TBS Mojito (PNP Set) - FPV Flying Wing

TBS is back baby, and they've announced their return with a hell of a plane. Behold the frickin' Mojito.

This plane is as they have said "A weapon". This is an advanced build for advanced users who want it all and aren't afraid of getting their hands dirty building, tweaking, and reinforcing it. It can go ridiculously fast with the hardware included; so fast it may, in a stock build, lose control authority and turn into a crater sometimes.

The problem from what I can gather is the design is incredibly efficient and slippery, and can reach some pretty insane speeds. Unfortunately the massive knife-thin wings are not stable enough to sustain these speeds without flutter or wing twist. They sure cut through the air like its nothing through.

To reduce this issue, TBS has included reinforcement spars and there are good instructions on where to reinforce. A lot of people also recommend lamination to strengthen up the wings. Last but not least, many are recommending to cut off the ailerons and tape them back in to loosen them up a bit, increase deflection a little, and put less stress on the servos. It seems attempts by hobbyists to stiffen this wing up enough to really push the performance envelope are still ongoing.

Speaking of servos, I haven't been able to determine if the included servos have metal gears or not. I doubt they do; as at least one of my servos needed replacement after becoming stripped. If we're talking about building this wing out to go 200-250+ KMH, the servos have to be able to handle some serious force on the ailerons, and plastic gear servos are likely not going to be able to handle that. The servo arms included are also plastic, and I do not trust them. Replacing at least the 2 aileron servos with stronger metal geared servos and carbon servo arms is necessary imo.

The kit included is damn good as far as the motor and esc goes. The AOS Supernova 3220 1000kv is a hell of a motor, maybe one of the best mass produced motors available. The included TBS AM32 12s ESC is a great piece of kit on its own. Plenty to power it. Heck I started using TBS 12s ESC's in all my builds. They are rock solid and the mosfets are the perfect size for individual 10x10 heat sinks.

The included wing PDB has it's problems and I think there are a couple revisions of it out there. Each revision has caveats of it's own, but they can be made to work.

The included FC is a lucid F4 and is enough for most people, however if you're like me and want to go all out on uart controlled devices you might be better off with something H7 based as they can generally support more uarts. The included GPS is good enough; does the trick and all but a magnetometer would have been great to have in case of GPS interference. The included prop appeared to be a good composite APC prop, at 8x4, and does the job. That said the kit is underpropped and there is some headroom to play with here.

All in all, if I had to do it again, i'd skip the PNP version and go straight to DIY. I'd then pick up the same motor and esc separately and buy all the rest of the parts from scratch. The fact that I had to pry apart the wings that were previously glued in order to reinforce them, and also to access the electronics compartments in the wings and run wires means that I had to do half the DIY work anyway. That said my personal choices of hardware rarely line up with the PNP kit and the included stuff still works. It can still fly without wing reinforcement or speed mods. You just need to be careful with it and go easy on the throttle. If you lose control authority during a dive, or one of the servos strips, there's nothing you can do to keep this from turning into a crater.

Even with ALL OF THE ABOVE, I still give this 4 stars. It's a great design for advanced hobbyists and people that want a platform to really tweak. The thing when built out properly is incredibly efficient and can be made to go extremely fast. The gents at TBS have been very thoughtful here and have included an integrated carbon fiber catapult hook, which is great for people like me that are huge cowards when it comes to props. The LED slots in the wing and tail leading edges are *chefs kiss*. The spoilers are a fantastic innovation and actually useful due to the fact that this design gains a lot of speed when losing altitude. The battery bay is massive and electronics bay big enough for most anything. The removable wings are great I just wish they came fully unassembled so we can customize and reinforce them a little easier.

It's a pleasure to fly but also a pleasure to work on. All in all, I'm finding a lot of pleasure just tweaking and reinforcing it. I think I might even fill, sand, gloss, and wax it to make it even more slippery.

I am also seriously looking forward to trying this plane's little brother; the Chupito!