| RCUniverse.com Review of the Phoenix Cessna Skylane 182 GP/EP ARF
![](https://img1.daumcdn.net/relay/cafe/original/?fname=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rcuniverse.com%2Fmagazine%2Freviews%2F886%2Floading.gif) Loading Image... |
| ![](https://img1.daumcdn.net/relay/cafe/original/?fname=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.rcuniverse.com%2Fmagazine%2Freviews%2F1628%2Fpcintro.jpg) | The Cessna 182 Skylane is a well-known airplane around the world. With a single engine and standard seating for four, the 182 has been in production for a half-century! There have been countless variants of this plane, and many scale models produced over the decades. So what makes this particular aircraft so popular? Perhaps its stylish looks or its flight envelope? Perhaps its ease of use? I'm not sure myself, but one thing is certain - the Skylane is a great looking aircraft that has a HUGE following!
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As I stated earlier, there have been many, many scale models of the 182. Models of the Skylane fly very much like the full-scale plane. Easy take-offs and landings and gentle flight characteristics make the 182 an aircraft that nearly everyone has had at some point in their modeling history. New from Phoenix Models is their 182 Skylane. A 65.5" wingspan places it squarely in the .46-.55 size range, making it easy to transport to and from the field. If this plane flies half as good as it looks, it should be a winner! |
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| ![](https://img1.daumcdn.net/relay/cafe/original/?fname=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.rcuniverse.com%2Fmagazine%2Freviews%2F1628%2Fpchits.jpg) |
- All Wood Construction
- Covered in Red and White OraCover
- Glow/Electric Ready
- Fiberglass Cowl and Wheel Pants
- Bottom Hatch for Easy Access to Battery
- Side Door for Easy Electronics Access
- Two-Piece Wing for Easy Transport and Storage
- Decal Sheet Included
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| ![](https://img1.daumcdn.net/relay/cafe/original/?fname=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.rcuniverse.com%2Fmagazine%2Freviews%2F1628%2Fpcspecs.jpg) | | Items Needed To Complete: - Electric Setup:
- 5 Channel Radio (minimum) and Receiver
- 6 Standard Servos
- 6S 3000-5000 mAh LiPo Battery and LiPo Charger
- 800-1200 Watt Brushless Outrunner Motor (800-1000 kV)
- 60-100 Amp ESC (Rx Battery and Switch if No BEC)
- 2 - 6" Servo Wire Extensions
- 2 - Y-Harnesses
- Thread Locking Compound, CA, and Epoxy
- Various Shop Tools
- Glow Engine Setup:
- 5 Channel Radio (minimum), Receiver, and Receiver Battery
- 7 Standard Servos
- .46-.55 2-Stroke Glow Engine OR
- .52 4-Stroke Glow Engine
- 2 - 6" Servo Wire Extensions
- 2 - Y-Harnesses
- Glow Engine Field Accessories
- Thread Locking Compound, CA, and Epoxy
- Various Shop Tools
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The 182 Skylane arrived in a full-color box with all of the specifications and requirements listed. Packing was simple, yet effective, with all parts bagged and taped together. There's a few more parts to this assembly process, but everything was accounted for - let's take a closer look at some of them! |
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The red and white Oracover covering were in great shape, and I found no wrinkles. The cabin and firewall have been painted in a dark grey color, and looked very nice! |
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Inside the cabin, a scale-looking instrument panel has been pre-installed - I was impressed by the details present! I really liked the cabin door. It will later be attached with two CA hinges, and a pair of wood screws will keep it closed. The fiberglass cowl and wheel pants look great, and the nose gear is ready to be installed. |
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I really like the drooped wingtips, as they really add to the scale appearance of the 182. Speaking of scale, a pair of antennas and landing gear fairings are included as well! The aluminum wing tube and wing struts should be more than strong enough to keep the wing attached, and the struts look very nice - they are covered with white Oracover to match the plane. |
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The Cessna 182 also comes with provisions for flying both glow and electric power - this is a nice touch! A pretty extensive decal sheet is included as well. |
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| Electronics Used for Completion |
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I will be controlling the Cessna with my trusty Futaba T10CAG transmitter. On the receiving end will be a Futaba R617FS 7-Channel receiver controlling six Futaba S3004 Standard Servos.
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An Electrifly Rimfire .46 brushless outrunner motor will be spinning an APC 10x6 electric prop - this setup should provide ample power for the Skylane.
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An Electrifly Silver Series 60 Amp ESC will be supplying power to the motor. This ESC does NOT have a built-in BEC, so I will be powering the receiver with a 4.8V NiMh battery pack.
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Lastly, a FlightPower 6S 22.2 Volt 4350 mAh LiPo battery pack will be at the heart of the Cessna - this battery is at the top end of the power spectrum for the Cessna, so I'm expecting great performance!
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The manual is pretty decent. While not quite up to the same standards as Great Planes or Top Flite, it's still easy enough to read through and follow. There are lots of written instructions and plenty of illustrations to guide the modeler through the assembly process.
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| ![](https://img1.daumcdn.net/relay/cafe/original/?fname=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.rcuniverse.com%2Fmagazine%2Freviews%2F1628%2Fpcassbly.jpg)
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Assembly starts with the wings - more importantly, installing the ailerons and flaps. A T-pin was inserted through the center of each aileron hinge and inserted into the aileron. The hinges were then slid into their respective slots in the wing, and secured with ZAP thin CA. |
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The same process was used to secure the flaps to the wing. While the CA was curing, I attached the aileron and flap servos to their hatches. The pre-installed strings were very helpful when it came time to pull the aileron servo wires through the wing - the flap servo wires were easy to slip through the wing without having to use the string.
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I attached the flap and aileron servo hatches to the wing using the wood screws included with the ARF. The control horns were installed next, followed by the pushrods. |
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The aileron and flap servos were set to their neutral position, along with taping the control surfaces in place (not shown). With all the parts centered, I bent the pushrods and cut off the excess wire. A snap keeper secured the pushrod to the servo arm. |
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The covering was removed from the cutouts in the fuselage next, and the aluminum wing joiner was slid through the fuse. I then slid the wing halves onto the joiner and secured each half with a pre-installed machine screw. |
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Moving on, the horizontal stabilizer was next - this step started with removing the covering from the stabilizer's slot. The stab was then slid into position, and I checked to make sure it was parallel to the wing. Since the stab/wing alignment looked good, I traced a fine-point marker along the fuselage onto the stabilizer. |
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The covering was removed from just inside the lines I traced - I like to leave about 1/16" - 3/32" of covering inside the lines to make sure no wood is exposed when I epoxy the stabilizer in place. I used ZAP 15-minute epoxy for this task to allow plenty of working time before the epoxy cured. 15 minutes gave me ample time to apply the epoxy, align the stabilizer, and clean up any excess epoxy before it started to cure. |
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When the epoxy had hardened, I attached the two elevator halves using the same method used on the ailerons and flaps. With the elevator halves in place, it was time to install the fin. I traced the fuselage and removed the covering from the fin in the same manner done on the horizontal stabilizer. |
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The fin was attached to the fuselage with ZAP 15 minute epoxy - this step was so easy that I could have used 5-minute epoxy!
Lastly, the rudder was secured to the fin just like I did with the elevator halves. |
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Landing Gear Installation
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Landing gear installation began with the nose gear. A single screw through the control horn holds the nose gear in its mount, and the thin pushrod and guide tube were routed out of the way of the battery mounting location. |
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Using the measurements given in the manual, I marked and drilled the axle bolt holes in the main gear wheel pants. The wheel was the attached to the axle using a pair of wheel collars.
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A single nut holds the wheel/wheel pant to the landing gear leg, and was simple to assemble. The covering was removed from the landing gear mounting locations, and I trimmed the fairings. |
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After trimming the plastic fairing to shape, it was slid over the gear leg, the leg was slid into the fuselage opening, and a pair of machine screws attached the leg to the fuse. Some clear silicone secured the fairings to the fuselage. As the main gear are two pieces, the process was repeated for the other gear leg. |
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The completed assembly looked very nice! |
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Elevator and Rudder Control Horn and Pushrod Installation
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Next came the elevator and rudder control horns and pushrods - the control horns were attached with screws and backing plates, and the pushrods were assembled and slid into their respective guide tubes. |
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Tail servos, Motor, and Electronics Installation
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The two elevator pushrods were attached to a joiner, and a single wire was attached to the installed servo. This method of setting up the elevator is easy, and took very little time. After installing the rudder servo, the nose gear and rudder pushrods were attached to the rudder servo with a double arm. I secured the ESC to the cabin floor with a pair of wood screws and a zip-tie (these were not included with the ARF) and a receiver switch was installed in the cabin wall. |
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The receiver and receiver battery were then attached to the underside of the cabin floor using adhesive-backed Velcro. For a little more security, I also used a zip-tie around the receiver battery.
Moving out to the business end of the Cessna, I started by attaching the motor mount to the firewall, followed by the the Rimfire .46 outrunner motor. |
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We're getting close to done! The cowl was secured to the firewall using four wood screws - it was held in place with the blue masking tape while I drilled the mounting holes in the firewall. With the cowl in place, I added the APC 10x6E prop and the spinner included with the Cessna. |
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The wing struts were bent to shape and installed using a pair of wood screws on each end. There are measurements given in the manual as to where to mount the struts, which made this an easy task. I secured the pilot to his 'seat' with a small dab of clear silicone, and attached the side door with a pair of CA hinges and a few drops of ZAP thin CA - the blue masking tape in the picture was there to hold the door open while the CA cured. I didn't want any excess CA to glue the door closed! |
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Though the belly mounted battery opening is a little on the small size, there was still enough room to get the FlightPower 6S LiPo tucked into the Cessna. Since the battery hatch has a sliding latch, installation and removal of the battery was easy! With the battery and hatch in place, it was time to balance the 182 - the plane balanced perfectly without having to make any adjustments! |
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The Phoenix Models Cessna 182 was now ready to head to the field, and she's looking SHARP! |
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| The Cessna's maiden flight could have been done on a better day, but not by much. It was summertime in Minnesota, the evening temperature was hovering around 80° F, and the winds were blowing out of the east at around 5-7 MPH. That's what I call a nice summer day! After a few quick ground pictures and video clips were taken, the Cessna was ready to fly. I taxied the 182 down to the west end of the 135 foot runway and turned the plane around - the nose gear steering was very effective! I pushed the throttle stick forward, and the Rimfire .46 came to life. The APC 10x6E prop was more than enough to pull the Cessna down the runway and get it off the ground. The maiden take-off was straight down the runway with very little input from the rudder stick. The 182 quickly gained altitude, and I was about to make a circuit around the field to trim out the plane. Unfortunately, the motor made a weird sound, and motor power was lost - for the first time in my life, I was NOT complaining about having a receiver battery on-board an electric powered plane! An emergency landing was made. Dead-stick, down wind, and from a low altitude - three of the worst things to think about when landing! I had to force the Cessna onto the ground at the last second to keep it from crashing into a large grove of evergreen trees. With that said, the only damage sustained was the nose gear folded - the lower section of the firewall gave away, sparing the rest of the plane. Due to the rough landing the nose gear wheel pant was not repairable, so it was removed. I took the Cessna home, patched up the firewall, and remounted the nose gear. Upon further inspection, I found that the ESC had burned out - it had gotten so hot that the negative battery wire de-soldered itself from the ESC. I also found that the Rimfire .46 was very stiff after landing - I'm pretty sure that one of the motor bearings got tight and caused an over-Amperage situation for the ESC. Thankfully, Hobbico replaced the faulty parts at no charge, so I installed a new motor and ESC and it was ready for a second (and hopefully longer) flight. As it happened to work out, the re-maiden of the Cessna occurred a couple of weeks later at one of my favorite local events - WATTS over Owatonna! This time, my buddy Joe Vermillion was at the sticks, so I could shoot video footage and pictures. Like the first time, the Cessna took off easily, proving once again that the Rimfire .46 was plenty of power! As far as how the plane flew? It did great! Many onlookers were commenting on how nicely the plane looked in the air, even without the nose gear wheel pant! The 182 flew very scale-like at half-throttle, and performed mild aerobatics with ease. Even dropping the flaps was easy, and the Cessna didn't balloon upward. Having power for the landing was nice, but not needed. With the flaps down, the Cessna floated down gracefully, bounced a couple of times on the fabric runway, and came to a stop - the 182 flew very nicely from beginning to end! |
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Phoenix Models Cessna 182 Skylane GP/EP ARF
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I really like the new Phoenix Cessna 182 - Assembly was easy and it flew great! This plane flies so nicely that it could easily be used as a second plane. Another plus is its smaller size - I was able to transport the plane fully-assemble in my small SUV with two other planes! Phoenix Models got this one right - it looks good, goes together nicely, and flies great! |
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| | ![](https://img1.daumcdn.net/relay/cafe/original/?fname=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.rcuniverse.com%2Fmagazine%2Freviews%2F1628%2Fzaplogo.jpg) Distributed by: Frank Tiano Enterprises 3607 Ventura Drive E. Lakeland, Florida 33811 Phone: (863) 607-6611
www.franktiano.com
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