GBLynden

These are my review videos for the new E-flite Draco 2.0m Smart BNF RC Plane.

Unboxing Video:

Maiden Flight Adventure!

E-flite Draco BNF Basic Review Notes:

Pros:
- Working suspension in the front & back landing gear
- 4S-6S battery options
- SAFE/AS3X Receiver with the BNF Basic version
- Many different light combinations
- Carbon fiber added all over for additional strength
- Reasonably quick Foam RC Airplane build time
- ESC works well with Spektrum Smart packs & lets you know if your flight packs are not charged enough to fly

Cons:
- The tail section is sloppy for a plane of this caliber
- Horizontal stabilizer could have used screws instead of just a click in setup to ensure strength

GBLynden

This is my third Draco flight flown with a little more pep than the first one, but the landing isn't quite as nice as the first two lol

LLRCFlyer

A very experienced club member maidened his Draco yesterday. He was running 5000 mah 6S lipo's. The plane takes off and flies easily enough, but it is heavy and despite the large motor, it is underpowered. Even on high rates, it does not roll very well. Inverted flight takes a whole lot of down elevator. It has lots of drag and landing approaches with full flaps require 1/4 to 1/3 throttle to complete a good flare to landing. The flat bottom wing mistakenly looks like it is slowing well for a landing with plenty of lift left, but suddenly stalls if power is not maintained. My friend is a very experienced flier with AMA instructor and jet turbine approvals and has flown everything from sailplanes to racers to jets... and he found this plane is difficult to land without bouncing... he flew through 7 battery packs and only got one good "greaser" landing. The spring loaded shock struts, in combination with a touchy throttle between just fast enough to prevent a stall and not so much as to make it balloon, contribute to bouncy landings. He let me fly it to get my opinion. I have flown RC for over 55 years, and I too got a bouncy landing. The Draco is is not hard to fly safely, but it is hard to fly well and it will take a lot of practice to learn its peculiar landing characteristics. The red color shows up well in bright sunlight, but near dusk, the red paint quickly turns "black" against the sky and despite the numerous LED lights, it becomes hard to visually determine its orientation. The LED navigation lights are not visible from all angles and during the turn from downwind to base, there are no wing lights visible at all... so forget about any night flying of late dusk flying. I would only recommend the Draco if you are looking for a scale airplane and do not intend to do any aerobatics. Plenty of scale details and fancy landing gear for sure, but for $600, I would have expected better flight characteristics and performance. My $200 AeroScout easily out flies it.