Flying Model Reviews

Hey Dad, where’s the rest of my airplane? That was my first thought when the MS Composit Swift II was brought home. Actually, we brought two home—one for me, and the other for my dad and brother Jacob to share. The model comes in a lot of colors, some graphic and others with a military look.

The kit, if you want to call it that because the parts count is so low, comes in a clear plastic bag. It contains two wing halves and two fins, and a smaller bag with metal pushrods and a few plastic parts. Also through MS Composit, we picked up some accessories from Scanner RC. The included the motor, ESC and servos. Our radio is the Spektrum DX7.

For the SCM3223 motor to work with the Swift, we carved out the back of the plastic motor mount so that it could be mounted on the back of the firewall. The one-way output shaft would stick out far enough for us to use a prop-saver adapter, which reduces the risk of breaking the propeller on landing. I was happy to let my dad carve the mount for me with this electric rotary tool.

The Swift is a “pusher” design, where the motor faces backwards and the propeller pushes instead of pulls the model. The great thing about an electric pusher over a glow engine is that is can use standard propellers. Pusher propellers are a lot hard to find in the model size needed. The recommended APC 8x6E propeller fits between the elevons. Using a Polyquest 800mAh 3-cell pack, out motor draws only 8.5 amps at full power, which is well inside the limitations of the system.

The pictures in the instructions are easy to understand. We used thick CA glue to assemble the wing halves, mount the fins and secure the motor mount. The wing halves fit together exactly, and we followed the instructed glue method of applying CA to one part, kicker to the other, then joining the parts. For grins, we tried to break the joint, but couldn’t.

We modified the rough opening in the foam center area for our accessories; the servos wires were the exact length. Because the model would belly land, we buried the servos and other equipment as deeply into the foam as possible. We used a hobby knife to cut thin slots to run the servo wires below the surface, then glued them closed. Hot glue works great for securing the servos, ESC and the Spektrum AR6100e receiver.

3M packing tape has fiber strands in a crisscross pattern. It adheres to the EPP foam well, working like a spar to prevent flex to the wing. We enlarged the opening in the front to fit the battery and hide the 1-ounce of lead needed to balance the model. We sprayed the fins with Rustoleum florescent paint, which made the models a little easier to see, and gave them that “Area 51” look.

When launching the Swift II, it’s very important to point the nose practically straight up. We hold the model by the nose and do an underhand toss. Our Swift II models have tons of power and can cruise at less than half throttle. The controls can be super sensitive with full throws, so we set up the radio with dual rate set at 50 percent, which makes them better for relaxed flying.

The Swift II will climb out of sight at full power, but I like to fly below the tree line at half power, practicing rolls and flying inverted. I’ve gotten too low a couple of times, but the model didn’t even get a scratch; I just picked it up and launched it again.

The Swift II is a lot of fun to build and fly. At a vacant football field, I’ll use the goal posts as a pylon course or limbo pole.