Unboxing the Vertigo F5J glider

Flying F3k for several years, this is my first F5j glider.
Here is the maiden flight from this glider: i'm very very impressed by this glider.
• Vertigo F5j RC glider:...
F5j race class glider
rc glider
4m rc glider
big rc glider
thermal rc glider
GCM
vertigo from GCM
carbon rc glider
high performance thermal glider
high performance glider
molded carbon glider
00:00 opening the box
00:46 accessorie bag and elevator
01:33 pod
02:15 tailboom
03:16 left wingtip
03:48 right wingtip
04:22 rudder
04:57 central wing pannel
05:44 bag with accessoiries
06:21 carbon wing joiners
06:30 ballast and battery tray
07:13 electric connection pod-wing for wing servos
07:44 motor mount
07:55 servo trays
08:03 let's assemble this beauty
08:25 assembling rudder and elevator
08:54 assembling central pannel
09:31 assembling wing tips
10:04 assembled glider
10:46 overview disassembled glider
11:00 weighing all parts
11:03 weighing rudder
11:06 weighing elevator
11:14 weighing right wingtip
11:22 weighing left wingtip
11:29 weighing central pannel
11:36 weighing tailboom
11:42 weighing pod
11:45 weighing wing-joiners
11:54 some pictures
12:20 global overview glider all parts
12:30 propulsion (motor, ESC, battery)
12:34 prop and spinner
12:40 servo's
12:44 Vertigo by GCM

[@FrankJames-vk1fy]

Looks like precision craftsmenship...nice.

[@yannickver]

Big difference in the build quality between the brands who produce F5J ships... this one is really perfect. All surfaces shiny, all pieces have perfect fit. Yes, true craftmenship.

[@ozjohnno]

A beutiful ship... you gotta be happy with that

[@yannickver]

Yes, it's really well made and it flies very very well... I did not flew it that much (bad weather this season) and still a lot to learn. Here's the maiden flight: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nnu3iZWChdesb9U

[@lextek595]

Beautiful

[@yannickver]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@rcswissflyer9393]

So how far are you with built? I got mine just 10 days ago and I finished it in speedy time frame. The quality is impressive, agree. Luckily as you the elevator horn was already glued on (helpful) as a lot of tricky passt come up while building. Fuselage elevator & rudder servo installation and linkage. Watchout on wat type of linkage system you chose on flaps and ailerons. The battery bay layout is extremely important in order to get best possible CG without adding useless ballast weight. I have covered and maddened my Vertigo yesterday with fantastic result almost no trimming (just elevator two ticks). No ballast in the wings and no ballast in the fuselage (just necessary for stronger wind conditions). I installed a 2S safe guard Lipo battery of 850 mah as redundancy to the main battery as recommendation the say to use 1400 to 1600 mah max, which is really limiting your actions while flying.

[@yannickver]

Hi, unfortunately I did not find the time to start the build... have been checking everyting and have all the bits and pieces... withing a few weeks I will have more time ;-). Flaps and ailerons I will just use L-bends in the provided wires. I seems like you added a lot of batteries. Jacek advised me to use max 900Mah 3S battery. with more batteries, I would have to use a lot of lead in the tail. I have telemetry on my ESC (I do not intend competitions), so battery voltage and total consumption are monitored all the time during flight. So redundancy battery is not really necessary. Happy to hear it's a good flier, so far I never saw bad reviews/ experiences about this glider.

[@rcswissflyer9393]

@@yannickver you will find out if 900 mah battery will be enough (yes they say you can use 800-900 mah) up to 1400 mah (some even say 1600 mah). I have a 900 mah in a Chocofly Onyx 2.5 mt wingspan at it is just enough, so I doubt a 900 mah on a almost 4 mt wingspan is enough. Besides the capacity, it is an issue of finding the correct CG with just a 900 mah battery. All depends on what kind of ESC (weight) and engine (weight) you are going to install. The issue is are you going to fly with ballast in the wings and fuselage. I fly without ballast in the wings and fuselage (not strong winds), but to get correct CG to the book, I needed to get battery way forward and added the redundancy battery (it is safety and I have with Duplex Jeti receiver my telemetry as well). So this is a matter, which I wrote GCM on an e-mail. You make recommendations, but instructions are missing on layout internally how to set up for different needs and flying skills are needs. This is something I pointed out for the money they should support with.

[@yannickver]

@@rcswissflyer9393 well, I guess on those high end F5j ships competition flyers want to scratch the bottom and finding the correct set-up is part of the hobby ;-). There are competitors who use even much smaller batteries than 900mAh on their 'light' F5j ships. They just need 30 sec motor and a total of 10min flight. Here there is a building manual, made by one of their old distributors: www.topmodel.fr/goodsdoc/240800_time_1614167161.pdf I can't complain about GCM's support, it's very good in my experience. it's my first F5j ship, but from the 3 F3K gliders I own none came with a building instruction, had to gather all the info on internet...

[@rcswissflyer9393]

@@yannickver Wow this instruction manual or assembly manual is very good. I was not aware about this part. Prepared by french former distributor. I know in our hobby many different standards. Here we are at high end and probably a lot of pilots have their own idea how they want to set up a glider and do not need instructions, but what I pointed out to GCM is, that there are not only those pilots. to be honest many pilots I know they even use assembly shops to built their planes/gliders do not built by themselves. Thank you very much for your inputs, nice sharing. Appreciated. You are correct for competition they will use 900 mah batteries, but not only competition this glider is used. I am not saying GCM is not good in support, what i just highlighted is not an instruction manual is available and in our hobby if we like it or not can be expensive and normally any product sold of any kind is and must be delivered with a minimum of instructions. i know it is only a hobby used by a few people, but it is part of a service to a product. This is not GCM only, many others as you say do not supply instructions, just stick to nicely designed engineered product, but as of today this is not enough. No doubt the product is excellent and deserves high score. If you are not into competition flying, change your idea and go for LDS linkage it is a bit heavier, but more precise no play and you will be enjoying more precise soaring cruising and higher reliability. Just think about it. I did myself first time installation of such system but I have this system on my Diana glider 4,20 m wingspan and based on that performance i decided for ailerons to go for it. Thank you and enjoy building once you start.

[@yannickver]

@@rcswissflyer9393 here you can also find a lot of info about the Vertigo build here: It's their distributor in the US. Very usefull. kzbin.info/aero/PLK05zXmk7AwdLJx2bTAS0kTpaaigzNZWO There is also a page on RCgroups, and they have a FB page about vertigo. Your questions will be answered there. All info is there, but it takes some effort to gather it all and decide how to do it. But I understand what you mean... a basic manual would be great, or suggested gear that works well for this glider. It's not easy to decide which gear to use. It always takes me a lot of time to search on forums to decise which gear to take.