Eachine Airloader - Polishing a Turd

[Burkeomatic]

I know you all saw me rant about this before, but it finally came in. The ''community'' decided this was garbage because Andrew Newton tipstalled it in a gust right next to the ground and called it a fail, inspite of other reviewers saying it was actually pretty good, while simultaneously lauding the sonic binary as a great plane or at least an acceptable plane even though heavy modification is needed to keep it from being a tip stall monster.


I get it, you don't want your plane to tip stall 3 miles out, which is why I am afraid to go real long range where I fly with my s800. Even though it is fast, efficient, and fun, you can get yourself into an unrecoverable spin if you are too much of an idiot. I traded some efficiency for control on that plane by installing VGs on that plane and it helped a ton. Mind you, people like the s800, and so do I. 

So, my plan for this plane is along the same lines. Add some VGs to the tips although some people say it doesn't need them, and maybe add some washout. I am probably going to go twin immediately. It depends on what the set up looks like, as it only came with the single engine which is a 2217, I'll probably just rock a couple of 2205s which should be plenty. 

Either way, the plane will carry the "real" sparrow 2 FC which has OSD and is adjustable like a real FC, albeit not in the same fashion, you have to do some controller set up instead of just loading it from your computer. We will see if it is worth the price savings of $7-$20 over a F4 flight controller. Power will be a 4S 4000 MAH and the vtx/camera set up will be straight off banggood. The VTX does "1000 mw" but it apparently only does about 600mw, and the camera is a 1000tvl eachine one. Should theoretically give some decent image quality and range for $30. Should end up being a pretty good budget sub $200 FPV plane when I am done. 


2022-06-30_03-57-51 by Burkeomatic, on Flickr

[Burkeomatic]

I got it unpacked. Typical hokie stickers and directions. 


20220630_162501 by Burkeomatic, on Flickr

All unpacked, the motor is already installed, so I may use it for now as a single. The plane would benefit balance wise I believe from being a twin and getting that engine out of the back. The foam is of equal quality to the reptile planes I've had, the dragon and the S800, which is to say it is very good. 


20220630_162820 by Burkeomatic, on Flickr

So much room for activities. 


20220630_162949 by Burkeomatic, on Flickr

The aluminum boom is heavy, I see where some folks have swapped it with carbon fiber. Right now, it needs quite a bit of weight just to balance with a 4S 4000mah battery. I designed some VGs using math and stuff and have those printing right now. 

It would be neat if flite test were to go back to doing something like this. It was a great article. I see what people mean by "bring back the old flite test.''

[Burkeomatic]

This plane went together very easily. I didn't stick to my original plane of keeping the single motor, even though it came installed.

This is the single motor set up.

2022-06-30_11-46-07 by Burkeomatic, on Flickr

The twin motor pods just glue on, I am not sure how much I trust that, but it should be ok. It is a tight squeeze getting the ESCs and wires into the holes. The wings have spots where xt60 connectors should go in and it be plug and play when you hook the wings on, which would be fine, but there is no where to easily route the motor control wires. So I bored out the hole out a little bit, and it is still easy to connect the XT60, but the signal wires are a little harder. I won't need to take the wings down much though. Here it is twinned up, those are just the motors from the night fury.

20220701_165539 by Burkeomatic, on Flickr

[Burkeomatic]

Alright, this plane allegedly has tip stall problems which no one has cared to do anything about.


So I decided I would install vortex generators before I even tested anything. I printed these, and are probably a bit prettier and consistent than your run of the mill cardstock/foam ones, although I think the others would be just as effective. I think I was trying to jam as much transparent plastic on this as I could. 

I made a little random template out of some posterboard, and got them mostly even. I can easily print more if these don't work. 


20220702_132903 by Burkeomatic, on Flickr

I am going to maiden it with the faux pro so I don't risk damaging a nicer camera. (I don't have a real go pro, I have a firefly 6 and a vivitar action cam from walmart, but they all fit in the hole) I have the flight controller and all of the goodies in that top hatch.

20220702_142044 by Burkeomatic, on Flickr

It worked out well removing the rear engine, because that ended up being a great place to mount the VTX antenna. The GPS is mounted center line right behind the canopy, I just razored a slot into the foam to get it a little more nice looking and hide the wires. 

20220702_142104 by Burkeomatic, on Flickr

This is the rats nest that is my flight controller area. I have the sparrow 2 osd version (this is technically the sparrow 3 I suppose) and this thing seems like it will be great. It's parameters are adjustable and there are tons of them. RTH altitude, safe altitude until RTH, autipilot cruising speed, all of the gains are individually adjustable. You don't even need to hook it up to your computer. All parameters are adjustable through the controller/osd. Review soon. 

20220702_142018 by Burkeomatic, on Flickr

It will balance out (mostly) with a camera mounted in the nose with a 4000mah 4s. 
Here it is, ready to go.

20220702_004648 by Burkeomatic, on Flickr

[Burkeomatic]

Ok, the maiden is done... and it flies great. I have zero complaints about how this plane flies in its current set up or the flight controller. My half assed guess on the settings seemed to be pretty close. 

Conditions: 101 degrees with 42% humidity, winds sustained 14mph gusting to 25. Pretty typical flying weather during the summer here. If you want to skip the winds, you need to get up early. 

2022-07-02_08-13-06 by Burkeomatic, on Flickr

Honestly, I was fairly nervous. People talk crap about this plane, and about 50 percent of the FPV world loathes it. However, many of the people that hate it have never flown it and are basing their opinion off a video that Andrew Newton did where he tipstalls it and says it is a fail. Luckily, I think that caused them to move pretty slow off the shelves, and if they come on sale for $114 for the pnp kit again I will absolutely buy another one as a back up. 

First launch was a hand launch. I stuck it in stabilized mode and powered the plane up to about 70 percent where I could feel it pulling and I just released it and it gracefully launched itself out of my hand, similar to the way the FT P-40 did. Completely drama free. I took it for a few laps around my field and did a dead stick landing, yet again, drama free, it made me look like a rock star. The rest of the launches i just did a ground slide to take off. Those little skids on the bottom are tough and slippery, and do a good job letting the plane slide on the ground. 

Then I launched it again, putting it into acro mode after launch. This plane is pretty dang aerobatic for something that looks like it was modeled after the whirlpool inventory. I did stall testing, and I really couldn't get it to tip stall. The VGs worked, the nose just mushes down and all you have to do is nothing and it recovers itself. It also did a great job at dealing with the wind. 

Now it does get a little sketch feeling below 50kmh or so. It won't stall, but it gyrates a little on the yaw axis, likely due to the fact that the airflow is probably having a hard time getting to the tailfeathers which explains the extra little v stabs on the tail. 

The motors off the nightfury are on it, which are sunnysky 2207/2100kv and they are spinning 6145 azure power 3 bladed props. I would ideally like to have these motors in a 1700kv version spinning 7 inch props. I do have these, but I am saving them for another couple of planes. Honestly, had I known this was going to fly so well, I would have bought a set for it too. I just had the attitude of "lets stick some junk on it and see if it works." It seems over propped, but these do fine on 4s, they have been tested by other people than myself, and on 6045 props these motors can make 1000g of thrust each, the plane weighs 1500g, do the math, it has power to spare. 

It cruises drawing 11 amps at about 40% throttle at 80 kmh. Not the most efficient thing in the world, but good enough. I hit 110kmh in level flight not even going all in, so it is fast enough too. Although it drinks the juice when you are going that fast... from what I can tell. 

''From what i can'' tell is an allusion to the fact my VTX was being a little sketch, so I didn't get clear picture a lot of the time, therefore, no video. 

So in conclusion, this plane does a lot of things quite well, it can be floaty and soary or aerobatic, and it is easy to fly. It certainly doesn't feel like a 3lb plane. The negatives are the looks which are subjective, it isn't terribly efficient, and it can get a little wobbly if you are going to slow. I cant say this is as powerful or aerobatic as the Dragon V2, but at half the price, it does relatively the same job for half the price, and is readily available. Overall, I would recommend this plane to anyone, it would make a great first FPV sled. Maybe not as easy and straight forward as a zohd drift, but if you are a decent pilot looking for your first FPV plane, you could do way worse. 

[Burkeomatic]

Ok, I swapped the motors out to some turnigy 2217/1050kvs. I had planned on putting 8x8 props on it. The night fury motors weren't very efficient. These are not better. They would be if I could put 8x8 props on them, but all I have are 7x6s. All I could get is 153mah/km, i need to be down below 100. These motors are very under propped, but they are also only spec'd for 20a on 3S, so they are basically useless turd motors. I mean they would probably be fine for the guinea pig I planned to build, farting around on 3s and 1045 props, but I don't trust them for 8x8 props. I went ahead and sent it on 4S with the 7x6 props. The motors were a little toasty when I landed. 

If I run 8 inch props, I will run into some ground clearance issues, so I don't think I am going to do that. I'll stick with the 7's and probably get a 2212/1400kv motor. 

I need to get the gains dialed in for the ailerons, i got the elevator situation taken care of, but the plane still climbs a fair bit under heavy throttle, so I need to get a mix worked out there. 

I did a quick speed run, it is still fairly quick, but could be better. It had more in the tank, but I didn't want to be ripping 70-80mph over peoples houses. I was doing enough stupid stuff today anyways (you will see when I upload HD footage later). 

[Burkeomatic]

The 2212/1400kvs ended up being the ticket. I think I can maybe get some more efficiency by going up to a 7x7 prop. I am able to cruise at about 9-10 amps now as opposed to 13ish with both of the other set ups. I wasn't able to get to efficiency numbers as I kept pushing the range and I hit RTH a couple of times, and just for safety I had the return speed set to about 80kmh, which really drains the batteries. I have found one complaint about this FC, when it hits failsafe, or you hit RTH yourself, it makes the plane come all the way back home instead of giving you control back whenever you get signal or flip the switch back. Annoying.

[Burkeomatic]

Here is the link to the vgs on thingiverse. The instructions on how to install them are there as well.

www.thingiverse.com/thing:5428445

[Mad Pilot Matthew]

Looks pretty good, at cruising speed what range would you say you could get out of it? 40km? If you're pulling 10 amps from a 4 amp hour batt I'm assuming you get about 20 min flight time

[Burkeomatic]

Jul 15, 2022 13:42:48 GMT Mad Pilot Matthew said:

Looks pretty good, at cruising speed what range would you say you could get out of it? 40km? If you're pulling 10 amps from a 4 amp hour batt I'm assuming you get about 20 min flight time

Somewhere in there, I have gone longer, and shorter, it just depends on how much wind there is to fight, although I make every effort to be on the ground with about 1500mah left or so, typically 3.7v per cell.

The washing machine fuselage is both a blessing and a curse, while it hurts efficiency along with the square motor nacelles, the flipside is you can jam up to a 10000 mah battery in here, and this plane doesn't feel heavy at all. If I catch a good deal on a couple of 8000-10000mah batteries, I will buy them and cruise forever. The other plane I was telling you to get, the dragon, I think the max you can go on that is 5000-6000mah, so this plane would win an endurance contest due to just being able to fit more battery. Kind of like semi trucks, they don't get the best mileage, but they can travel farther than you.

[Burkeomatic]

I am going to swap the motors again. We will try some emax eco 2807 1500kv. The 2212 1400kvs are the right size, and kv, they are the sweetspot. But those are 10 year old motor designs. I had ordered one of the emax 2807 motors for a wing I was planning to build, but never ordered it, so I picked up another motor the other day and we will give these a shot.

www.racedayquads.com/products/emax-eco-ii-2807-1500kv-motor?currency=USD&variant=32124636233841&gclid=Cj0KCQjwlemWBhDUARIsAFp1rLUCbSU8ZoFpBvRk7lAwiXiDtaOKAeoy5ViMxEHP5sJpHDEQUMGdWSIaAhBHEALw_wcB

All though, when you are researching motors, and efficiency, they typically rate efficiency at grams per watt, which would be ok, but I really need distance per watt. I am not trying to lift a quad, I am trying turn a propeller a certain amount of times with the least amount of current possible. I think i need to come up with a watts per amp or something like that. 

[Burkeomatic]

Trying out a new flight controller (nb one +) and back to the 2212s with the 7040s off the dragon. I am going to shake down and review the flight controller, and I think I have found this plane a new home.