First ImpressionsIf there was ever a Guinness book of record

for unpacking parcels, I probably broke it thatmorning! Wow, the yellow scheme embellishedwith the black CF (carbon fibre) texture lookssimply superb and I can honestly say that thephotographs on the website did not do justiceto it. It looks a heck of a lot better in the flesh.

The first thing after unpacking the airframethat caught my eye was the canopy. It wassmooth and appeared to have no seams wherethe canopy met the upper deck of the fuselage.Upon removing the canopy, held in place by 4strong magnets, I was delighted to see that thecanopy was essentially moulded from a singlepiece of clear plastic and painted over toexactly match the yellow covering and hence-forth explain the smooth seamless look. Verynice indeed!

Peering into the fuselage revealed the bril-liant use of carbon fibre reinforcements, logi-cally placed in strategic locations to provide

added rigidity without sacrificing weight. It hadcarbon fibre rods embedded in the woodstringers running the entire length of the fuse-lage along with carbon fibre cross braces thatfelt very stiff when I attempted to twist it, andthat meant very precise handling in the air.

I was astonished to note the carbon fibretrays for the battery, rudder servo as well. To theside of the fuselage, there is a pair of wing tubesupports where the carbon fibre wing tube inter-sects the fuselage to provide a solid, flex freestructure again prompting precise handling. Thelaser cut balsa-ply structural panels were so welldesigned and I was pleased to note that thedesigners have taken the extra steps to minimizeexcess weight. I thought to myself that the atten-tion to detail in weight management was bril-liant on the designer’s part and I certainly appre-ciated the preinstalled Velcro strap on thereceiver tray which is especially tricky to installconsidering the confines of a built-up fuselage.The tray itself is adequately sized to accommo-date most compact sized receivers.

Leaving the fuselage aside, the wings wereput under scrutiny and I was impressed at whatI saw already attached to the wings. Theailerons are already preinstalled and a completedeparture from the run of the mill CA hingesthat most of us are familiar with. These aileronswere specially built into a tunnel without theneed to manually seal the hinge gaps, reminis-cent of a full scale aircraft. The pre-builtailerons had massive 3D throws, and travel onboth were silky smooth.

Moving on to the horizontal tail feathers, themassive elevator spots a single piece counterbalanced elevator with a carbon fibre stiffenerpre-installed at the joiner for added rigidity toresist the most aggressive vertical pull up with-

out roll coupling, which I usually dish out.Highly essential if precision flying is desired aswell as eliminating the unpredictable and alarm-ing roll over during an emergency pull up andthe impending smashing date with Miss Ground!

Next came the visual inspection of what’sbundled in the hardware package. It containedcarbon fibre horns, pre-installed Kevlar pull-pull cables, carbon fibre rudder servo horns,pushrods and a multitude of essential metal fas-teners of various sizes. What caught my atten-tion was the unusual looking plywood plate,that turned out at the end of the day, to be adeflection gauge. Wow! This is the first time Ihave ever seen a deflection gauge bundled witha model of this size.

The pre-painted fibreglass cowl colourmatched to the fuselage was indeed a work ofart. Test fitting the cowl to the fuselage revealedthat the black lateral stripe was in precise align-ment with the carbon fibre scheme black stripesrunning the length of the fuselage, somethingthat I have only seen on a top dollar all com-posite models.

The BuildConsidering that so much of the work has

already been done at the factory, the build hasbeen pretty much a walk in the park and with awell written and intuitive pictorial installationmanual; it should be a fairly easy task for mostaverage modellers with prior experience ofbuilding a few balsa ARFs. PA have certainly

gone the extra mile to take so much of the labo-rious building out of the Katana MD and thishas made it a fun and easy task.

The landing gear and horizontal and verticalsurfaces are simple to install. I have opted notto install the optional CF wheel pants until afterthe KMD has undergone its check ride.

The motor mount is quite an innovativedeparture from the average ARFs I have seenand built in the past. Built considerably stronger,it spots three carbon pins that will prevent anychances of the motor mount ripping out and apre-drilled carbon front plate securely mating ina tongue and grove fashion on all four sides ofthe frame. It will take a lot to ever rip a motorout of this baby. PA does not do anything with-out a reason, and if their motor mount is thisstrongly built, they must surely know somethingI didn’t at the time about the power of theirmotor. I will surely find out soon enough!

Next on the build agenda were the CF rods

for the ailerons which are pretty simple toinstall. I used a timesaving technique thatinvolves first, snipping about 5mm off the sup-plied heat shrink tube that will be used to tem-porarily hold the metal Z-bend and CF rod inplace. This allows easy alignment and adjust-ments to be made prior to tacking with CA.

Installation of the shiny, cool looking, PAThrust 30 power plant came next. The PAThrust 30 is simply a work of art befitting thePA Katana MD itself and reminded me of highquality custom made helicopter upgrade parts,(the kind that has that special ability to trans-form your cash into CF the moment you stepinto a hobby shop!). Gleaned from the PA web-site, the PA Thrust 30 is said to be a revolution-ary new motor specifically engineered incorpo-rating their RotorKool technology for excep-tional cooling and efficient running along withan ability to turn a prop one size larger thanmost motor in its class, and hence the plan tofly the PA Katana MD with an APC 13X6.5E forthe test flight.

The motor mount had all the mounting andventilation holes pre-drilled and mounting themotor was only a matter of securing 4 bolts.No messy drilling and thrust line adjustmentswhatsoever. With the supplied air scoopsinstalled, the PA Thrust 30 will be runningmuch cooler and last longer than most motorscurrently available.

The installation of the Rudder servo andKevlar Pull-Pull went without a hitch. A CFextended rudder horn was also included in thebox and gave more than adequate throws. Theinstallation of the electronics and the cowl fol-lowed and the PA Katana MD was ready for thefinal phase of the build, the radio setup.

Radio SetupHere is where I usually deviate

from the manual as a matter of pref-erence. The JR PCM9X was set fortriple rates, the first two being therecommended high-low conserva-tive rates but I deviated from therecommended +70% expo on thehigh rates and retained at 30% andthe third, my personal preference

(zero expo) on high rates linked on single threeposition flight mode switch for convenienceand “fumble-free”. The bundled deflectiongauge was a certainly a welcome sight andsince it was there, I decided to go with the rec-ommended throws but opted not to use theexpo recommended.

The Check RideSaturday arrived and the agonizing wait was

over for the check ride, with only a very gentlebreeze blowing, it was perfect flying weatherfor stationary torque rolls and hovers. It justdoes not get any better than this. Prior to theflight, as usual, I had all intentions to conduct astructured method in flight testing beginningwith a conservative rolling take off, level flightto trim and proceed with basic aerobaticmanoeuvres, the basic stuff you would read inmost reviews. With the sweet sound of theCastle Creations Phoenix 35 ESC arming, I did aquick customary routine pre-flight check. Theusual stuff; ailerons; check, rudder; check, ele-vator; check, German techno trance music blast-ing at full volume; ….NOT…yaadaa, yaadaa,yaadaa….! I noticed that the low rates appeareda bit too conservative for my liking, especiallyon the maiden flight where I may need the extraauthority to fight for control, juts in case thingsgets out of hand and proceeded to select Rate3. It was now time to advance the throttle.

The rolling takeoff was short and the PAKatana MD was quick to get into the air andwent straight into a set of beautiful slow high-alpha harrier rolls ‘round the field. I levelled herand pulled up vertical to check the power of thePA Thrust 30. Wow, the motor just purred qui-etly and climbed vertically without hesitation.The Thrust 30 with the 13X6.5E provides amplepower with a giant-scale like feel to it. A quickblender and immediately into an inverted eleva-tor and harrier and popping to a hover andtorque roll. The entire set of routine was flaw-less and smooth. I was completely amazed athow easy she handles and that reminded me ofthe “Easy-to-fly” giant-scale airplanes in the

Aerofly Pro Deluxe simulator I have grown soaccustomed to over the past year or so. The feelwas fantastic, agile, solid, responsive and yetfloaty, forgiving and stable. A rare brilliant com-bination of excellent aerodynamic attributes anda clear testament to the genius behind PA’sengineering design.

Resisting the dire urge to just breakout andhave fun, I continued on with the flight assess-ment. Next was the fast knife edge and she exe-cutes it perfectly. With only a little rudder input,the knife edge is perfectly straight with absolute-ly no coupling or tucks and finished off with aknife edge snap, popping up and back down asif on rails and continuing on the knife edgewithout any hint of snaps. Flying the uprightharrier was effortless and the PA Katana MD alsoexcels in this department being able to para-chute all the way down to a harrier spot landing.In fact the harrier landings were so good that Inever had the chance to execute a normal land-ing for the remaining 21 test flights done for thisreview. That maiden flight lasted 9 incredibleminutes, the time I initially set on my PCM 9Xtimer to be on the conservative side of things.

Since all six check flights on Saturday prettymuch covered the “serious by-the-book”manoeuvres I had listed in preparation for thisreview, I pretty much left entire Sunday to ven-ture onto the fun side of things and to see howfar the Katana MD could be pushed, or moreappropriately as it turned out, how far KatanaMD would push me instead. I was pushed pret-ty far and the PA Katana MD just keeps comingback for more. I have tried almost anything inthe book to uncover any hidden bad habits andto my wits end I could not find any, even after22 flights she is a well natured “Pussy Cat” of anairplane, just sweet, extremely friendly andaccommodating.

The manoeuvres go lower and lower prettyquick and in next to no time, she was alreadyperforming rudder scrapes, stationary harrierrolls in the wind, and rolling inches above thedeck and I finally met up with “Daddy Dumb-Thumbs” (or was it the ground reaching up to

grab my baby?) on the last flight. Due toexhaustion and fatigue setting in after 17intense sessions on a very hot day. I managedto clip the starboard wingtip on the ground andcartwheel, hitting the nose and the Katana land-ed poised on the gears. I was amazed after thestunt, to find no damage except a slight fractureon the outboard aileron rib (repairable) andimmediately took off and flew the rest of thedrill. This “Pussy Cat” sure has nine lives, stillhave eight to go as I chuckled silently at thethought of what just happened.

Flight Test Assessment RatingOverall Feel Assessment ratingConclusion

The PA Katana MD turned out to be a fan-tastic airplane, with all the great aerodynamicattributes others could only wish to attain. It’sprobably the only aircraft that I have flown sofar that I can honestly say that I got fully com-fortable with within seconds into the flight asopposed to most that require at least a coupleof sessions while others on the extreme caseshave actually taken as long as several weeks forme to fully acclimatize.

I have flown many similar airplanes in thepast and nothing so far comes even close to thePA Katana MD and true to the KMD’s slogan“Redefine Your Limits”, it certainly redefinedmine, to well beyond my wildest expectationsin just 22 short sessions. So, whatever yourgoals may be, whether it to be a budding inter-mediate level 3D pilot, an aspiring protÈgÈ, aprofessional free stylist or a giant scale IMACcontestant, I am truly convinced that the PAKatana MD will certainly be up to the challenge.

The PA Katana MD is simply light yearsahead of the rest of the pack and I am certain-ly excited to see what else is coming out of PA’s“Skunkworks” next.

Available from PrecisionAerobatics.com andfrom your local hobby shops.