Phase 3 EF-16

10/07/07
Finally! An inexpensive EDF that actually gives good performance. I’m really impressed for 139 dollars it cost (ARF kit, fan, motor & ESC). The Phase 3 EF-16 gives great bang for the buck.
I’m not going to do a construction article on this one since the manual that comes with it is clear, well illustrated, and it only takes about 6 hours to put together. (A lot of that time is in applying the included decals) It builds really fast & easy.
Just be sure to fully understand the fan location since the manual is not "crystal clear" in that area. (Doesn’t really specify whether the location is based on the leading or trailing edge of the fan housing. I went with the leading edge and mine works great). Don’t worry about the “wimpy” looking little motor that comes with the kit either. You will be pleasantly surprised with the amount of thrust and airspeed it delivers.

The only modification I made to this ARF was adding a spring to the canopy latch. My 1st flight (yesterday, no video) resulted in the canopy popping off when it touched the ground, and it wasn’t a hard landing. That could have been a bad thing had it come off in flight. It’s not really heavy but would have made it tail heavy (and drastically changed the airflow) if it had happened. Yesterday’s second flight I folded up a piece of paper and wedged it into the slot to make sure it didn’t unlatch in flight. After getting home I took apart a clicker type ink pen and robbed the spring from it. Then, slightly lengthened (and widened) the precut slot to accommodate the spring and epoxied it in.

Today there was about a 15 mph east wind at my club’s flying site but, it was right down the runway. So, I took advantage of it and made 3 more flights with the EF-16. (That’s the great thing about buying a model when you already have battery packs that will fit it. The 2200 ma 3s 25c DualSky packs for my P-38 are “just right” for this one, too.)
This bird has an excellent speed envelope with most of us “guess”-timating 70 mph or so into the wind and 90+ on the downwind leg. Sorry, no radar gun to get true figures.
With that much headwind it’s capable of doing a Harrier type hover, too. There's a really good thrust to weight ratio on this one. Five minute + flights with a little throttle management are easy to achieve (and fun to fly) on this setup.

This video was my 2nd flight today. It’s sort of fuzzy in places and shortened a bit to eliminate most of the “open sky” scenes, but still good enough to give an idea of this model's flight characteristics.
Thanks again to David for shooting it.