 Product Video
Product Review:
3D Hobby Shop 47" Extra 300 SHP
Perspective By:
Heydick
Manufacturer Contact:
3D Hobby Shop
603 FM 2093 STE 1601
Fredericksburg, TX 78624 Phone: 830-990-6978
Manufacturer Website:
www.3dhobbyshop.com
FlyingGiants Ratings:
| Packaging: |  | | Kit Quality: | | | Ease of Build: | | | Huckability: | | | Overall: | | |
A while back, I was contacted by Ben Fisher (aka Bluecore Basher, aka Mr. Peanut) the owner/operator of 3D Hobby Shop, and he asked me if I wanted to do a review on his 47" Extra 300 SHP for The Flying Giants. Heck yeah! I had already flown one of these at my local field and I was very impressed, in fact, it was on my short list of must have airplanes.
3D Hobby Shop is a relatively new player in the online hobby store area, but man, have they been busy! Ben opened his doors in 2005, and in December of 2006 3DHS released their first airplane, the 47" Katana. In just the last year they have developed, manufactured, and released 9 airframes to the public with a half dozen more under development or being beta tested right now! Here's the list: 47" Extra 300 SHP 47" Katana 47" Yak 54 47" Velox Revolution 46" Aspera (pattern) 53" EBT (trainer) 55" Extra 300 SHP 55" Katana 55" Yak 54 WOW!!! These are all brand new, designed from the ground up airplanes, not existing airframes from some other manufacturer that have been rebadged. I ask you, what other company do you know of that has released that many airplanes in that short of time? Not to mention, most of those planes are offered in more than one color scheme. The brawn and brains of this operation are two guys; Ben, as I've mentioned, and Scott Stoops, a full scale competitive aerobatic pilot (Sukhoi 26mx), and a full time commercial pilot flying for United Airlines. Scott has also received a national airline pilot's award for airmanship, a great honor. I should also mention that Scott has penned , in my opinion, the most comprehensive book ever written on model aviation called, "The Pilot's Guide to Mastering Radio Controlled Flight". Do yourself a favor and check it out on 3D Hobby Shop's website.
At my local flying field 3D Hobby Shop planes are very popular and I've had the pleasure of flying 4 of them: The 47" Extra SHP, the 47" Katana, the 47" Yak, and the 55" Extra and they all flew brilliantly. Although the 47" planes I flew had similar dimensions, they each had a different personality, and the 55" Extra was so light on the wing it reminded me of a big balsa foamy that tracked rail straight. With innovated design, lightweight airframes that are exceptionally strong, a huge variety of different airplanes, and customer support that is second to none, 3D Hobby Shop is quickly becoming the hottest hobby shop online.
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    After the Extra SHP was delivered I opened the shipping box and was suprised to see it was TRIPPLE BOXED!! That, right there, spoke volumes to me about the care that 3DHS puts into their product to insure that your new plane arrives in pristine condition. I opened up the main box and saw all the pieces individually wrapped and packaged to prevent damage. There was also complete hardware packages that included pre cut and bent pushrods, phenolic control horns, and quick connectors. Also a great instruction manual with B&W photos and easy to follow text along with tips for successful flying. A light but strong carbon wing tube for the removable wings, cool little thumb screws to retain the wings to the fuse, a simple but effective steerable tail wheel, bolts for the motor mount, a Velcro strip for the battery tray and a Velcro strap to hold the battery down. There was even zip ties included to hold down your receiver. Lightweight, curved, two piece, carbon fiber landing gear is included as well as pre painted fiberglass wheel pants and very trick wheel axles, more about these later.
There is a beautifully painted fiberglass cowling and also a complete hatch/canopy already done for you, no canopy gluing here! A great feature of the hatch/canopy is a pre installed, spring loaded, canopy retaining lever and two rare earth magnets. No way is the canopy going to fly off during flight.
After I unwrapped the pieces, I first inspected the covering and found nary a wrinkle. It was then that I also noticed that the CA hinges were already installed and glued into each aileron, elevator half, and rudder. That was a very nice touch indeed. I then sighted down the leading and trailing edges of the wings and ailerons and found them razor straight. A look down the inside of the fuselage showed me interlocking laser cut lite ply and balsa parts, and a very well thought out design that results in a strong, lightweight airframe. In almost every small ARF that I've put together, I usually brace the landing gear plate with balsa tri-stock because this is generally a weak link. I was pleasantly surprised to see this had already been done for me. In addition to a lite ply gear plate that interlocks into two of the fuselage's bulkheads, there was two big pieces of balsa tri-stock that further anchored the gear plate to the main fuselage structure. The motor box is already built for you and is also integrated into the fuselage's superstructure. The firewall is pre drilled with blind nuts installed to except the Torque 28 series or Hacker 30 series "X" motor mounts.
Specifications
- Wingspan: 47.25 inches
- Length: 44 inches
- Wing Area: 464square inches
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Weight: 37 - 41 ozs.
Features include:
Carbon fiber landing gear and wing tube. Painted fiberglass cowling and wheelpants Painted hatch/canopy with installed spring loaded retaining system. Phenolic control horns. Motor box installed and predrilled to except Extreme Flight's Torque motors. Recommended Set Up: Extreme Flight Torque 2818/900 brushless outrunner motor. Extreme Flight Airboss 45 amp ESC. (4) Hitec HS65 servos (note: metal gear servos recommended for the rudder and elevator). Servo cut outs are made for HS 65's. 3s to 4s 20-25C lipo batteries from 1800 to 3200 mAh. APC or Zoar E props from 12/6 to 14/7 with the larger props used on a 3s set up.
Alternative Power Set Up: Extreme Flight Torque 2814T-820 Hacker A30 16M or A30 12L Eflight Power 10 or Power 15
What's in my plane: Torque 2818/900 motor Airboss 45 amp ESC (4) HS 65 servos, MG's on the rudder and elevator CC BEC (more on this later) Berg 7 receiver 3DHS 20C 4s 2200 lipo battery APC 12-6 E prop AUW 42 ozs. WOT 475W @ 35 amps This is a very versatile airframe that can accommodate a variety of power set ups from 350 to 500 watts. This means that you could go with a 3s set up for a more lightweight "floaty" airplane that you can fling around in close, or you can go with a 4s set up for crazy power and better tracking in windy conditions. The beauty of 3DHS planes is that they are built around proven power systems and if you go with their recommendations the planes are pretty much plug and play.
Assembly is a more accurate term and is as straight forward as it gets. As far as the airframe goes, there's really not a lot to do. The majority of the build time is spent installing the electronics. Following the great instruction manual, the build time, from out of the box into the air, is between 3-5 hours!
The first thing I did was to heat a wire with a torch and cut out the covering over all the servo cut outs and the wing tube and anti rotation pin holes also the air exit holes in the bottom/back of the fuselage.
Next was the wing assembly which consists of gluing the ailerons on and installing the servos. As I've stated before, the CA hinges are already glued into the ailerons so this step was nothing more than sliding the hinges into the pre cut hinge slots in the trailing edge of the wing, making sure there was enough gap between the two for free movement, and CA'ing the hinges. Inside the servo cut outs there is a string to tie the servo extension to, so once tied, you just have to pull the string and out pops the servo lead through the wing root, sweet. After screwing down the servos it was time to install the control horns which are simple, strong phenolic horns that fit into a cutout on the ailerons and take about 5 seconds to install.     On to the tail assembly. I cut away the covering as shown in the manual on the stab and dry-fit the stab in to the fuselage. After sliding the wing tube into the fuselage, I sighted down from the rear of the fuselage to make sure the horizontal stab was inline and straight with the wing tube, it was dead nuts on, perfectly straight. I then pulled the stab out, slid the wire U-joiner for the elevators in, and then slid the stab back in. Checking with a metal ruler and a tape measure, I made sure the stab was even and square and ready to glue. Here's where I deviated from the instruction manual a little. Instead of gluing with epoxy like the manual says, I hit it with thin CA. I've been gluing in stabs on small planes like this for years and haven't had one fail yet.
I did however use epoxy on the elevator halves as recommended. After dry fitting the elevator halves to make sure everything was A-OK, I pulled the halves, mixed some epoxy, put epoxy on the end of the wire joiner, and slid the halves back into the horizontal stab. After checking that there was at least 45* throw up and down, and checking to make sure each elevator halve was lined up evenly, I hit the hinges with thin CA.
Next was the rudder installation. I fit the vertical fin into the slot and hit it on both sides with thin CA instead of using epoxy. Before I installed the rudder I had to cut a slot out for the phenolic control horn because this was the only thing that wasn't already done for me, no biggie. After eyeballing where I thought it should go and making sure the hole for the quick connect would be over the hinge line, I cut a slot. This slot ended up being: ¼" up from the bottom of the rudder, 5/16" in from the front of the leading edge of the rudder, and 3/8" long. After epoxying the horn in, it was just a matter of sliding the hinges (already glued into the rudder) into the vertical fin, checking for free movement, and hitting it with thin CA.
One thing I noticed about the rudder, it's huge for this size airplane. After the rudder was glued on I also noticed something else; the tail moment looked pretty short to me. Right there that told me that this plane is going to be one tumbling mofo! But how was it going to track? I guess I'd find out soon enough. The tail wheel assembly is simple and strong and was an easy installation that took about 3 minutes. The same holds true with the servo installation for both the rudder and the elevator. I connected a 12" extension to each servo and put them into their respective cut outs. The HS 65's slid right into the cut outs with no modifications necessary to get them to fit. One other small addition I did was to use a couple of ball links on the rudder and elevator. It's not necessary to use ball links on this plane but I had them lying around so I figured what the heck.     Next was the landing gear/wheel pants and wheel installation. This has to be one of the easiest and coolest designs that I've run across. Inside one of the hardware bags were little machined aluminum axles and wheel collars. Unlike most every other plane this size that use a screw and nut as an axle, 3DHS axles are smooth so they won't ream out the axle hole in the plastic wheels after 10 flights. On the wheel pants there is a slot, or I should say a depression that is molded into the pant itself. The beautiful carbon fiber gear legs and the wheel pant, axle, and the wheel go together as one cohesive unit. First I assembled the wheel onto the axle and retain the wheel with the supplied collar. Then this goes into the pant and the threaded part of the axle pops through a pre drilled hole in the pant. The last thing to do is put the threaded end of the axle through a drilled hole in the gear leg and put a nut on to hold the pant/wheel assembly to the gear leg. The leg fits snugly into the depression molded into the wheel pant so when everything is tightened down, the pant won't rotate, it's locked in so there's no need to put additional screws through the leg into the pant to keep the pant straight. With that done, I bolted the landing gear onto the gear plated using the supplied hex bolts and she had legs and feet to stand on.
On to the motor/ESC installation. With the pre drilled motor mount holes and installed blind nuts, all that needed to be done was to bolt the motor on and zip tie the ESC to the motor box. One thing to note here: I used a Castle Creations adjustable BEC even though the Airboss ESC has an internal switching BEC incorporated into it already. I did this because the Airboss' internal BEC is set at 5.2V and I like to run my servos at 6.2V. Again, this is only a personal preference and is not necessary.
The receiver has it's own space on one of the bulkheads. Adding to 3DHS' attention to detail, there's even slots cut out on the bulkhead so zip ties can slide through to hold down the receiver, man, these guys thought of everything.
The only things left to do was to attach the cowl, put the supplied Velcro strip on the battery tray, seal the hinge gaps with Blenderm tape and set my throws and preliminary CG.    
I was pretty excited to get the SHP in the air and see what it would do. Remember, I had already flown the Extra SHP belonging to others at my club so I kind of knew what to expect, or at least I thought I did. I set the throws and expo settings per the recommendations in the manual. Even though the expo settings seemed a little high, I felt it prudent to stick with these recommendations, with the exception of the rudder low rate/expo which I set at 25* and 30% expo. It turned out these recommendations were almost spot on for my flying style. My first flight was spent adjusting CG and fine tuning the throw rates and expo to my preference and also setting up a mid-rate. As a note: I like to have my rates all assigned to a single 3 position switch; Low, Mid, High. The Low being sequence rate, the Mid being the sequence rate with slightly more rudder and elevator throws, and the High being 3D rates. Most of my flying is done on the Low and Mid rates and the High only being used for high alpha stuff.
With the preliminary trimming done on the first flight, I then used the second flight to see if any additional trimming was needed, i.e. up/down/right/left thrust, lateral balance, differential etc. Nothing was needed here, the SHP tracked straight as could be with only the slightest touch of right stick required for straight uplines, which is just the way I like it. Downline aileron rolls were perfectly axial and the wings remained straight and level on the pull out. OK! Now that checked out let's see if anything's needed on KE.
At about ¾ throttle I rolled the Extra on it's left side and applied top rudder. The plane stayed there, all the way down the length of the field, with only a wee bit of pitch to the gear and absolutely no roll coupling, nice, very nice! So far so good, let's come back on the right side. Same result, straight down the runway, sweet! I ended up putting a 2% and 1% rudder to elevator mix and no rudder to aileron mix.
    Now that I had the trimming pretty much the way I liked, I put in a fresh battery. I wanted to see how the Extra was at high alpha KE so I switched to high rates, took it up to about 250 feet, rolled to knife edge, power about 1/4, full top rudder, and let it death-drop. The SHP dropped, and dropped, and dropped, with no stick inputs from me other than pulling the elevator to steer it closer to me. I started slowly applying throttle at about 50ft and leveled out at around 8ft into a beautiful HA KE all the way down the runway. The big rudder was so effective that I had to ease off the stick once I leveled out, otherwise it would KE into a hover! What impressed me the most was; at almost full top rudder with the plane at an extremely high angle of attack, the SHP exhibited almost no pitch or roll coupling what so ever. I could steer it around in figure 8's and only have to correct with ailerons if I pushed or pulled too hard. All other maneuvers in knife edge exhibited the same sweet tracking characteristics.
Snaps were very clean and stopped exactly where I wanted, or, I should say, stopped when the sticks were neutralized because I have a tendency to over rotate.
Waterfalls rotated right on the wing.
Blenders can be as violent as you want. Although it's not recommended, I've see others at my field do full power blenders with their SHP's over and over, and I've never seen one break yet. I'm telling ya, 3DHS planes are STRONG.
I did have some wing rock on upright harriers but not enough to really concern me however inverted harriers were rock free.
Power on the 4s battery is excellent, and even though my plane came out at 42 ozs I felt no ill effects of the plane being that weight. I'm no much of a 3D flyer and my flying style leans more towards sport/precision. If I was more of a 3D flyer I might be happier with a 3s set up to keep the wingloading as low as possible. As is, I think the set up I have is perfect for me. I also think it's a testimony to the design, and the thought that Ben and Scott put into this design, that allows this diversity in power set ups for different flying styles.
Landing the SHP was a non event as the slow speed characteristics are excellent on this model. I did notice however, that the nose stayed at a level attitude during the descent with no elevator input. On final, I found the best way to land was to leave the elevator alone and just let the plane settle in using the throttle to control the descent, then flair just before touchdown.
As most of us know, the quality of ARF's over the last few years has improved dramatically, and that's good for all of us because finding quality kits is becoming increasingly difficult. I've built hundreds of airplanes with at least 50-60 of them being ARF's, and occasionally I'll run across one that tells me the designers really knew what they were doing. Of course, a good design on the ground means nothing if the plane doesn't live up to that promise when it's airborne. In this respect, the 3D Hobby Shop 47" Extra 300 SHP shines like a supernova. There's been very few ARF's that I've put together and flown that have exceeded my expectations, in fact I can count them on 3 fingers, this plane is one . As I've said earlier, the SHP looked short coupled and I really wasn't expecting it to track as well as it does. Also because of the short moment I expected high alpha knife edge to have coupling issues, it doesn't. This is such a versatile airplane that's it's hard for me to think who couldn't fly it and be immediately comfortable with it. The SHP can go from docile to wow with the flip of a switch, so it will accommodate a myriad of flying styles. Is it a plane for beginners? No, but I will say that I think it would be a great first aerobatic plane for pilots already comfortable with ailerons and elevator. The 3DHS Extra 300 SHP has become my "go to" plane because of its versatility. Sometimes I want to sport fly doing lazy rolls and loops and sometimes I want to get a little crazy beat the plane like a rented mule. Without question, this plane fulfils both those needs. Ben and Scott have raised the bar on small (45"-55") electric ARF's with the 47" Extra 300 SHP being just one of them (out of 9) and in this reviewer's humble opinion, have set the standard for other designers/manufacturers to shoot for. | 3D Hobby Shop
603 FM 2093 STE 1601
Fredericksburg, TX 78624 Phone: 830-990-6978 www.3dhobbyshop.com | |
04-09-2008, 11:17 PM
Re: 3D Hobby Shop 47" Extra 300 SHP 
I gotcher Flying Giant right here.
The yellow color scheme absolutely ROCKS on the SHP. 
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