Mirage

For all intents and purposes, the Fly-Fly Mirage is what I’d consider a “disposable jet” or a “glue ‘n’ go” foamy.
In spite of how derogatory that might have sounded, I will point out that one of my own personal favorites is a “disposable jet” as well. I’ve gotten many enjoyable flights from my Phase 3 EF-16 and it falls into the same category. Disposable’s mean that you’re not out a small fortune if you do have an “oops” and they build quickly enough that you don’t have a lot of labor hours in them to mourn over either.

That said, let’s move on the Mirage. It’s fairly inexpensive at $179.00 with the fan unit included. You do still have to spring for your motor, ESC, radio and battery though. It builds quickly and how much you wind up with invested (time & money) is entirely up to the builder. You can still count on about $500 minimum by the time you have all the other “stuff” to finish & fly it. In stock form with fixed gear it can be put together in a couple of evenings if you have everything needed on hand and get in a hurry. I spent about a week (a couple of hours a night) on mine. And, that was taking the time to analyze how things went together before actually putting it together and making several modifications along the way. The “construction manual” that accompanies the kit consists of a single sheet that’s printed on only one side. Some of the parts (at least the ones in my kit) looked nothing like what the sheet showed either. Check the photo page for more details.

Overall, the foam quality is decent but by no means great. The parts do fit together well though. I do think it could be much better designed with a few minor changes. The “factory” motor wire lead groove along the top of the fuselage (left side only) actually turns into the leading edge of the fan housing instead of behind it. It’s not deep enough to accommodate the battery wires and ESC controller wires so I cut my own secondary groove in the right fuselage side. I’d REALLY like to see the elevon servo location a few inches to the aft of where it is now. Not only would it allow for a more solid linkage, it would get the servo out of the way if a person wanted to install retractable landing gear. In the current “stock” location, the gear would fold on top of the servo & linkage. Moving the main gear location forward a little would help with rotation as well. There’s enough weight on the nose gear when balanced to make a long takeoff run. (Speculation at the time of this writing since it hasn’t been test flown yet). On the good side, it should have sufficient flying speed by the time it gets ready to leave the ground.

Things I liked: Low cost for the base kit. Quick assembly, this one could be put together in about 10 hours or less if one wanted to. Light weight and a good thrust to weight ratio. Good flight characteristics although it is a “floater” when trying to get it back on the ground. It looks good in the air too.

Things I didn’t like: There’s no real access to the fan once it’s installed and the fuselage assembled. I guess that if the airframe should outlive the motor, the wing could be removed and an access hatch cut in in front of the fan to facilitate a motor change. Instead of glue as the manual suggested I only used a few dabs of silicon adhesive to secure the tail cone for the same reason. Also didn’t like the fan location as it’s so far back that the ESC sticks out of the tail cone about 1-1/2”. Moving it forward a couple of inches would make it easier to achieve balance too.
Wing servo location is terrible. Moving it to the rear about 3 inches would be a big improvement in shortening up the linkages (not to mention making retracts a lot easier to install).
The included 1/8" wire the landing gear is made from is really soft and bends easily. About the only way I could fly this on a grass field would be to remove the slip on struts and bungee launch it. I’m sure if they didn’t fold on the take off run that they would on the landing. I bent the nose gear wire the 1st time taxiing in my driveway then bent it and the left main landing on pavement. (It wasn't really a hard landing either) It bends back easily enough and as long as it doesn’t break won’t complain any more.

2/16/08
1st flight. In spite of me calling it a “disposable jet” and clumsy me managing to break the tip on the vertical fin this thing flies great. When I got ready to fly noticed the fin. Guess I must have kicked it or something carrying it up to the staging area. Popped right along the top panel line. I borrowed some 100 mph tape from a friend, put it back into place and applied tape to both sides. (I wanted to fly it)

I had put in quite a bit of up trim before the takeoff run and wish I hadn’t. On the good side it does show the thrust characteristics and it’s got plenty for it’s weight. Without cutting the optional cheater holes the fan makes enough thrust for it to become “weightless” in a static thrust test. Most of my flight was at about half throttle where by my watt meter says it’s only pulling 25 amps. The video is a bit shorter than the actual flight after editing out open sky and ground. I had set the timer for 3 minutes on my radio, started it just before the takeoff run and probably ran another minute and a half in landing attempts after the beep. The battery didn’t get hot and according to my charger used 2630 ma of the 3700 available.
It took about 10 clicks of down trim and when I landed the elevons were trimmed level with the wing. Other than having to undo my pre-flight guess it only took a couple of clicks right on the aileron side to have it flying level at 1/2 power. Still wants to climb when you pour on the power though. Control throws were set at about 25 mm up/down for elevator and 10 mm for aileron control. 30% expo on a Spektrum DX7.

It’s comfortable to fly, has PLENTY of thrust for jet aerobatics but not made to be a “raw speed” demon. It cruises easily 50-60 mph at half throttle and probably capable of 90 or so at full throttle. Don’t know how long my motor would last doing those though. It powers it well but rated for 50 amps continuous and 90 surge. At full throttle it draws 70 amps and makes a little over 1100 watts. (Gets real warm, real quick too). I don’t think I’d want to push the airframe much over 90 in stock form either. With that long linkage on the control surfaces it’s just asking for flutter.

As for recommendations, it’s totally up to the person buying. It is an inexpensive, quick building, “step up” to a 90 mm fan. As such there are things you have to be willing to deal with. I do plan to keep flying mine until I break it beyond repair. At that time I’ll keep the usable items for the next incarnation and “dispose” of the rest.

04/30/08
As an addendum, I'm still enjoying the Mirage in spite of some technical difficulties along the way. The Great Planes 36-55-1800 motor died on it's second flight. Although you can't get the fan out once assembled, I did remove the wing and cut an access hole in the belly of the fuselage to get access to the impeller so the motor could be changed out. I found a used Hacker B50-9XL in RC Groups and it seems to be holding up well so far.
After 4 flights one of the soft landing gear wires finally broke from the constant straightening on them. (All it takes is running off the runway into the grass to bend them)
I fitted it with a bungee hook and now can fly it at my local club. As you can tell from the sound in this video, I've pretty much given up on getting the original impeller to hold it's balance. Currently, I have a Wemo 90mm impeller ordered for it since I've had pretty good luck with getting them to balance. Although the Hacker is handling the strain well so far (8 flights on this motor now), I think the performance will be better and it will live longer if the motor is allowed to spin up a little more. That way I won't have to concentrate as much on throttle management and should make it even more enjoyable to fly.