Ultra Micro aircraft continue to evolve and Flyzone and ItCanFly certainly capture that spirit in the Uberlites modular micro aircraft. Kurt and Rob take a test drive of this new creation and see how practical modularity is for RC aircraft…
Summary
Modular micro aircraft are a pretty cool idea, so we were excited to get our hands on the Uberlites and see how the various airframes worked on the unified power module. Sometimes these great ideas just fall flat when it comes to flight performance, so we remained cautiously optimistic when we pulled the Uberlites from their packaging.
The creative use of rare earth magnets makes changing between airframes very easy, so with a quick charge of the included LiPo battery, we were ready for flight. The Uberlites are truly indoor or dead-calm outdoor flyers. We actually tested ours in a slight 1 mph breeze and the Uberlites’ power module had enough “oomph” to pull it through the air with plenty of control. Being constructed of such lightweight materials means the breeze flexed the monoplane pretty heavily making flight possible, but not very enjoyable. The biplane airframe definitely handled the breeze best of the three but we were able to fly them all and get a good feel for their capabilities.
In air, the Uberlites lack the necessary thrust for easy loops and being only three channel, rolls weren’t an option, even for the wing airframe. The elevons should have let us roll but the pendulum effect of the power module left us unable to execute them with our breeze.
Accuracy is good enough to fly in your living room with the monoplane, but the biplane and wing airframe are just a bit too zippy to handle such confined spaces. The Uberlites are a neat concept that actually fly well. All three designs feel like they were made for the stock power module and we found the balance to be on the money. Durability scoring suggest these aren’t for the rough and tumble beginner but the flight characteristics are very docile and accommodating. Overall, the Uberlites were fun to fly and the modularity is a handy feature that adds some extra mileage by mixing things up a bit when you’re ready for a change.
