My wife Robin and I are relatively new to RC.  We fly at the local Baylands Sunnyvale, CA site and have watched pilots fly the Battlewing for a couple of months now.   We've seen just how highly responsive, quick, yet amazingly damage-resistant it is. I wanted to battle with it while Robin wanted something that would last and take her to the next level where she'll be able join the fray too.

We took delivery yesterday.  What an incredible wing!  It's relatively docile but still agile at low speeds, yet has enough power and sensitivity at higher speeds to really test flying skills. Just point it and it goes! 

And it's amazingly durable, I piled it in to the ground several times yesterday with no damage at all. I took another look at the Battlewing last night.  I'm even more impressed now, the wing is light, cleverly constructed and made to endure.  The wing itself is flexible yet strong EPP foam. The leading edge, trailing edge by the motor and battery mount are all taped and glued to ensure damage resistance.  The motor and servo control horns are well protected. It's well designed for bashing and being bashed by other wings - which means it'll also endure "interesting" maneuvers (like ground contact).  Finally, something we can both fly without having to regularly repair!

We're both looking forward to flying and practicing for the next Battlewing Fest.  
Thanks for a great wing!

Robin and Peter Murray 

I just want to write to tell you how much fun we are having with our BattleWing!

I purchased a BattleWing V3 ARF after my 12-year-old son (and then his friends) watched the site videos of Wing Fest 2009. Joseph asked daily when it would arrive. He had just gotten into RC a few months before with a Parkzone Radian (2 meter powered glider), so a tough EPP wing seemed like a perfect next plane.

The BattleWing did not disappoint! Joseph won't touch the Radian anymore ("too boring"). He loves to "go crazy" with the BattleWing and see if he can recover at the last second. He has learned inverted flight, precise aileron (elevon) control, and has had us put up obstacle courses with garden stakes and PVC tubing. We've taped a video camera to the wing and also experimented with LED lighting for night flying.

I have built and flown several wings over the last 25 years. The BattleWing V3 is spectacular! It tracks beautifully, and even throwing at a severe angle it only has a couple short yaw wags before tracking true. I can't imagine the development effort in getting a design to this level of refinement.

After hundreds of flights and dozens of high-impact crashes, here is our total damage:

- 1 stripped servo (easy to replace following the site's instructions)
- 1 cracked wing (50mph crash straight down into packed earth). 5 min with a hot glue gun.
- 2 small wingtip tears. A thin drizzle of hot glue fixed (and we still have all four wingtip spares!)

We look forward to building out our two new cores so my other son and I can join in the fun!

Regards,

Doug Schafer
Agoura Hills, CA 

I maidened the wing v3 this morning at Bayfront Park of Menlo Park. The event was spectacularly uneventful. Once trimmed, simply yank Battlewing at whatever direction any time, and Battlewing will just dash straight at the new heading, seemly disregarding the direction of gravity. Stalls were usually recovered in-place. When I ran out of battery, I pleasantly discovered that Battlewing actually glide pretty well (saving me a trip through the tall grasses).

On Friday, when I showed the Battlewing to Perry, he did not comment much, however we did spend some time admiring the workmanship of the leading edge reinforcement.

This is one tough plane, yet the construction is very clean.

(Personally, I have not had much success with hot glue: Somehow I cannot get the glue to go where I want, and always end up with big blobs here and there. Now I see that it can be done. I just need more practice.

One question regarding to combat: The goal is to knock the opponent out, but when you bump into the opponent, is the survival chance of the aggressor always better than the victim? (Or nobody really cares?)

Cheers,

Haoyang

Palo Alto, CA

Answer to combat question: To quote Rick Carmichael (a local Baylands flyer), "The are no rules in a knife fight".