HobbyKing® ™ J3 Cub (RTF)

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Customer Rated

May 28, 2014

This is a great little plane and a good value for the price. If only the designers realized that the "pretty" scale landing gear is useless. If you are handy with modifying your plane, get rid of the stock landing gear and replace it with something stronger with foam tires to reduce the landing bounce. If you use the stock setup, one of the wheels will likely jam up and give you a ground loop on take off or landing. Don't get me wrong though. I really like this plane. It flies excellent! If you take your time putting it together and making sure everything is tight and placed properly you will not have problems. I would not recommend this as a beginner plane mainly because it is not a slow flyer. It is stable, but landings need to be made at a fair speed.

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Customer Rated

Dec 06, 2013

Got the product and crashed on maiden flight.
The cause (apart from being my first fly) was a short in the Tx potenciometers that caused interferences between elevator and ailerons.
Anyway, the model is nice and has everything you need to fly (RTF version). Also it is easy to repair.
The experience was good enough to keep me in the hobby and wanting for more. I moved to a slower plane until the flight art is mastered and then will come back, repair the plane and try again!

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Customer Rated

May 25, 2013

Flies well, plenty of power. Mine came with the blue wing US Army colour scheme instead of all yellow. A few parts need checking, refixing etc., but overall good value. Just need to be careful to check for loose bits for the first few flights. The battery charger doesn't come with battery leads which is disappointing as I needed a kit with everything included on this occasion. Luckily I took the precaution of adding an AC battery charger.

I changed the gimbals over to fly Mode 1. Works OK but the rudder and elevator trims are interchanged. Ruder trim works the elevator trim and vice versa. Aileron trim is fine.

Anyone know if you can fix the problem?

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Customer Rated

Feb 10, 2013

Bought this because I wanted something inexpensive to learn to fly on. It served it's purpose and for the price was outstanding. Too small to cope with the wind. Maybe a little too responsive for a newbie, but a year later it's still in one piece. The RX or TX finally packed it in about two weeks ago. I'm dissapointed about that. Never had a wheel come off but I always checked them before flight. Some people seem a little picky about lack of scale and detail (someone complained the pilot was in the wrong seat). Remember, it's a $120 FOAM RTF kit. Not a scale balsa kit. Too bad about the radio.

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Certified Buyer Rated

Jul 08, 2012

its a good trainer to experienced plane, it can basicly do only one trick... the loop de loop, it can sort of do a barrel rool but i recomend it for the more experienced pilots as it tend to do it very slowly and to drop in Altitude. over all I think it is a great plane and i like it alot :)

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Customer Rated

May 10, 2012

Hey guys.Plane arrived with the rudder all but broken off.Easy fix with real hinges.Wing very weak at windshield.Again,easy fix with a carbon rod.Nice looking,but HK needs to supply spare parts for it.IF they do,I haven't found them yet.

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Customer Rated

May 10, 2012

Nice plane.Arrived with the rudder broken off.Easy fix with some real hinges.Wing is very weak right at the top of the windshield.Quick fix with a carbon rod.HK needs to sell spare parts for this.If they do...haven't seen them anywhere.

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Customer Rated

Apr 28, 2012

I bought this J3 last September (2011) & still fly it till today. Very good for beginners plane pilots. Its very nice, durable & easy to repair. I just need an epoxy to repair it. Thanks Hobbyking..

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Customer Rated

Apr 08, 2012

Cub revisited: OK, when I first got this and started to re-fly after a 20 year absence from RC I wasn't too impressed as it doesn't fly like a Cub, at least none of the real ones I'd flown. Having previous years of experience with free flight I persevered and made some mods that have improved the flight envelope. Shimming the motor for down thrust I ended up with two 1/8" washers under the top motor mount screws. I had to file away some of the prop shaft hole in the cowl as I'd also added a prop hub adapter. I also added about 1/16" shimming under the trailing edge of the wing to reduce the angle of incidence. These mods toned down the tendency to zoom up under full power (although a fair bit of down trim is still required) and the transition to a gentle glide is much more predictable without having to change the trim for each flight condition. The plane now flies much better although too fast for scale. This is definitely not a beginner's plane; the ailerons are way too quick for starters. The 1400 mm version that I have since bought is much easier to fly, more predicable, and flies much more like a real Cub. Both planes will do all the usual loop, roll, and combinations thereof as well as nice snap rolls (better to left than right), spins, inverted, hammerheads, etc. But the smaller one does it all much quicker. It's a fun plane once you get it sorted out.

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Customer Rated

Dec 13, 2011

hey guys im teaching my father in law to fly with this it his Christmas present im getting him ill update you all on how it fly's :) and how go it is for a new flyer :)