BEST Beginner Bush Plane | FMS 1300mm PA-18

You can slam the 1300mm FMS Cub, plan it, do pretty much anything, possibly even f**k it without it breaking. This thing is tougher than RCPilot's trying to spin the recent email AMA sent this good news. It's for this reason that the FMS 1300mm Cub is our pick for the best beginner bushplane. I mean seriously, we tested this thing against everything from trees to water. It handled it great, and without developing any hangar ash too. But we'll get more into the durability testing portion of this video later. For our maiden flight, we decided to remove the Reflex V2 because we got insecure reading all the comments that gyros are for men that lack testosterone. We have testosterone, okay? Did you know we're part of a motorcycle gang? As far as our initial flights with it, everything went smoothly despite the windy day. Our first impressions with it were a little bit of shock because after the model was assembled, well, we're not going to lie to you, it felt a little heavy. After getting it into the air though, we were pleasantly surprised. She even stalled more forgivenly than the slap on the wrist that was given to Facebook for selling our data. So long as you keep the flaps up. If you don't, well, prepare to make your favorite imaginary politician throw up. While we're talking about flaps, we do wish that the model came with slotted flaps instead of plain, but no plane is perfect. Like any wannabe 3D pilot, we wanted to test this plane outside of its marketed ability by jamming the sticks in any way which we could come up with. Here were the scientific Bill Nye approved results. What was that? As you can probably tell, you'll want to bring multiple packs to the field when you fly it because Ben and I could do this all day. Every time you throw the sticks in a corner, something new and exciting happens. While we're on the topic of batteries, we used a 2200 3S, but recommend a 1300 3S if you're looking to keep it lighter for bush flying. With the 2200, we set our timer link to the throttle to five minutes and three and a half minutes for the 1300 with the stock prop. We also placed our batteries as far aft on the tray as we could fit them as a personal preference for an FCG. One thing we did find that was cool with this model that we hadn't seen before was that the fuselage is divided into halves and held together by two screws. This makes it super easy to access the rudder and elevator servo leads should you need access for repairs. Our only complaints with the assembly process was that they also went for innovating the spinner, doubling it as a prop nut. In the event that your spinner arrives defective, like ours did, well, this is the issue you'll run into. We opted to just add a washer to circumvent the issue, but had we reached out to FMS, we're sure they would have sent us a replacement, as they always have in the past. We were just too excited to get her in the air. If we wanted to be really picky, too, the manual lacked the information needed to fill up the tires as well, but you'd be blind if you couldn't figure it out yourself. With that being said, our left main tire deflated after some time, which, as we found online, isn't all that uncommon. Flat spots because it's so cold out. So that's one thing I'm learning on cold days, I think you're going to have to pump these up ahead of time. For that reason, please consider a bike pump or something similar as a mandatory purchase if you buy this plane. It should be noted that the plane does come with the proper adapter for a pump, you just need the pump itself to use it. Now, I'm sure some of you are going to the comments to say, You're not reviewing it like it was meant to be flown. As some of those people did with our RB7 review. Well, we learned our lesson, so here's us reviewing it as it's supposed to be. Is it durable? First up, the fence test. Before we get into this, we'd like to give a little context. We flew the plane into a fence. Well, let's take a look. Just the prop? Just not even the prop. Oh, whoa, yeah. A little bit. Is the plane broken? No. No? No. So what's wrong with it? Nothing, man. No, nothing, man. So yeah, it can withstand a scenario where it flies into a fence if you're a bad enough pilot to do that. Without damage to the airframe, too, we should add. Next up, the gear. This piece of machinery can take more abuse than a turtle being verbally assaulted by a freeloading snail. Slow down! I want to get there, but I want to get there alive! We first tried dropping it like a bag of hammers, from a foot, then two, then three, then we got impatient and tried six. If you're a bad enough stick to drop it from anything above six feet, go find another hobby bro. But for the rest of us, the shock-absorbing gear will impress you with how much it's able to handle. No spring breakage, ever. Here's some additional shots of testing we did with it. The gear is one of the main reasons we recommend this as the best beginner bush plane of 2022. Not only does a plane have forgiving characteristics and a clear warning before it bites, but when you do dumb-thumb it, it takes the abuse. If you've done any bush flying before in truly confined spaces, you know that no matter how good you are, sometimes you mess up on an approach, have no go-around options, and are forced to slam it into something. This is a plane that forgives you for slamming it into something or on the ground, and allows you the opportunity to slam it down again because ultimately, we all suck. We did end up doing a little bush flying with it. As far as tire pressure, we recommend going for a lower PSI setup to better absorb the impact from planters. But if you go for a higher PSI setup, this won't be the end of the world. We do love that as you get into the backside of the power curve with it with the flaps down, as long as you're coordinated, it'll never feel like it's going to drop a wing out from under you. We realized a little late into our review that the model features a reverse ENSC. The manual only has one brief mention of it, but FMS's website was more clear, so that's why there's a lack of quality footage of it. We'll be doing more reverse thrusts with this model in the future, during our full bush flying trials and mods. Stay tuned. Our jokes sometimes even make babies cry, so let's move on to a more serious topic, our setup. This thing was incredibly straightforward to assemble. There was no glue required, so all it took was an allen driver and 30 minutes of our time. I mean hell, even the horizontal stab was just a pop together assembly. It should be noted though, that we did maiden this bird on the stock 11x7 prop, but we decided to upgrade to a larger diameter with slightly less pitch, for a bit better performance in climb and hovering. The APC 12x6 fit perfectly into the stock spinner and proved to be a winner, pulling a few less amps and giving us the performance we wanted. We also did our usual mod of full travel mechanically on all the control surfaces. For expo, we went with 30% all around, but more on the rudder. We noticed that with the flaps though, at full travel they were straight up barn doors. After flying it this way, we opted to reduce the travel to about 40 degrees of flaps for best tradeoff of drag vs lift with the plain flaps this plane comes with. Pun intended. For those wondering, yes, our fictional sponsor UmaGrip sent us some to throw into the battery tray as well. Our only desires with this bird once we assembled it are that we wish it had no struts, but rather a larger spar. While we know this wouldn't be scale, it would save about 2 ounces of weight from removing the struts and reduce the screws required to remove the wings from 8 down to 4. Speaking of which, we'd suggest just keeping the wings on this bird 24x7. If you opt to remove them, just be prepared for cable spaghetti and 8 screws to remove or 4 screws and 4 body clips. In fairness though, it seems FMS designed this bird to leave them on, especially seeing as she will fit in the backseat of almost any compact car. Just not your BMW 1 series. Nah. From the start, we pushed the fly outside the box mentality on our channel, so while the plane wasn't designed to do this stuff, which we acknowledge, we felt this section was worth talking about. First up, hovering. With the stock 11x7 prop, there was just enough thrust to barely hold the hover at essentially full throttle. Once we swapped to the 12x6, it gave a little more wiggle room for safer flyouts, so we had some fun with it. She had plenty of control authority on the tail to hover. Next, 3D outside of hovers. This bird does some surprisingly great knife edge spins, inverted flat spins, and flat spins right side up. We unfortunately didn't get it on camera, but for the iMac precision boys, she does great slow rolls as well and doesn't feel sloppy throughout them. While this plane wasn't designed for these things, it can do a lot more than you'd expect with it, which is exactly what we look for in an airplane. A great all-arounder that leaves you more surprised than Andy Dwyer. There's this guy that's been watching our videos for almost a full year now, and only ever comments, but is that scale? This section's for you, bud. It is scale, it has adverse yaw. Program a mix if you're afraid to fly the plane, or do what a pilot's supposed to do and fly it. Adverse yaw is something you should expect with any cub, along with really locked-in forward slips. While we're on the topic of flying the plane, let's look at takeoffs and landings. First up, avoid hard surfaces like asphalt if your left hand doesn't have Parkinson's. Like most planes in this smaller scale that are a tailwheel, you must stay on top of it to avoid a ground loop. It likes to go where you don't want it to, so keep that left hand busy and dance on the rudder to keep it tracking straight down the runway. So long as you follow your favorite proper tailwheel technique on hard surfaces with wheel landings, you'll be alright if you're proficient. But for the beginner in those first flights, we'd suggest sticking to the grass. It's a lot more forgiving if you're hoping to keep hangar ash off wingtips from ground loops. Besides, that's the environment this plane was really meant for. Just look at how great she did tail-up taxiing in her grassroots environment. One-wheels are totally doable as well, but with any plane this size, they are a little bit more challenging. For this reason, we have 45% expo on the rudder, and we'd suggest trying it on the grass first. With any bush plane we review, we try and compare it to a FunCub, because we feel that's the gold standard for bush planes. The FMS Cub made us realize something, though. It doesn't have the stats as far as the wingtube loading, nor how slow it'll fly, or that you can customize it like the FunCub, which was also sold in a kit configuration. But that's okay, because these really are two different niches. The FMS 1300mm Cub is our favorite pick for getting into bush flying, or even those who have experience with it like us. It handles abuse better than any other recent aircraft we've ever owned. For that, it's irreplaceable in our opinion, especially at the solid plug-and-play price point of $199. If you want to support us flying more planes and defenses for science, go ahead and hit like or maybe hit subscribe if you'd like to see the next one. If not, no worries, but we will pray before bed that you're going to stub your toe shortly after watching this. Happy landings, and bounce one on for us. We'll catch you this Saturday with a new upload.