Blanik L-13 Review

I wanted a scale glider of a reasonable size but they are expensive and my slope skills don't yet extend to getting landings right most of the time, especially at sites like the Great Orme which is merciless if the model gets caught up in the 'rotor' effect on a good windy day. I needed something to practice with that wouldn't cost hundreds of pounds to buy or to repair. After quite some searching and hesitation I ended up buying a HobbyKing Blanik L-13 glider which has a very off scale electric motor in the nose but it does provide a means of getting to altitude.

The thing is that it has a 7' wing span and is supplied with everything either fitted or just some minor assembly required and claims to have a good aerobatic performance. All this for a few pence over £85; was this too cheap or a bargain I wondered?

Well the maiden flight has taken place and several more since. A few niggles in the assembly and the shedding of the folding propeller are, I suppose, what you get with a cheap model but it flys well and it looks good too, though silver isn't the best colour against grey clouds! On the whole I would say that I'm pleasantly surprised with the handling and I look forward to trying out as a slope soarer before too long. As for robustness and providing a means for me to get my practice in, only time will tell.

Review

I don't use HobbyKing by choice but since there is no longer a model shop nearby I am forced to resort to the internet. When it comes to buying items I have not had chance to examine and where quality matters the traditional model shop will always be my choice. Anyway it arrived on time and was double boxed, the outer box being a substantial corrugated affair which was undamaged; all good so far. Opening up the boxes the first items that are found are the bagged wing halves securely attached to an inner cardboard support. Initial inspection is that they are straight and in good order.

Digging deeper I found the brief instruction manual and got a number of surprises:

• the text is comprehensible English
• supported by good quality images that indicated that the only assembly that was required was fitting of control horns, pushrods, fin and tailplane
• less work than I expected. 

Sadly the manual misses some important information, examples being:

• propeller size supplied
• how to remove the removeable motor,
• control surface movement ranges, 
• how to remove the canopy (more on that later) 
• and no warning to remove the propeller when setting up which is an important safety point. 

I mentioned the canopy removal, it's held on by very good magnets and is definitely secure however trying to ease the canopy upwards at it's rear edge seemed to need a lot of effort. Nothing in the instructions gave any indication of why this should be and it was only by examining the online images that all was revealed; the magnets are at the front of the canopy and there are retaining lugs at the back. No doubt the rear lugs would have broken had I persisted with my first effort to remove the canopy but there's a far greater issue with this arrangement - safety. There is no power switch supplied, which for a complete model there should be but where this becomes a major danger is that to remove the canopy it is necessary to place the fingers at the front of the canopy and that is in the arc of the propeller.

Power for the motor is provided by a Lithium Polymer (LiPo) battery pack and that presented a minor specification problem too as the website states that a 3 cell LiPo is needed and the instruction manual states 4 cell. I have since learned that either will provide sufficient power though the 4 cell obviously more so. I went for 4s 3000mAh.

The foam quality looks good and I see no cause for concern there, so on the face of  it all looks well and the assembly should be quick and easy. For the most part it was, everything fitted together properly and accurately, though as usual the instructions were somewhat lacking in detail.

One such detail was how to route the wires for the rudder and elevator servos. Being prefitted this should not be an issue however as fitted they passed over the wing seating area of the fuselage. Sandwiching these wires between the wing and the fuselage like this can't be right especially since there's ample space for them to be routed underneath the wing seat. On a simlar line there was the question of the route for the aileron and flaps servo wires. Examining the wing parts it appeared that there were two options, the most attractive being to let them drop straight down from the exit holes in the wing root and this I would have done except that once again the servos wires would have been traped between the wing and the wing seat because the recess in the wing seat did not extend far enough backwards.

The other option was to use the channel formed when the two wing halves are joined. Seems easy enough but practice the servo wires are so short that makes connecting up to the receiver rather awkward. In the end I went for this second option, using a thin layer of silicone under the wires to keep them in place. At some point in the future I'll improve on this arrangement, probably by cutting a neat slot in the wing seat so that the first mentioned option becomes a usable one.

There a few other niggles too. The rudder servo arm had been set so that it was retracted into the fin and then the decal membrane covered it over. Okay it wasn't difficult to cut the membrane away but why have it like this? The control horn flanges had holes for four screws but only enough screws for two per horn were supplied.


Flying

As previously mentioned the early flights passed without issue and were quite enjoyable until the prop lugs on the spinner broke in flight. Bringing the aeroplane safely back to the strip wasn't an issue but what size prop and spinner to refit was. I hadn't made a note of the original size, it wasn't in the instructions and Hobby King didn't stock replacements. I ended up buying an assortment of spinners and props, testing each with a watt meter and ended up with a 12x5.

I've taken it out on several slope visits and whilst it performed well I didn't find it picked up as much lift as I had hoped for.

Conclusion

It's a good enough power flyer with some thermal/slope lift capability too. It looks good in flight and indeed is quite enjoyable. Was it worth the money then? Well probably because I will continue to fly it, mostly for power/thermal gliding, so that must say something in it's favour and at the price I doubt that any better could be expected. Speaking of the price though, it seems that it was indeed a bargain as since the time of my purchase the price of this model has steadily risen and you may well have to spend for more than I did. At the higher price it may be worth looking around for something else.