To Home Page Eclipse Eclipse Specifications: 50 inch wingspan / 29inch length / 196inch wingarea / 16ounce weight / 11.7ounce wingloading / elliptical wing with an RG-14airfoil.

Controls: aileron, flaps, (flaperons) elevator and motor speed.

Equipment: Four Cirrus CS-10BB servos, Hitec 555 receiver, 6v or 7.2v speed 400 motor, 6x3.5 Robbe folding prop direct drive or a planetary 4:1 gearbox with Graupner 11x8 folding prop. 7 - 500ma or 600ma Cells, Viper Micro Demon 102 ESC w/BEC an Brake.

Construction materials: Balsa, spruce, 1/16 plywood and covered with Monocote.

Comments: The Eclipse is my second design with the F5B speed 400 event put on by the San Diego Electric Flyers in mind.

High glide speed is very important in the F5B event and the Eclipse does this very well. The extremely clean lines and small size make it hard to see when coming toward or away from you. Bright color is a must. The Eclipse ailerons are programmed to drop as flaps and they work really well. Pull up the flaps and go for speed. Drop the flaps about 5 degrees and increase lift and the climb rate. Dropping the flaps also slows the Eclipse down to help stay in the lift. A lot of fun to fly, it does loops rolls and flies inverted. It soars fair but its high speed makes it hard to stay in small lift. The flaps can really help here. The Eclipse is easy to handlaunch but landings can be a bit long. The Eclipse slows down but watch out for a quick fall off on the stall. I haven't programmed in airbrakes yet but they may make shorter landings. I'm still working on the trims and CG.

I was impressed and excited from the first flight. This plane does more than I hoped for in the design. It is fast, not like a pylon racer but it goes good. Its controls are solid and predictable. I love flying it.

One drawback is you need a computer radio to do the mixing to get the 4-channel receiver to work the flaps. But you can still fly without the flaps.