Flyzone leaves nothing to chance on this high-performance aircraft. The rudder
pushrod is firmly attached to the rudder control horn with a small screw.
A Tactic TR624 SLT-compatible six-channel
receiver is used to guide the Hadron.
for switching the vectored thrust unit on and off while in
flight.
Flyzone suggests that this model is best suited for pilots with
advanced skills. Watch the factory video, which shows it doing
some wicked flat spins and other violent rotational maneuvers,
and you begin to understand the company’s reasoning.
Construction
Assembling the Hadron initially involves disassembling it.
The turtledeck must be removed in order to attach the vertical
stabilizer/rudder assembly. This assembly attaches to the
underside of the turtledeck with a pair of M3x6 screws, then
the entire assembly is remounted to the fuselage.
The rudder pushrod must be threaded out through a slot in
the turtledeck and attached to the rudder. I like that Flyzone
opted to use a small screw to firmly anchor the pushrod to the
rudder control horn.
All control surfaces are factory hinged and all control horns
are premounted to their control surfaces. The time saved
by not having to perform these mundane assembly steps
is best used to carefully set up the
neutral positions of all control surfaces
and program the required delta mix
in your transmitter. Flyzone provides
recommended low and high rates that
can be used for the first flights.
The 16-page, black and white,
photo-illustrated assembly manual feels
suspiciously brief when held in one’s hands, but
it contains all of the necessary information to get
the Hadron assembled and airborne.
One bonus is two pages of ESC programming
instructions. These instructions are often printed on a
separate and much smaller sheet in many kits, or not included
at all. I especially liked the section entitled “Supplementary
Setup Instructions,” an accurately written procedure to
program a custom mix for the rudder and vectored thrust unit
using the Tactic TTX650 six-channel 2. 4 GHz SLT transmitter.
I followed the instructions and was rewarded with a custom
mix mapped to a three-position switch. Position one allows
the rudder to control yaw. Position two kills the rudder and
hands the yaw authority to the vectored thrust unit. The third
position activates them together.
The removable canopy fits snugly enough to the airframe,
but if you plan to run a 4S battery, Flyzone includes and
recommends using additional canopy retention. This under-canopy hook provides an anchoring point to which a thick
rubber band, which is first looped under the longitudinal
carbon spar glued to the bottom of the fuselage centerline, can
be attached.
Removing the canopy for battery installation is still easy
when this additional retention device is used, because
the canopy can simply be pivoted out of the way to
the side. The nose cone, two of which are included
in the box, is held in place with friction and a strong
set of magnets. Poor launches or landings will nearly
always victimize this nosecone. Replacing it is as easy
as pulling the old one off and slipping a new one in
place.
I decided to begin with a three-cell battery for
the maiden flights so I installed the included 6 x 5
propeller. Flyzone molded indexing marks into the
AeroCell foam for the CG position and battery
placement in the fuselage. These inconspicuous marks
are slightly raised and greatly simplify verifying the
correct CG and correctly positioning the battery from
one flight to the next. This is important because this
airframe can be flown on 3S or 4S batteries.
The 3S battery goes at the forward position of
the fuselage, while a four-cell pack must be slid aft
a couple of indexing marks because of its increased
mass. I used a fine-point Sharpie to lightly mark the CG range
and the recommended location for both three- and four-cell
battery packs.
56 Model Aviation MARCH 2014
www.ModelAviation.com
