Disclaimer:

This review has been written by Matt Merciez. All products mentioned in this review were purchased by Matt Merciez at the prices listed. Extreme Flight RC has not requested nor had any say in this review. I have attempted to write this review in a fair and objective manner. Comments and or questions regarding this review may be sent to myself at matt@merciez.com.

Background:

Things have not been easy for Extreme Flight RC, back in September of 2003, Extreme Flight RC refused to take custody of 800+ ARFs due to quality control problems with the produced ARFs. As a result of the original ARF manufacturer not producing ARFs to the high standards set by Extreme Flight RC, a second manufacturer was obtained to produce the ARFs the company had designed. This resulted in significant delays in producing airplanes for the public and definitely not the desired way to start a young company.

Here is a great quote from the president of Extreme Flight RC, Chris Hinson, relating to refusing shipment of the 800+ ARFs: "While this has been a devastating blow, I believe in my designs and their ability to outperform anything on the market. I promise to continue to pursue my original goal of providing you, the aerobatic enthusiast, with the best aerobatic ARFs available."

With a new factory producing planes for Extreme Flight, it took several additional months before a product could be shipped to the general public. Extreme Flight currently has two other RC models on the market with the .40 Profile Edge 540T Fun-Fly and the mini 3D. An excellent review of the Edge 540T Fun-Fly may be seen at RCUniverse. One of the more impressive features of the Edge 540T is the dovetail joinery for the wings. Dovetail joints take a good deal of time to produce but result in a great joint that is very strong, dovetail joinery is not something one would expect in an ARF.

The third product sold and marketed by Extreme Flight is the YAK-54. The Yak-54 prototype was developed by Chris Hinson back in July of 2003 with manufacturing occurring during the spring of 2004.

The YAK-54 ARF by Extreme Flight RC is a replica of the Russian designed YAK-54. The full scale YAK(seen on the right) is a two-seat sporting and aerobatic trainer designed for training sports pilots in aerobatic flights and for participating in the aircraft sports competitions.

The prototype (designed and built by Chris Hinson) of the Extreme Flight 68" YAK-54 ARF weighed in at 8.37 lbs and was powered via the YS 110. One of the great things I feel Extreme Flight RC has done for marketing the YAK-54, is to put a video of Chris Hinson flying the prototype YAK. If you have not seen the video of the prototype YAK-54 in action, check it out over at Extreme Flight: ** Download Video Here - 16MB / 4 Min. **

Having knowledge of how the prototype YAK weighed and its flight performance from the video, we will have an excellent chance to see if the final product from manufacturing is close to the marketed prototype. One of the biggest complaints I see on RC bulletin boards is ARFs being manufactured and sold with final weights significantly higher than what was marketed. How will the production model Extreme Flight YAK-54 compare to the prototype? On with the review............

Packaging:

If you judge the quality of packaging based on the condition the product arrives, the yak-54 from Extreme Flight would receive excellent scores. The plane was double boxed and well packaged with dividers and plenty of foam to protect the vital parts. Take your time unwrapping the plane, for the guys in China seem to really like masking tape :).

Go to Page 2