G Trick 90 review

[Mike Hester]

I've gotten a ton of questions on this plane so I thought I would share my thoughts in the form of a review.

First off, I'm really not an ARF kind of person. I got this plane for somthing to have fun with and not worry too much about. Even with the high price tag, it's better to raise hell with a plane you have a week into than 6 months.

I opened the box expecting typical ARFish quality with a cool color scheme. You know....crummy greasy wood, hot glue, sub standard gear blocks, cheap engine mounts....that's not what I found at all. 

This ARF is the highest quality ARF I have ever seen, bar none. 10 times better quality than a Focus, but with the cost it had better be. They used real glue! And the wood work was outstanding. The covering is incredible. The fiberglass belly pan sucks though, it's contorted and doesn't hold it's shape well. 

This plane was designed for a YS .91. However, 4 strokes and me don't get along very well, so I elected to install a Thunder Tiger 1.20 2 stroke rear exhaust engine, with a built in pump. I used a macs header and a CD 2 stroke cannister exhaust from RC Model Enterprises. It weighs about the same as a YS .91, although the exhaust is slightly heavier.

I installed 2 hitec HS-77 low profile servos in the tail for the elevators, and used a hitec HS-5945MG digital on the rudder. HS-77s on the ailerons too. Oddly enough the plane doesn't come with control hardware, so I used the anodized aluminum horns from RC model enterprises (same as ZN) and Central hobbies c/f titanium rods. 

I mounted the fuel tank on the CG in the fuse, which just BARELY fit with some grinding. 

The plane comes with a beam style anti vibration mount that is one of the best I have seen, and is plenty for this 1.20. the engine is a shoe horn fit, but it does fit. 

The belly pan is a pain in the butt. It's pinched and doesn't lay down, and I had to use screws to get it to lay in place long enough for the epoxy to set. even then, it ain't just right. But it's ok, I can live with it. Now that I have exhausted every cuss word in my extensive repetoire...

The good news is that the paint and general quality of the pan and the fiberglass chin are excellent, and the paint actually matches. 

The landing gear is aluminum with a diamond dust finish. I would have preferred carbon, but what the heck. The wheel pants look very good, but they are crap. More on this later...

I also opened up the cowling for cooling, cheeks and all. the whole nose is wood with fiberglass over it. looks very cool.

I found one of the elevator counter balances (and they are HUGE) was warped. Otherwise this plane is structurally straight.

The first day I ran the engine, I couldn't richen it up. It would run, sag, smoke and die. I found the pump wasn't working, so I boxed it up and sent it back. Ace hobby distributors replaced the pump, sleeve and ring and sent it back...free of charge. Not too shabby.

Despite a flu and temperatures that would make an eskimo reach for an extra dog or 2, I test flew it yesterday.

After brushing off the ice from the plane, I fired it up and taxied out. the ground handling on this thing is better than most tricycle gear planes. I lined it up, greased in about half throttle, and it eased down the runway. With only a touch of right rudder, it lifted off straight (<---just for you Gray!)

Now for the dirt.....it required a good bit of trim. It tracks very nicely for it's size, and even with a strong crosswind it corrected decently. It needed more right thrust, but it's not too bad. (I expected that). I put it through the intermediate schedule, and it performed very very well. It didn't like the outside loop though, and I'm thinking something isn't right, so I'll look closer into it and see what's crooked. I'm betting it's the elevator halves.

I put it into knife edge, and it couples like crazy in every direction. Before I start mixing I will see if I can find what's crooked first and then mix.

Now for the crazy stuff....it hovers effortlessly at less than half throttle on low rates (I never put in on high rates). It does flat spins, blenders etc with ease. It snaps better and cleaner than any plane I have ever flown, and it's still a tad nose heavy. The available power on this plane is unreal. Vertical is unbelievable, you can roll it out of sight.

However, on the 3rd flight I ran it out of fuel waiting on some dilbert to get off the runway (welcome to GMA). It barely made it back to the field and pancaked in pretty hard. the wheel pants were destroyed, but strangely enough the gear and block are solid as ever. Absolutely NO damage except the crappy wheel pants. I expected it to be in 50 pieces. Next time I'll run over the dilbert.

To sum up:
Pros:
-Excellent quality in general
-Extremely fun to fly
-Will handle F3A and 3D
-Plenty of control authority
-Strong!

Cons:
-Heavy (about 9 lbs with this set up)
-Wheel pants suck
-Belly pan sucks
-warped elevator
-couples hard in knife edge

With some attention and work, I think I am really going to enjoy this plane. It's very good for what it is, which is a combination F3A/3D platform. If you wanted a purely F3A ARF of this size, a Tai Ji or Zen would be better. But if you want a fun practice plane that you can kick your heels up with, this plane is definitely in that category. All the same, this would be a great plane for a guy who wanted to have some fun and it would be fine in sportsman or intermediate. It would fly FAI easily (with just a little mixing) but who would fly FAI with a G Trick? 

Is it worth the price tag? Who knows, the jury is still out. For puerly pattern, I'd say no. For marginally more money you could have a focus (although the G Trick doesn't rip the gear out AHEM). But it is a fun plane with this set up. I'll be working on it when I have time to see if I can straighten it out better. it's ok now, but it needs attention to be up to my standards flying wise. It 3Ds fine, but I don't like that coupling crap.

There ya go....mixed feelings but I think it shows promise.

-Mike Hester

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