THSS REVIEW
Dave's Aircraft Works "foaMe 109"

Specifications:
Wingspan: 48"
Weight: 32 oz.
Wingloading: 10 oz./sq. ft.
Airfoil: S3016
Radio: standard receiver, 2-3 standard servos
Skill level: Intermediate

Why the foaMe 109. I decided to buy the foaMe 109 because I wanted to try my hand at combat with a "conventional" plane. From what I have seen from the guys at the slope that combat with the conventional planes like this one, they seem to have better energy retention through the turns and have a higher top speed than the flying wings do. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have the same low speed roll rate as the wings and they definitely don't have the recovery ability as the flying wings after a hit.
I've heard a ton of good things about Dave's Aircraft Works and I decided to get one of his foamies as opposed to one of the ones from an unknown company. Oh yeah, one more reason... my Zagi got into a high speed head-on crash with a Razor (another wing from Trick R/C) and the Zagi got the bad end of that impact (it was really cool, the Zagi was damaged near the rear centerline before the impact, and when it hit the other plane head-on my Zagi folded right around the other plane (like a triangular Pacman) and they both fell from the sky in a deadly embrace).

Building the foaMe 109. By the time I started this plane, I was an experienced foamie builder (I've already built one whole foamie by now). Construction is all EPP except for the ailerons, wing spars, and tail assembly. Digging out the holes in the foam for the equipment was made easy by an exacto knife and my Ryobi (a Dremel lookalike) outfitted with a jagged metal grinder (a cylindrical deal with teeth). Holes for passing wires and the pushrod housing were easily done with a soldering gun. I used both a hot glue gun and Household Goop for glueing it all together. Instructions for building the plane were okay for me, but I realized that a person with less building experience may have a problem with them because a bunch of steps that are left out.

Flying the foaMe 109. After giving my plane a nice quasi-camouflage covering job with Ultracote, I took it out for its first taste of combat. I tossed it out with the confidence a skilled builder has with his work (plus the fact that it's almost indestructible) and my first flight lasted all of four feet. Needed to trim the elevator a little. The next flight was more successful. It flew straight and true. Penetration was what I expected it to be, just a little better than the Zagi. But there were two real surprises on that first flight. First of all, when I coupled the aileron/flaperons with the elevator, this sucker turned on a dime. It would loop or turn like crazy without dumping much speed at all. Secondly, it really rolled a whole heck of a lot faster than I thought it would. On one fly-by I got it to roll 5 times before I had to level out. That's 2 more than I ever got my Zagi to do. With only around two ounces of nose weight, the center of gravity was as far back as I would ever want it to be. It was so far back, I could bring the plane to an almost complete stop in the air by yanking back on the elevator. That's quite a handy trick when flying combat (kind of like the maneuver in Top Gun with the airbrakes, but re-acceleration is a little harder without a jet engine).
My first mid-air hit was a doozy. The opponent hit the leading edge of my wing right by the wing-tip and he sent me on an awesome flat spin. I must have spun around four or five times before I got a little bit of control back and I was really close to being able to recover, but a bush got in my way (it jumped out of nowhere) and I couldn't pull out. I'm sure with a flying wing, I would have been able to recover from a hit like that, but even though I couldn't do it with the 109, it was a lot of fun trying to. Collisions at higher altitudes are almost boring with a flying wing, but using a conventional combat plane like this makes every single hit pretty exciting.
When comparing flyability between the foaMe 109 and the flying wings that were up that day, it seemed like the wings could roll faster at low speeds and had a little better acceleration, but turning, higher speed rolls, and top speed were better for the foaMe 109. The wings could take advantage of the periods of light lift.

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