site and decided that for the price I had to have one even if turned out bad. I bought the model, 9g metal geared servos, the Hobby King 60A ESC and 2 x 5000 20C Li-Pos. The instructions could be better but if you have a few models under your belt it's not hard. The ESC didn't work, so I borrowed one from another model and put it together over a few hours. The C of G was a bit out so I added about 100g of lead to the nose and went flying. I am knocked out by how well it flies. I had to add about 3 clicks of down elevator, that's it. I get about 6-7 mins at 2/3 throttle with a few full throttle bursts. It looks better and more scale at half throttle. Loops, rolls, immelmans, reversals are no problem. It is interesting to land as the Panther slows to a stall but pitches up as it slows. Keep the nose down to continue flying and landings are a breeze. It is a great flying model for the price. Now, where are those bridges........?

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Customer Rated

May 31, 2012

Who writes all of those reviews! I've just finished building her. Looks fantastic! As it comes it WON'T fly properly. Hand launch,you must be joking. Maybe if you are a 100 metre sprint runner. What an utter pile of S**t! Don't waste your time and money unless like I'm going to have to do you want to fly something heavily modded. And thank you very much you bunch of ******* ****** ******** B******* for my lovely birthday present I waited over a month for,paid import tax at this end to the tune of 26 euros and lovingly built over the course of the last few weeks to not fly it. I don't like to complain but, this is me being pushed too f*****g far. I don't expect that i will get any sort of satisfaction from C\S so i won't bother. Oh well maybe i will learn this time! 3s on a duct fan aircraft of more than 600 wingspan just aint no good. But then if i trusted myself, i knew that!

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Customer Rated

May 02, 2012

Just wanted to thank Hobby King customer service for doing the right thing for me on my order for this EDF jet. The postman didn't get it delivered and they made it right. Give them a chance and some time they will go the extra mile for you. Happy Flying

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Customer Rated

Apr 01, 2012

Flies and handes well, spped impressive, balanced plane.

The metal fan unit sounds great and gives respectable thrust

I have the 4 cell fan but reckon the 3 cell could also be fun, the power package is much lighter. On 4 cell the landing speed is high.



The retract is crap though, the front failed on taxi and collapsed during take off run, change to electronic servoless ones would be better, else some serious reinforcement needed.



And yes it's eps but quite good quality eps, when it breaks it doesn't break into little pieces, and since it's relatively brittle, it doesn't sustain much deformation on breaking making it easy to repair.

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Certified Buyer Rated

Jan 28, 2012

Nice Jet. EPS is not as wrong as others wrote even some improvements with balsa are recommended by myself. Increase elevator surface adding the balsa trailing edge and your comfortable landing is assured. Also center of gravity is simple - generally the point is at the place where aerofoil is fattest - this is the place where lift is maximal. Usually it is 1/3 of aerofoil depth measured from leading edge - assuming that geometry is O.K. When you buy this aircraft please check the EDF unit - my was unbalanced but I fixed that. I recommend this plane.

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Customer Rated

Dec 15, 2011

I`ve been flying one of these for several months now - bungee launched it`s a great performer. For the guys who have a few whinges, where else are you going to get such a great model WITH an alloy fan unit included for this price. It`s a steal at this price - snap it up .....!

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Customer Rated

Sep 07, 2011

this is a great model , the only issue was the the horizontal stabalizer was forced ion the vertical stabalizer, other than that is was easy to build the motor sounds VERY smooth, i was using a 3 cell 4400 mah 40c lipo and it was still tail heavy, so im going to use a a 5000 mah 3 cell lipo, it was flying great just a tad tail heavy maybe i cold just add some weight. im thinking about buying another for a spare, at this price it does not hurt my wallet for the quality

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Customer Rated

Aug 23, 2011

The servoless retracts listed above for the model are not an exact fit and requires quite a bit of messy modification of the airframe to install the steerable nose wheel. Hobbyking, are the "RCLanders" retracts that are fitted on the ARF and PnP versions available for prurchase?

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Customer Rated

Aug 05, 2011

Just received mine today. Wish to give others some first-hand feedback about the model. Looks nice, but have encountered quite a few disappointing quality issues. The flaps and linkages are fitted but the linkage is useless. My manual came with an addendum showing new wing-mounted flap servos but my model was an earlier version. I will have to mount servos in the UC servo location somehow. Similarly the elevator setup has so much slop but has such tight hinging that actuating one side (as designed) hardly moves the other side of the elevator. I will have to cut it out and re-hinge. Stabiliser does not slot into fin without breaking fin. Slot in fin has to be reshaped etc etc etc... TBC