FMS 1220mm Ranger EP V2 With Reflex V3 RTF / PNP

Plane was easy to assemble, flew pretty well out of the box with safe and manual. on the 2nd flight I rolled into a curb at walking speed and idle, and destroyed the prop. Had to order another prop from FMS. Wait a week. Decided to test the Reflex in its limits. Worked pretty well until it decided to not fully boot, hand launch resulted in throttle control but no surface control - reflex did not kick in either - Hammerhead and nose dove from 15 feet. Not the worst crash I have ever done, not even close, but this broke the prop again, bent the front gear spring, wing area around the twist lock screw, and tore up the front. Had to order some more FoamTac, decided to do my own folding prop. Unable to bend the front gear back, now it tracks awkwardly. Unplugged the Reflex and am happy with full manual control. Lands pretty ok in grass, pretty well on concrete but even a small 1/2 rock or divot will result in a prop strike while taxiing. performance is ok, a 'barrel roll' is slow but doable, climbs pretty ok, glides very well. Not enough exp to test winds above 10mph, or deflection to do other traicks right now. My suggestions for improvements: Flaps because landings are hard to slow down - it just needs a lot of room, and make the front landing gear easier to access for fixing.

I thought I would love the taxi capability and the fact that I dont have to build it, but Ill continue to fly it but I prefer my own home built belly landers.

A solid trainer no doubt, the reflex makes it super easy to pickup muscle memory and keep the bird in the air. I added flaps to mine, and it’s pretty much all a custom built Ranger at this point with lights and all. Adding fpv soon. This thing loves flaps and can glide slope and flare landings all day long even in turbulent winds. I love flying in 30mph gusts doing touch and goes on the lake. A real challenge. Pair your ranger with the 2200mah battery for 13-18 minute flight times depending on your flying style, flying area, and wind conditions. The gear will get you a little longer flying times as you have less drag. Marginal, but it’s shown in my data. The nose gear is terrible for anyone that isn’t a beginner. The only folks that complain are veteran pilots. I’m not veteran but I fly in real life with my instructor friend and I fly bush planes in simulator so I got the hang of RC real quick and love to fly scale like I’m in the thing. I also reccomend a battery voltage tester/buzzer set at 3.3 volts per cell to alarm, and set your speed controller to enter low voltage mode at 9 volts. This gives you roughly 90 seconds to get back and land safely if you want to push your limits with the bigger battery. Also, I highly recommend sealing the ends of your ESC with hot glue or you WILL short it out water flying jut from prop wash hitting the waves. The motor will run upside down under water, it doesn’t care, the speed controller however is picky and needs to be isolated. I encased my receiver in hot glue as well to prevent future servo glitching. When I fully rebuild my Ranger in the future, I will waterproof every component with what I have learned. Stout planes that are easy to repair with hot glue especially if you have any fab experience at all. Defintely reccomend. Have totaled it several times and I keep gluing her and repainting her and setting the control surfaces straight and she flies better than stock with those flaps and the wider gemfan 10x5e prop.

If you’re going the float plane route, silicone the ends of your ESC. It really should come that way. If it gets a little water in it (when you nose over in the water) your motor won’t operate properly until it FULLY evaporates. I love the plane. Only flown it on floats on a pond. I did have one day where everything was fine until after takeoff, then when I pitched up my ailerons were rolling full left and I fought the plane for 30 seconds, and it ended up gliding out of sight to another pond, gently into a tree. (Thanks to the gyro) could have been way worse. All good now.

I haven’t done anything with it yet. I haven’t even opened the box. I have been busy with other things.

Got this as my first plane partly due to the reflex v3 to help with my flying. No where in the instruction does it show how to enable this in flight or how to switch to the different modes.

I am having to search YouTube videos for help. Seems to me like the instructions should be better for a beginner product.