Cessna 182 Scale RTF 4CH RC Electric Airplane Review

A couple weeks ago I reviewed a really cool min RC helicopter called the Picco Z from Hobbytron. The Picco Z was so much fun I decided to have a look at a much larger and more complex flying toy from Hobbytron called the Cessna 182.

Is the Cessna 182 Scale RTF 4CH RC Plane as much fun as the Picco Z? Read on to find out.

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Benchmarks

When the Cessna 182 arrived at my door, I was more than pumped. I really like RC gadgets, especially the types that fly. The Cessna 182 is a RTF or ready to fly model, but you do still have to do two things before you can take to the skies. Namely you have to attach the vertical tail and the horizontal stabilizer as well as connecting the clevises that connect the control rods to the control surfaces on the tail section of the plane.

The glue you need to attach the tail and horizontal stabilizer is included and the entire set up process took about 20 minutes start to finish. You also have to attach the landing gear and the main wing and you are ready to fly. All servos, linkage rods, engine and other parts of the plane are pre-installed and ready to operate. The transmitter included with the Cessna 182 is a 4 channel (you can also buy 3 channel versions) FM unit with a 2500 foot range. The transmitter also has trim dials so you can trim the plane to fly perfectly level.

The four channel radio provides a more involved, but more realist flying experience by giving the pilot more control over the aircraft. The Cessna 182 is also aerobatic so advanced flyers can pull off loops, inverted flight, hammerheads and more. The Cessna has a very large wing span, 38.5” to be exact, giving it a good amount of wing area so it is quite stabile in the air and the fuselage is 29” long. The motor is an electric, high torque 480 7.2 volt that is powered by an 8.4 volt 1000 nihm battery that gives up to 18 minutes of flying time and takes four hours to recharge. You also get an extra propeller with the kit.

The Cessna 182 also includes a free flight simulator program for PC that uses the Cessna 182 controller so you can learn to fly the plane before you take off. This simulator was a bit hard to get working; I ended up having to download another application from the publisher’s website to get it working with my Cessna 182 controller. However, the time spent setting up the simulator and configuring it to practice was very well spent. The simulator has the exact same Cessna 182 model in it and it flies dead on for the actual model.

While you can take off from the ground like a real airplane, I hand launched the Cessna 182 during my testing because I found it difficult to lift off on the not quite smooth surface I was using. Once in the air the Cessna 182 can reach 50 mph at full throttle. You can throttle the plane back quite a bit to make control easier and still keep it in the air. I found that most of the time I could cruise at about 1/3 power without issue, though too little power makes the plane easier to stall.

Once in the air the plane handles well and is very responsive to input from the transmitter. The light weight foam makes the plane easily upset by crosswinds, as I found out on my second flight when the battery went dead and a crosswind put the plane into the ground before I could correct it. When the battery gets too low to power the motor, you can still operate the control surfaces for landing.

I was sure when I heard the whack as the plane went down that I would walk up and find the Styrofoam in a thousand pieces. I was very surprised to see that the only damage was a bent front landing gear, a chunk of foam from the leading edge of the wing knocked out and the propeller shaft was bent. I took the plane home and removed the prop from the motor along with the cowling and straightened the propeller shaft with some pliers, used the glue included wit the kit to reattach the chunk of foam I knocked off the wing and recharged the battery.

The next time I flew the plane it flew as well as it did before my bout with pilot error. Turns out that the Styrofoam construction is much more durable that I thought when seeing the plane for the first time. If this had been a wooden framed design I doubt seriously it would have survived the impact. A few more flights and I am having a blast with the plane. I am no longer worried about destroying the plane with a crash, which is bound to happen if your piloting skills are anything like mine. So far I have been able to fix all crash damage with glue and pliers. Should I ever cause damage those two item s can’t fix, Hobbytron also carries a line of replacements parts that are quite inexpensive.

Verdict

Conclusion

Verdict
Overall, the Cessna 182 is a fantastic RC plane that handles well, is very durable and about 99% ready to fly right out of the box. If you ever wanted an RC plane, but were turned off by having to build your own and the high cost typically associated with RC flight the Cessna 182 is perfect for you. You can even buy it right now for only $179.99 including everything you need to set off into the wild blue yonder.

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