Jazz Extreme Review

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Jazz Extreme Review

The Jazz Extreme flying wing is made by Canterbury Sailplanes in New Zealand and believe me this is one wickedly fast and agile flying wing. It is aimed at the intermediate to advanced flyer who is looking for something to really rip around the slopes with and to do the Dynamic Soaring stuff that everyone talks about these days.

I ordered the kit online from Canterbury Sailplanes web site and sure enough it was delivered within 48 hours in perfect condition. The kit has everything you need to build the Jazz including strapping tape, coloured tape and 3-77 spray on adhesive (the 3-77 is not available for overseas customers). The foam cores are a work of art with perfectly matching root chords and some subtle reflex in the trailing edges. The instructions that arrived in the box however were quite out of date and had hand written notes on them. The latest instructions can be downloaded from the Web Site which I did. Not a big thing but it wouldn't take much to ship the model with latest instructions.

I started building the kit by joining the foam cores with the supplied adhesive and then inserted the fiber glass spars in the precut wing slots in the top and the bottom of the wing. The ends of the rods at the wing center fit into a alloy joiner tube. This construction method makes for an extremely rigid wing which shows when flying the model. The elevons supplied with the kit are a good grade balsa and are a trailing edge shape which is better than some of the 'square' elevons found on other kits. I covered the elevons with standard white Oracover which produces a nice finish.

Fitting the radio gear was next. I used standard Futaba 3003 servos with a Futaba Micro 6 channel receiver. For the battery I wired up a 400MaH nicad made from four half size AA cells.

While the radio gear fitted reasonably easily I made sure that I did not cut completely through the wing for the receiver or the battery. I always feel that even leaving a small amount of foam makes for a stronger structure in the long term. I could have used a slightly bigger battery also but again the more foam you leave in place around the nose the better ...you don't want to end up with that beaten 'pugilist' look !

Next came the strapping and the coloured tape. The instructions had good clear diagrams for getting the tape on correctly and once in place the whole wing was extremely rigid.

I fitted the elevons using coloured tape sprayed with 3-77 to ensure a good strong hinge. After that it was just a matter of fitting the control horns, pushrods, wing tiplets and then dialing in the correct throws on the computer radio ...yep computer radios are great !!

In summary the kit was extremely well put together and had all the hardware required to complete the wing. Total building time was probably around 8-9 hours but this could be reduced if you really just wanna get out there and fly !!

I have so far only flown the Jazz once and in relatively light conditions but it was immediately apparent that this is one very fast wing. Even with the light conditions I was able to generate considerable speed across the slope and quickly felt confident flying very close to the ground. I was surprised by how much penetration it had for a foam wing and once trimmed out how stable it is.

Full aileron with no elevator results in a quick spiral dive and with some elevator pulled a very tight roll results. I did not have any differential dialed in and probably will not do so as the turns seem quite well co-ordinated.

The trick I found was to ensure that you fly within the envelope as too much aileron at lower speeds result in stalls.... this is definitely not a floater !! The wing section is a Joe Wurts design and is very thin which I guess is one of the reasons it is so quick and retains energy in the turns and loops so well.

There is another good review of the Jazz Extreme on the Canterbury Sailplanes site but so far the Jazz has been great fun .... can't wait to try some DS'ing !!

Flying Update 4/11/2001

With lots of hours in the air now the Jazz Extreme is proving a very good wing. It is fast and agile as long as it is flowen correctly. Although not a DS'ing expert I have managed a few circuits and it is clear that for a wing it retains it energy well on the back side of the hill and with the thin airfoil speeds up quickly ... in expert hands this would be a very good DS'ing wing ....in summary this wing is as good as any of the other big name wings !!