Geronimo F5J 2.5m

This is an excellent thermalling glider. It penetrates well for a light machine and can fly tight circles to work small patches of light lift. With strong thermals around, it needs to be flown faster to avoid pitch upsets and stalls - this is something I am learning! It is, however, quite fragile and the surfaces are easily damaged if you are not careful. You need to be particularly careful of landing with flaps down! I had to move the servos from the pod to under the wing to achieve the required CG, even with the a very light flight pack - the tail is very light.

Lovely model. Really nice quality & a lovely gentle flyer.

A very good glider. Like a big DLG. Optimal size, light, full house and cheap. One of the best you can choose.

I bought a Geronimo EGlider a few weeks ago now. My intention was to use it as a lightweight floater for calm weather sloping/thermalling at Burton Dassett Country Park. It is a larger version of the Saphire, which I have built as an E-Glider and have been very pleased with.

I would like to give the model 5 stars, and if my review was on performance alone it would get 5 stars in a heartbeat. Probably the best way to summarise my experiences are to write a set of 'good points and 'not so good points', so here goes:

Good Points
Fabulously lightweight, and aerodynamic airframe
Converts to a pure glider easily with little noseweight required
Flies beautifully
Stays airborne in the slightest hint of lift when just about all other models give up.

Not so good points
Incomplete parts packs. A bag of 2mm threaded rods was completely empty and the clevices for the wing linkages was one short.
Scant instructions, so definitely not for the novice builder.
The control horns for the flaps were way too short making it difficult to make the linkages slop free.

The model is perfect as a light wind glider for the slopes, but it isn't strong enough to take a bungee launch, so don't try!

I have taken a series of constructional photographs of varying quality and posted them with a share by share alike licence on Wikimedia Commons under the category Geronimo Glider/EGlider.

Overall, this is a truly fab model, and I am considering buying another to use as an EGlider.

I ordered a Geronimo and associated parts just after Christmas. The box arrived in Australia in perfect condition a week later and after another week of building and tinkering I've successfully flown it today. As the instructions say, with the CG in the specified position the Geronimo flies first try without problems. Flying conditions weren't that great so not much to report on performance other than that it seems to float as well as I'd hoped.

The build is not difficult but is a bit tricky in places, and the instructions are a little sparse. The photos on the web help. The supplied parts don't quite match the instructions eg the supplied 2 mm aluminium rods for aileron and flap pushrods don't have threads and I don't have tools to make threads. I ended up using the left over 2 mm carbon rod instead with short wire ends to the servo horns. My all up weight is 810 g including 40 g nose weight to get the CG correct (I think I chose an overly-light motor and it lacks power, but that's my fault!).

Overall a very satisfying experience - quick delivery, excellent quality model.

Good!

Good!

The plane looks well made, especially nice wings. I have not started building it yet but there should be no problems. It arrived in a very nice stout outer box which protected the contents very well. The delivery took less than a week, which is outstanding.

I have had the Geronimo for a month or so. I bought it after being very impressed with my Sapphire. The Geronimo is the same style and manufacture in a larger size. Same high quality, beautiful fuselage molding, nice light boom, and flying surfaces are vac bagged glass skins on fine grain white foam. Not molded quality, the LE and spar skin reinforcements can be felt, but not molded model price either. Very light.

My initial plan was to extend the model to over 3m. I built an extra centre wing panel and larger tail surfaces, as well as moving the tail surfaces as far aft on the boom as possible, with a slightly larger motor this brought the weight up from 860g to 1.2kg. I flew the model this way several times, trying different tail combinations with the new and kit surfaces, but was not really happy. So I reassembled it with the original kit wing and tail panels and flew it again. I was so impressed that the model will now remain in this configuration. I have now put in a smaller motor and weight is down to the advertised number.

Very impressive model. It flies almost as well as my larger molded Kappa 35, at half the price.