Reviews
Awesome
"I really like race day quads fast shipping no issues... The T1 Ranger vtol was better than I expected just follow the instructions at the heewing website. Super good flyer! Flew waypoint through mission planner with no problem but I was already familiar with mission planner from the apm days..."
— Robert R. (5/5)
Such an awesome design, with Ardupilot project collaboration
"I absolutely love the design and the craftsmanship. They really thought this product out. Also the fact that they have joined the Ardupilot project, is going to make what is already an awesome flyer, just that much better. Other companies need to follow suit. They have already spent at least 6months tuning this craft for nearly perfect transitions, when used with HeeWing’s FC or the F405 VTOL by Matek"
— Brian L. (5/5)
Great flyer
"I thought this would be a good entry point for VTOL and Adrudpilot. (hindsight says I should have learned Ardupilot alone before attempting VTOL) Fortunately, this plane has a great setup, transitions were flawless, my judgement not so much. Lessons learned, parts ordered."
— Jason C. (5/5)
Things I've learned
"This is Dan again, from the future. So I've had this T1 VTOL for a while now and I thought I'd post an update about my experience so far. I've flown, crashed, and severely damaged this aircraft a total of 4 times now. 1. On the maiden flight, with no average cell voltage in the OSD I couldn't gauge how much flight time I had left and ended up tanking the battery, causing the aircraft to fall out of the sky while it was in VTOL mode. It came straight down in a stabilized fashion, but cracked the landing gear clean off on impact. (who needs those wheels anyway) 2. On the very next flight, I attempted to transition into ACRO mode from QLOTER and the aircraft immediately stalled and fell out of the air as if no power was applied during the transition phase. I looked all over the web for more information on this, and from what I've read it seems like you MUST transition from VTOL into one of the autonomous modes like FBWA or else very unexpected things can happen. Since then I have been able to successfully transition from QLOTER to FBWA, then into ACRO mode without any issues once the plane has forward momentum. 3. I tried to use the AUTOTUNE flight mode hoping to get better performance out of the in flight stabilization. I was attempting to do the tune in the area of a football field, and traveling around 30mph, and pretty low to the ground. In hindsight, I know these were terrible conditions to attempt an autotune. The AUTOTUNE flight mode made the aircraft fly very oddly. After a few turns around the field, I briefly lost control, then regained control, then the plane randomly flipped upside down inverted and slammed into the ground. 4. My most recent crash was while I was cruising around in ACRO mode doing a few rolls and tricks. I attempted to do a big loop, but I didn't have nearly enough throttle to get the plane up there. I ended up stalling the aircraft, it topped over sideways into a downward spiral at 150ft. My sticks were completely unresponsive and I was unable to pull out of the dive before it hit the ground. Total Damages: - Wing spar split in half - Tear in the wing near the LED light - VTOL motor mount torn off the wing (twice) - Fuselage split in half, tail end torn off (twice) - Battery ejection tearing out the balsa wood rails and tray with it (twice) - Tail end servo wires torn out of the dupont connector needing to be repined (twice) - Landing gear snapped of clean - Many random splits in the foam fuselage along the factory glued seam, mostly at the nose of the plane The last 3 crashes were a nightmare to repair, requiring a lot of foam glue, and replacement parts to be ordered directly from Hee Wing in China. I’ve received 1 shipment that took 11 days to arrive, but I’m still waiting on 2 more orders to come through so I can get in the air again. If you want to keep this aircraft looking pristine, my advice would be to only fly in FBWA or CRUISE modes, and never transition from QLOTER into anything but FBWA mode. Also keep your throttle up, 50% or higher to avoid stalling this plane. Go even higher than that if you’re climbing, seriously this plane can drop like a rock with zero warning and nothing you can do on the sticks will save it! Call me crazy, but I'm still having fun flying AND repairing this aircraft. I just wish there was a faster way to get spare parts."
— Dan (5/5)
I wrecked mine now I'm sad
"First off this is a very cool plane with an endless supply of incredible features. This kit includes most of what you need already setup, but you’ll need to provide your own RX receiver and FPV VTX and camera. I chose to use a 2.4ghz ELRS receiver and an old Caddx Vista Nebula Pro I had laying around. I’m a drone/quadcopter guy, so I normally deal with Betaflight on my flight controllers. This VTOL plane comes with Ardupilot installed so I had a lot to learn when it came to the programming and setup of this aircraft. No paper instructions are included with the kit, so I had to hunt for assembly and programming information on the Hee Wing website. The Nebula Pro camera fit snugly into the cylindrical foam opening at the front of the plane, but the foam around the camera gave the pilot view kind of a peephole effect. I had to trim away some of the foam at the nose of the plane to get a clear view through the goggles. There’s not a lot of room to fit the Caddx VTX with a 2200mAh battery, so I ended up stuffing it into the nose of the plane with mounting tape right up behind the camera. I figured it should get a nice cooling breeze through the 2 front vent slits at the nose. It took me my entire Saturday to get this plane put together. After looking through many youtube videos, forums, and Ardupilot documentation I finally had it setup and ready for a few test hovers in the backyard. Sunday was the day for the maiden flight at a wide open field. It performed beautifully! I had it all setup on a 3 way switch on my radio. 1st position was QLOITER where I could calmly lift the plane in VTOL mode all the way up to 100 ft, The 2nd position was FBWA where the plane would automatically transform into a fixed wing and give me a very comfortable computer assisted flight that made flying so easy even my mom could do it. 3rd position was QRTL (return to home and land) where the plane would immediately turn to home in fixed wing mode, then once it came close it automatically transformed back into VTOL mode, found it’s landing mark and descended back down to land exactly where it had taken off from. It was all very impressive! I flew 2 packs in this manner and had a good time, but the FBWA flight mode left me wanting more control. I took the plane back home and changed the FBWA switch to ACRO mode instead, thinking it would now fly more like the fully manual plane I often fly that doesn’t have a flight controller. I ascended the plane again, just as I did at the field in VTOL mode. Instead of 100 ft, I took it up to 200 ft thinking I might need that extra altitude as a cushion in case I make a mistake attempting ACRO mode. Now, I still don’t know exactly what went wrong here, but as soon as I flipped the switch to transform into fixed wing ACRO, the plane just freaked the F out doing barrel rolls and inverted loops! It was completely out of control and nothing I could do on the sticks was helping anything. The last vision through my goggles showed the plane going nose first into a pine tree, then blackness. The carnage was extensive… wing spar split in half, nebula pro smashed, vtol tilt servo completely torn from the wing, the metal tail rod bent like a banana, a gash torn through the side of the fuselage exposing the electronic guts. I was devastated. I went to Hee Wing, and thankfully they have an entire store full of replacement parts for this model. I picked out all the parts I needed, including a lot of spares and extras that I may need in the future, all together it was about $100 in parts for this crash, the pilot camera was by far the most expensive part. Only problem is they ship from China and I’m assuming it could take 3-4 weeks to arrive. Then, we rebuild!"
— Dan (5/5)
