X-Models Blade

Review by Phil

At the October 2004 club meeting I bought an X-Models 1.9 metre Blade from Jess Nicholls. This is all moulded and strong, designed to take the stresses of dynamic soaring, that's flying on the wrong side of ridge, taking advantage of the difference in wind speed between the dead air low down and the main air flow.

The model comes complete, but it still takes few hours to make up a 4 servo wiring harness and fit the servos. The only problem I had was squeezing the gear into a small model; I cut away one servo rail and fitted a full sized receiver and sanded away some of the cases on HS81s to get them flush into the wings. I set the model up taking advantage of all the couplings on my computer radio: ailerons to flaps, flaps to ailerons, elevator to trailing edge, crow braking and V tail mixing

Sunday 7th gave a chance to fly it after the fog cleared. the only surprise was the light lift performance, I was able to stay up with light weights and no nasty tip stalls. Handling was excellent, all the controls smooth and progressive.

The Blade was all I had hoped for, the performance of a large model in a small package.