Love Hate Relationship – Carbon-Z Yak 54
I love the new Carbon-Z Yak 54! I hate the Carbon-Z Yak 54! Both very true statements.
I wanted something that I could leave together and not have to assemble and disassemble at the field like I have to with my larger airplanes. But I also want a high level of performance, easy to repair foam construction, strong enough to handle 3D and hard maneuvers, and electric. There are some contenders out there, but none that really fit exactly what I wanted.
On a recent trip to the hobby shop to buy some parts for my helicopter, I stumbled across the Carbon-Z Yak. It looked like exactly what I wanted, but I really didn’t have any background on it. While there, I did a quick look up on the internet via my iPhone, checked the specs, and watched the video of Quique Somenizi flying it. Granted, he is one of the top pilots in the world and could make a rock fly well, but I’ve also met him at various events and believe he would work hard within his limitations to deliver great flying plane. I felt it was worth the risk and took one home with me.
After a quick assembly, I brought it to the field to test fly. It flew GREAT right out of the box. Unlimited vertical, straight and true flying characteristics, lots of power, very little coupling, and great slow flight. It excelled in all areas for a small foam aerobatic airplane, and ‘felt’ larger then its actual size. If things held together, I made the right decision. If it didn’t, it flew so well it was worth the time to make it hold together.
While I can’t fly at the same level as Quique, I can say the video is an honest representation of the performance of that airplane. I can fly many of the same maneuvers, and have done so with the production version as delivered to the local hobby store. Unlimited vertical, knife edge spins, harriers, hovers, knife edge, walls, blenders, etc, all done very well by mine. With an 11×7 prop, it was screaming fast and would handle very hard maneuvers and stay together. With the stock 12×5.25 prop, it was a great all around sport/3D flyer, and with a 13×4 should perform graceful 3D maneuvers.
After a few flights, I started to notice a bad vibration. The power plant is turning much higher rpm’s than normal in order to deliver all that performance. Unfortunately, it appears they either tried to save a few cents in manufacturing their motor mount, was delivered sub-standard parts by their vendor, or just under designed it. My motor mount broke in two places, and there were two other cracks developing in other areas. It was just a flight or two away from the motor separating from the airplane while in flight. E-flite has offered new motor mounts to all buyers for the asking, and I have one on the way to me now.
There are also some reports of elevator servos failing, and some control horns that were not properly secured during manufacturing. I haven’t had either of those issues, but did check my all my control horns and reglued any that I felt were suspect. I’m also going to swap out the elevator servo with a metal geared and ball bearing supported servos. In fact, I may just do all the servos just to also add more power, full ball bearing support, increased speed.
Once those modifications are done, its an airplane that I’m sure will fulfill my original goals and deliver exceptional performance for the type of airplane it is. On those day I really don’t want to drag out the big airplanes to fly, this will be a perfect compromise without limiting my flight performance.
I love that it flies so perfectly for what I was after. I hate that I have to modify it right out of the box before its really flight worthy. But, I’ve order 4 more batteries for it, and a second PnP version as backup 
Its that good once modified to resolve the flaws!
