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Dream-Flight Ahi 1.2m

Product Code: DF-AHI
 (29 reviews)

Price: $162.42

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Description

Inspired by years of “in your face” flying with the Dream-Flight Weasel and Alula gliders, the Dream Flight Ahi takes your slope expression to the next level of performance. The Ahi reinvents freestyle aerobatics with a totally fresh design. Pump it, roll it, spin it, snap it, tumble it, embrace the potential. The canvas has never been bigger - let your creative paint fly!

The Dream Flight Ahi's purposeful layout and shape make for a fully capable aerobatic sloper with a groovy pattern-like feel and precision, allowing you to efficiently connect manoeuvres in less lift. Carefully proportioned and balanced control surfaces provide predictable, yet aggressive control authority.


Kit Features
  • "ARG" Almost Ready to Glide - Interlocking design uses rare earth magnets
  • Wide flight envelope for smooth and predictable gliding or highly inspired freestyle aerobatics
  • Precision-molded EPO foam and composite parts ensure a lightweight and durable airframe
  • All pushrods and clevises, for connecting the servos to the control surfaces are included
  • Highly efficient and nimble DreamFlight design makes the most out of light wind conditions
  • Carbon fibre canopy is held magnetically for easy access to radio compartment
  • Ballast compartment - quickly adapt to varying wind conditions
  • Laser-cut plywood servo tray and battery hold-down
  • Integrated landing skid for those rougher touch downs
  • Designed to inspire!


Items Required for Completion:
Transmitter with programmable flaperon mixing and adjustable dual rates/EPA
Micro receiver (we use the Futaba R2106GF)
4 durable micro servos
Receiver battery: 4.8V 650mAh 2/3AA NiMH
Small tools, Blenderm tape or adhesive
Steel Balance/Ballast Weights

There is no need to buy Dreamflight control horns or accessories. All control horns, pushrods, etc are included in the very complete kit. The foam is all white so if some contrasting colour is required please puchase some of the coloured tape we sell.

Lots more info on the RCGroups Ahi thread. Also checkout the videos in this RCGroups Ahi Videos thread. Thanks to Pierre Rondel for use of his great photos and video. This post about glue is very informative.

Dream-Flight Ahi Specifications
Wing span 1.2 m 47 in
Wing area 20.5 dm2 318 sq in
Length 81 cm 32.0 in
Flying weight from 342 g 12.1 oz
Wing loading 16.7 g/dm 5.5 oz/sq ft
Aspect ratio 7.0
Wing airfoil Proprietary
Dihedral angle
Centre of Gravity 6-10 mm in front of carbon wing spar
Controls Rudder, elevator, ailerons


Dream-Flight Ahi Typical Weights
Total structure 230 g 8.1 oz
Receiver 8 g 0.3 oz
Tail servos (2) 22 g 0.8 oz
Wing servos (2) 22 g 0.8 oz
Battery 60 g 2.1 oz
Noseweight 20 g 0.7 oz
Flying weight 342 g 12.1 oz


Recommended R/C
All servos (4) Dream-Flight 12.4g, Blue Bird BMS-125WV, Blue Bird BMS-126WV, Blue Bird BMS-127WV, MKS DS6100, MKS HV6100, MKS DS75K, Ripmax SD150, KST X08
Receiver (max size 60x25x15 mm) 4+ channel rx to suit your transmitter, eg Spektrum AR6610T, AR6100e, Futaba R2106GF, FrSky X4R, Orange DSM2 compatible, Jeti Duplex R5, Multiplex Mlink RX-6-DR Light
Battery (max size 66x40x15 mm) HyperFlight 700 mAh 4.8V NiMH, Dream-Flight 700 mAh 4.8V NiMH, Radient LiPo 2S 600mAh 7.4V, Overlander 2S 1000mAh LiPo,

Note the model is designed around the Dream-Flight 12.4 g Digital Metal Gear servo and this is recommended as it will fit without any modification to the foam structure. However other servos can be fitted easily by the more experienced modeller. If fitting a LiPo battery make sure the servos can operate at this voltage - the Dream Flight servos can't.


See below a great write-up and video by Steve "Surfimp" Lange

HOLY ####

My first impressions of the Ahi are really positive. Had it out to Ellwood after work and was fortunate to get some decent-to-good lift (didn't measure but I estimate 9-12mph steady), and just slightly off-center. Typical afternoon conditions, the compression built up in the bowls nicely and really let me put the plane through its paces.

I carefully followed the instructions while building and think they'll give an outstanding result to anyone. Using the recommended 12g servos and battery from Dream-Flight, the plane needed zero noseweight to balance at a reasonable place (nice eh?). I am experimenting with the CG and am definitely liking it more and more the further I push it back, I'm currently about 4-5mm in front of the main spar and it feels pretty good there. Recommend that you just follow the directions as far as CG goes, start with something a little more forward and work your way back if you feel like it. The instructions have great info on dialing in your CG.

Performance was excellent, despite the small size and light weight it had absolutely no trouble penetrating, carried excellent speed, had a very fast and axial roll, excellent rudder and elevator authority, and overall was just a joy to fly. It felt very familiar - very much in the same vein as all the best slope aerobats I've flown in the past 15+ years - but at the same time had its own unique personality.

It presents like a much bigger plane, more like a 1.5m plane than the little 1.2m it actually is. Balanced at the neutral point recommended in the instructions, it will require very little forward stick while inverted, and will fly as precisely as any of the composite/molded dedicated slope aerobats I've flown over the years (i.e. Voltij, Wasabi, etc.), assuming the pilot so desires and is capable. It will also allow you to do the type of shenanigans seen in my Le Fish ultrabatics videos.

The semi-symmetrical airfoil is slightly noticeable (meaning: the inverted performance is just a hair different than the upright), but make no mistake: this is a full-on, 100% capable aerobatics glider. You can do multiple outside loops with no problem, and chain continuous upright & inverted figures together easily. One cool thing about the airfoil is that it makes the inverted spin and snaprolls REALLY GOOD. You can do an inverted/negative-G snaproll in the blink of an eye, it's extremely axial, and recovers as soon as you release the sticks. Looks wild as heck but is easy to pull off and if you flub it, the light weight will almost certainly help you to recover and get going again well before you crash.

Knife edge performance is very good, comparable to a Le Fish, Wasabi or Voltij. To get a long knife edge pass, pick up speed, roll on your side and then feed in as little rudder as possible, just enough to keep the nose at or slightly above the horizon. You should be able to do a nice (for a slope glider, heh) knife pass for a reasonable distance. You can also use the rudder to hang the plane on its side, into the wind, and do the whole "slide down the firepole" thing . In short, side area and rudder effectiveness are very good, completely appropriate for this style of flying.

The plane definitely likes to have a bit of rudder coordination in its turns. You don't have to do this, but it helps clean it up. Not hard at all, in fact, the feedback you get is so immediate and obvious that I think this will be an excellent plane to learn how to use rudder with. Don't be put off by this - learning to coordinate your turns is step 1 to learning how to use the rudder to do all sorts of awesome aerobatics. That's why you want an aerobatics plane, right?

It's very lightweight, so most "oops" type situations can be corrected just by neutralizing the sticks for a moment. This will quickly bring the plane out of whatever weird attitude you've managed to get it in, and give you (hopefully) ample opportunity to recover. The plane is light enough and tough enough that the few pancake landings / crashes I've had, have resulted in zero damage. It's EPO, so it's not indestructible by any means, but it's in that sweet spot of being fast but not so heavy that it can hurt itself too easily. Obviously, you mileage will vary, but I am a very "throw caution to the wind" kind of pilot and go for all kinds of low passes and am not afraid to crash. The plane seems to be handling that very well so far.

Summary
This is the plane I've been dreaming of having on the market for years; it's the plane that the slope aerobatics niche has needed for 10+ years.

The Ahi flies great, does (almost) every trick in the book, is forgiving, and super easy to assemble. It looks cool, can go fast, can go slow, can be flown precise or wild. It's approachable for a pilot who has never flown an aerobatics glider before, and will satisfy even the most expert pilot with its performance. It's easily replaceable if it gets S.L.O.P.E.-ed, and will be readily available (unlike some of the more esoteric designs out there that are often homebrew only).

If you are even remotely interested in slope aerobatics, or just looking for a tremendously capable and fun sloper, the Ahi is your jam. Get one.








Reviews 29  


 Review by:

Superb

Ahi is everything you need on the slope in one conveniently sized package.
Flies in the slightest breeze yet speeds up in an instant to make headway. Now I only need to take one plane to the hills.


 Review by:

Excellent as always

Purchased my Ahi from HyperFlight last week along with servos and battery as per Neil’s recommendation. Firstly the Ahi is so easy to put together it’s ready to fly in no time and the quality is great, no issues whatsoever excellent. I spend most of my time putting vinyl on it to brighten it up.

The Bluebird BMS-126WV servos that Neil recommended are excellent and fit in the plane a treat, centre well and powerful and a sane price. I’m sure I’ll have many flights with this and bags of fun.

HyperFlight has always been first class service, lots of really helpful advice and tips plus a really nice bloke. Cheers Neil excellent service as always 👍


 Review by:

Excellent plane and outstanding service!


 Review by:

Fastest delivery Ever!

Used HF now 3 or 4 times! They are always super fast dispatching (maybe an hour?) & delivery (maybe 2 days and thats to NI) and product was perfect. Not assembled yet! 10 Stars!


 Review by:

Excellent

Excellent product, excellent service and delivered within a few days.
Keep up the good work


 Review by:

Wow!

What a fantastic model. Flies superb with amazing agility. Great fun :)


 Review by:

Great Service and amazing glider

I waited for ages to get the email notification that the Ahi was back in stock - and ordered immediately with the Hyperflight servo, battery and lead pack.

As ever - the parcel arrived in good time - but I was surprised to find that the box had not been wrapped and simply had the courier label stuck to the side. I found this odd - as it advertises to the world what it is.

Assembly was trouble free. The servo openings in the wings and fuselage tray need a bit of fettling. Control runs on the elevator and rudder were nice a free. I found an issue with the rudder and fin moulding - there is misalignment with the fuselage. So if I straighten the rudder at the tail end - it is out of line with the fuselage. Just looks odd, but you don't notice it in flight.

Just two sessions so far and I love the outrageous performance and still on a learning curve.

Would have been five stars but for the packaging and rudder issues.


 Review by:

Dream flight Ahi

Great little plane goes together in an evening and flys like a dream


 Review by:

Le Fish

This looks like the Le Fish design, also the Floonda which can be printed. Nice handling


 Review by:

Ab

As expected this glider is excellent .
As Mentioned in other reviews a few product adjustments needed but no problems .


 Review by:

Did not ship in original box but nice kit.


 Review by:

Sticky snakes

Currently stalled on the build while I figure out a way to overcome the stiction in the snakes, particularly the elevator snake which is very stiff. It seems the problem is at the tail end near the exit. Otherwise the fit and finish is very good.


 Review by:

Ahi review

Pretty glider, lovely kit quality. I put carbon rods along the leading edges to preserve the shape agains the rough and tumble of landing in undergrowth. Otherwise stock. Balance spot on. Easy to build, nice detailing and flies very well. Have yet to explore the envolope.


 Review by:

Delightful Ahi

All went together in a straightforward manner using the supplied Dreamflight servos and battery pack. Only minor niggle was cleaning up the embedded elevator snake outer which had a small kink near its exit that introduced a little too much friction for comfort. After that it was plain sailing with the CG spot-on without additional weight.

Maiden flight was routine, needing only a couple of elevator clicks to achieve 'hands-off' balance in around 10mph breeze. A quick workout and boy is this model agile! A true delight to bring a huge smile to your face!

A little experimentation with the CG eventually returned me to the initial neutral setting as giving the best overall behaviour. Watch out for the elevator compensation if you decide to droop the ailerons in landing phase - the elevator needs 'up' dialling in, rather than the more usual 'down' associated with thermal gliders.

Also had the chance to try it out on small coastal cliffs/dunes, where it similarly offers great flying. Now to start practising those tricky right-up-close-in-your-face manouvres!

Overall, the Ahi is an absolute delight with the usual excellent service and delivery from Neil at Hyperflight.


 Review by:

Ahi

Assembly was straightforward, I used £2.49 Lidl pack of 4 AAA's, which fit, but not as well as the recommended battery, so I had to use a bit of glue to keep it in place. It came adrift inverted, fell out and took the canopy with it!

Flying looks promising so far - picks up the slightest bits of lift on the slope like a DLG would, but also happy in breeze - feels stable sitting up there, but very lively when you want it to be. I've now found that spoilerons really help with landings - it has a slippery shape and I've needed to slow it down to land on a couple of sites - it's not really a rough and tumble model!

I'm going to fit a better Rx - was using the basic 'Lemon' with a simple dipole aerial, yesterday we had a brief radio outage in flight, I wonder whether it was because the carbon canopy is right over the dipole. Will now use the 'Lemon' diversity Rx, 2 antennae which can be positioned away from the canopy.


 Review by:

Ahi

I'm returning to the slope for the Winter after a very long (nearly 40 years!) gap and was recommended the Ahi as a good way to get back to soaring. I ordered the plane on a Saturday while I was away from home and it was there to greet me the following Tuesday - so very quick service from Hyperflight. Assembly was very quick and easy and I'm just waiting for the opportunity to go out and fly it! The videos make me sure I have bought a good plane so I'll report back once I've flown.


 Review by:

Quality Model

I have yet to fly my Ahi as I am still setting it up. I am a slow precise builder/assembler and have just completed increasing the depth of the wing servo cut-outs to suit the servos I decided to use, adjusting the length of the servo leads, and enlarging the cut-outs in the servo tray.
I will be adding a small carbon rod to the leading edges and also to the tail skid.
I am impressed with the quality of the finish and design. It all fits together very well. I am looking forward to taking the Ahi to the slope where I am sure it will perform perfectly.


 Review by:

Another dreamflight hit

I've loved the Alula and Weasel so had no fear in buying the Ahi. Still wonderfully simple to assemble. Maiden in lighter than ideal winds but still superb fun. It has an amazingly docile stall, floats on a whisper, and has great axial control. Really looking forward to experimenting with more aerial slope flying with this.


 Review by:

Another dreamflight hit

I've loved the Alula and Weasel so had no fear in buying the Ahi. Still wonderfully simple to assemble. Maiden in lighter than ideal winds but still superb fun. It has an amazingly docile stall, floats on a whisper, and has great axial control. Really looking forward to experimenting with more aerial slope flying with this.


 Review by:

OMG

Wow what an unbelievable model this Ahi is, I used to fly for team GB in the world jet masters and came 2nd in the 1999 world champs so I would like to think I Know a bit about models and this little slope glider from out the box and being fully ready to fly 2 hours and on the hill the following day blew me away, I chucked it with bated breath thinking it won’t be as good as people say.........OMG blown away with how ace it is.


 Review by:

Dream-Flight Ahi

Beautifully manufactured. Easy to put together. Great service from Neil.
Haven't thrown it off a cliff yet as I'm a bit rusty - am practicing on my Dream-Flight Libelle...


 Review by:

Goes together very quick with no hassle. First few flights proved a let down with a very sensitive elevator but after honing it cg wise and taming with expo its turned into a sweet flyer and very friendly acrobatic plane. The secret is to fly as near as you can to yourself hugging the slope as per the rc groups thread. I can see that is one that will go with me everywhere this year and am really looking forward to the sessions. Well worth the money


 Review by:

AHI resolution

There was a comment about the pushrods in their guide tubes binding slightly,this only happens where the tube bends inside the fuselage before exiting.I found a simple method to resolve,using a length of the thickest piano wire (std pushrods wire from model shop) that will push into the tube ,insert about 6-8 inches and leave overnight or longer,this straightens out the tube by straining against the foam and reduces the friction by about 80% +.
Hope this helps,brilliant versatile plane and so aerobatic on the slope.bought a second one.
Blue bird servos are good too,how they get the power and no backlash beats the rest also I now run on liposuction 2S , don’t use NIMH anymore.


 Review by:

Ahi First Impressions

First class service from Neil and a first class model, beautifully made and a "dream" to build. not had a chance to fly yet only test glided at our flat field and flew as straight as an arrow, can't wait to get it up on our local slopes or beach.


 Review by:

Ahi

Wished to practice more dareing aerobatic moves with a plane that if crashed would not be totalled. The Ahi is absolutely great for this. Is is great fun to fly and will complete moves that easily get out of trouble should you make a mistake. I have flown it in winds varying from 12 to 30. I prefer winds around 20 with lots of lift amd all this unballasted. A great fun plane


 Review by:

Fantastic acrobatic sloper

Fantastic sloper and more acrobatic than anything else I have flown. Flys in very light winds to 20mph without any issue. One star deducted because I bought two and on both the tail / elevator is not square to the wing. I think there is a slight issue with the manufacturing or hyperflight got a bad batch. I'm about to buy a third from T9hobbysport to see if I can get a straight one.


 Review by:

Ahi

Not 5 stars because: The tailplane is not parallel to the wings. The problem appears to be wings not joining the fuselage at 90deg. Managed to twist the fuselage and achieve a true alignment.
substituted the 5mm dia carbon wing joiner with a 5mm dia steel joiner, adding 36g ballast conveniently.
Great design, predictable flying characteristics and fun to fly after 40 years away from the slope!
Thank you.


 Review by:

I bought this as a first model to return to slope flying after a 25+ year lay-off and the maiden took place in 25mph winds! However, very impressed at how it coped un-ballasted and I look forward to flying it in lesser conditions. Also very impressed with the design and fit of the foam components.


 Review by:

Just get one fly's great, strong build, also the overlander 600mha batt from Neil gives way over 2hr flying time. Again great product and service from Hyperflight. would buy another. FLOWN IN 10MPH AND 25MPH no ballast does the book.


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