They don't get any better than this.
This is a great plane, folks. The quality of construction is phenomenal, and now that I've got some air time on it, I'm equally impressed with the way it flies.
I have several nice five-footers, and this one is at least the equal of any of them. In fact, I can say that, for me at least, it's probably the best knife-edger I have, and its rudder authority is definitely the best of all. It does vertical knife-edge loops, for example, tighter than any of my other planes.
I was actually a little surprised at the rudder authority because the rudder itself is not as big as those on some of my other planes. Is it the SFG design, perhaps, that contributes to it? They're pretty big, and their profile is quite upright.
I'm still getting used to how well it does KE flight in general. This thing was born to zoom around rolled over 90 degrees. It's very stable when flying on its wingtips. I still tend to apply too much compensating rudder to maintain altitude. It needs almost none at all, and I'm not used to that. Once again, is that because of the SFG design?
It's a fierce knife-edge spinner as well, due to its excellent elevator authority, which was significantly improved when I put an MKS servo on it. I love the way it transitions from a crazed KE spin into a stately, graceful, slow-descending inverted flat spin. That's one of my favorite moves, and it does it beautifully.
Low and slow stuff is also easy with this airframe, and I plan on doing a lot more of it than I usually do. It hovers really well, and there's virtually no wing rock at all during high-alpha harriers, upright or inverted. I should be able to do slow, high-alpha KE flight much better with the Laser. I don't do that well at all now, but this will be a great plane to get better at it with.
And, along with all of the above, it's a manic tumbler, as well. It's lively and super-quick. It's a violent snapper, and I was happy to find myself suddenly doing my best poptops ever with the Laser, even though I'm still fine-tuning the best stick moves for them.
I've put over 25 flights on it in the past week or so, and I've realized that it's starting to feel like a "go-to" plane. It may well turn into the plane I'm most likely to take with me to the flying field. It does everything I want it to, and does it all really well.
There are a lot of great five-footers available these days, and this is a superb one. I feel very fortunate to have it.
Reviewed by: Michael Morrissey from Southern California on 5/14/2016
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