My RC flying had been electrics for the last few years. Up until a few months ago my favorite thing to fly was a little 20 inch electric wing from EdgeRC called a Pocket-250. The little thing could do about 60 mph when it was flying at it’s peak.
About 99% of our club flys glow and one guy flys almost all SPAD’s. After seeing his builds and how cool they where, I had to have one. I first built a Buhor 25 from plans I got at spadtothebone this past spring. It is a great trainer and I currently use it as my glow AP platform.
With one SPAD built and flying I had to have another. While searching ebay for engines and parts I happened to do a search for SPAD’s and up popped “The Shark”. A 3 pound coroplast (SPAD) flying wing! Now we are talking! I had just bid on a os max .25 engine and it would work great on the shark!
The shark is sold as an ARF. As I mentioned it weighs in at about 3 pounds. I purchased the 36 inch wingspan version. There is also a 40 inch version. The wing is constructed from 2mm coroplast with 4mm winglets and fins. The center fuselage is made from 2.5 x 2.5 inch plastic downspout. The shark comes with engine mount, fuel tank, firewall with blind nuts and control rods. It comes in a variety of colors, white, yellow, blue, red and grey.
The instructions that came with the Shark amount to one page of text and one page of pictures. Putting together my shark took me about 2 hours (I am rather slow, I think it could be done faster). The text is very straight forward and the photos where a help. I have to say that installing everything was super easy! The CG was spot on with the installed radio gear. The instructions call for 2 – 2 3/8 from the LE. I was at just about 2 1/8th. The wing is balanced inverted with no fuel.
When I installed my elevon control rods I used a straight edge on the bottom of the wing and set my elevons to be level with the bottom. This gave me a slight amount of up elevon. I was ready to try my Shark out.
The big day came and I took my gear and headed to the field. One of the guys was there (the spad guy) to witness my flight. After some engine adjustments I was ready to give her a toss. You hold the Shark by the top of the fuselage and give her full throttle. As recommended you must gave her an underhanded toss out and up. I walked over to the edge of some very tall grass, throttled up and gave her my best toss. The shark dipped ever so slightly and then just climbed like a rocket! Had to give her a few clicks of down and she was flying like an arrow!
Wow is this wing fun! Throws should be set to about ½”. Mine are set a bit larger so she is pretty sensitive. But man is the Shark a blast!
Landings can be pretty hot. She glides fairly well though and I landed her without much trouble. One thing about landing the Shark, there are no landing gears so you must not land under power. Also, set the prop so it goes horizontal when the engine shuts off. Keeps you from breaking them. Mine was a bit off and on my second landing I did break a prop. But that was my own fault and it has not happened since.
I bought a white wing, it gave me a nice blank canvas to put stickers all over, but it also made it dang near invisible at times! Keep in mind that a flying wing has a thin profile and it can be hard to see at times. I need to add some more color to mine! The stripes help but I need a bit more.
To sum up, fantastic! The Shark is well built, tough and flys like it is on rails! Great plane and well worth the money!
The Shark can be found on ebay by searching “Spad Shark”. At the time of this review the 36” is $45 plus shipping and the 40” is $49 plus shipping.
Next thing to do with my Shark, put a 40 or 46 on it! Wow!
I am in no way affiliated with or work for Roger Gagnon. This is an independent review done by me. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.
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