UMX Radian Glider BNF Review

Radian RC Glider

Spektrum DX6i Transmitter

Extra Batteries

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UMX Radian with Mobius Camera

Hello everyone, my name is Erik and today I’ll be reviewing the amazing UMX Radian by E-flite. I’ll be going over tips on flying the Radian, what I liked and didn’t like about it, and showing you how incredibly easy flying this thing is!  I always appreciate those thumbs up and make sure to subscribe to keep up with my reviews!

This is a “Bind and Fly” plane so all you’ll need is a compatible receiver. I recommend the DX6i transmitter; it’s a great mid-range transmitter that works perfectly on all the planes I fly.  The Spektrum transmitters are popular and there’s a lot of help online for these.  Binding it to the Radian was easy and at the end of the video I will show you how.   I tried flying with a less expensive transmitter and noticed it cutting out and not responding randomly causing the plane to almost crash.  You have 3 channels for rudder, elevator, and throttle. The cockpit has an air intake vent to keep your electronics nice and cool. The wing has a pre-installed carbon fiber rod. I’ve pulled loops at full speed and really put the Radian through a lot of stress, included a hard nose dive and it held up really well.

One very important thing to pay attention to is the battery life of your transmitter and plane. I’ve had two incidences where I almost crashed because of low batteries. I lost reception once and my Radian took a nosedive and somehow pulled up at the last moment right before hitting the ground. It then stalled out and crashed from about 10 feet and was fine. Now, I always recharge my transmitter batteries after every few flights. I only trust rechargeable batteries because I can keep them fully charged. I’ve been using and love Eneloop Rechargeable Batteries (Get them here)

The Radian has everything built into it; the servos, motor, and receiver are all pre-installed. The only thing you need to do is slide the wing in, add a couple of screws, charge the battery, bind your transmitter and you’re all ready to fly.

I love the Radian for a lot of reasons. I don’t have a lot of room to fly a larger glider and the small size allows you to fly in smaller parks. The larger Radian by Parkzone has an almost 7-foot wingspan, this UMX Radian only has a 2-foot wingspan. This makes is much easier to toss in the back of the car and drive to your favorite flying spot and it won’t take up a lot of space inside your home.

Here’s a tip on storing your Radian.  I simply attached some yarn to a nail and hang it by the tail. This keeps things from falling over on the long delicate wings. It also keeps my cat from chewing on the Styrofoam.

I like how batteries are small and affordable. Extra batteries only cost around 6 bucks and you can easily fit 5 batteries in your pocket. Flight times are an amazing 8 to 10 minutes, that’s incredible because it only uses 150mAh batteries. You can stay up even longer if you catch an updraft and get it trimmed perfectly.  There’s a 4 pack of Lectron batteries that I bought and they work well. They claim to have 180mAh compared to the 150mAh battery that came with the plane but I don’t notice much of a difference.

Make sure you’re very gentle with the controls and the Radian will fly nice and smooth, and you’ll glide for longer amounts of time when you’re not jerking the controls around.

It has the folding propeller blades that you usually only see on larger more expensive planes. This makes for a much more aerodynamic frame allowing you to glide longer.  I was a little worried about how the Radian would climb with such a small battery but was very impressed with the ability to quickly climb and recover from stalls.

One very important thing to pay attention to is the battery life of your transmitter and plane.

I prefer rechargeable batteries in my transmitter because I can easily recharge them after every few flights. You’ll know when your plane is running low when the motor cuts in and out if you’re up high this isn’t a problem but if you’re flying low and slow it can cause an unexpected nose dive into the ground. My advice is to time your flight, and after 5 minutes keep enough altitude to recovery from a stall.

The Radian does come with AS3X which helps stabilize and smooth out your flight. Smaller planes get tossed around in the wind and the AS3X will make it feel like a larger more stable glider.

While it does make the Radian fun to fly I still wouldn’t recommend flying it in winds over a few mph. I tried flying on a windy day and it was almost impossible to fly and that doesn’t really surprise me because it only weighs 1.4 ounces with the battery.

The motor isn’t brushless and that’s fine because it still has plenty of power.

The handling is outstanding, even flying slow on the edge of a stall it refuses to roll over.  Stalls are pretty gentle and adding power will quickly get the nose up and put you in a climb.

While the Radian is easy to fly, it’s pretty fragile and I wouldn’t recommend this to someone who’s never flown an airplane before.  If you have even a little experience flying an RC airplane then you should have no problem flying it. What’s scared me and I’m sure a lot of new fliers will notice this too is how fast it’ll go when you nose dive.

I learned with the HotWheels StreetHawk, which I reviewed previously. It’s a very durable 2 channel flying car/plane that is great practice for 3 and 4 channel planes.  Simulators work for some people, but I’ve never really liked them.

I prefer the gentle slow flight of the Radian over faster sportier planes. If I had to choose just one plane, I would definitely pick the Radian. For the price and performance, you won’t find a better plane.