Have a think for a moment if you will and try to name for me an almost ready to fly beginners slope or flat field glider.
No, not an electric powered one, or an EPP one (hardly ARTF anyway), or an aerobatic one or an expensive moulded one. A pure ARTF glider aimed at a very basic entry level flyer.
Difficult isn't it. There are one or two you could come up with if you are well briefed on the scene but models of this ilk are hardly prevalent are they?

Protech are a Belgium company with distributors all over the world and their offering into this market niché is the Protech Malibu. A simply constructed, pre covered, 2 channel rudder and elevator controlled, 1.7m span ARTF flat field or slope soaring glider.

Aimed at the most ab initio novice, the kit itself comprises of a pre covered fuselage, wing halves, tail fin, rudder (in chequered film), tailplane and elevators, canopy with frame, control linkages, accessory pack including tow hook, rubber bands, elevator and wing joiner, a decal set and excellent 16 page instruction booklet reproduced in English. German. French and Dutch. All well packaged in a nicely presented box adorned with colour pictures of the finished model and descriptions of the contents within.
The covering was a little slackened at first from storage but two minutes with a heat sealing iron had it nice and taught once again. The wing section is a curious, very highly cambered flat bottom affair with built in polyhedral of around 4º at the centre and a further 4º at the tip breaks. The centre panel has a constant 205mm chord and the tip panels taper along the leading and trailing edges down to a tip chord of 150mm. The tailplane and fin sections are completely flat plate and built up from 5mm balsawood. The fuselage features an open structured rear with 6mm square longerons and diagonal bracing. The front fuselage is simply sheet balsa constructed finishing in a moulded black canopy with a pre fitted canopy frame over the almost cavernous front radio bay. Various areas are reinforced with small section Plywood and the control runs are pre fitted with holes for the wing retaining dowels being already drilled.
The total specification of the model is as follows:

Retailing at around £59.95 and designed to take standard radio equipment, the Malibu is about as entry level as you can get. The traditionally built up construction and high quality Polyester heat shrink film covering are top drawer and use very high quality materials. The balsa is clearly carefully selected for its application and the model bears a smattering of quality control stickers on its various component pieces. With pre installed servo bearers, a comprehensive linkage pack and the highly detailed pictorial instruction booklet, there really is very little work required to get the Malibu airborne.
A smattering of specialist tools are required, not least the use of a soldering iron for completion of some of the linkages and epoxy resin and cyanoacrylate (super) glue for the build itself, but nothing more than these really to get the model ready to fly.

Start the clock...........
Wings first. These are epoxied together utilising the sturdy 6mm plywood wing joiner. 5 minute epoxy is advocated and really is all that is required. Hold them together and aligned whilst the glue dries and them put the stickers on. Wing finished! Oh no? Hang on! A spare bit of plywood in the box that does not appear anywhere in the instructions! It is covered in film on one side and can only really be an anti crush plate to protect the rear of the wings from the rubber band fixings. Remove a bit of film from the wing top and epoxy the plate over the centre join to finish the wing.

Fuselage and tail feathers now. Removing the small areas of film covering to expose the slots for the film and tailplane exposed more than just the slot. Sadly the instructions were lacking a little here too. No mention was made of the requirement to remove the film from the tailplane itself to ensure adhesion of the glue. Neither was removal of the film from the top of the fuselage for gluing of the fin strake. In my experience, omissions such as these are easily overlooked by novice builders and they could quite easily try to glue directly to the film. Nevertheless with this simple task done the tailplane slots nicely into place with a tab on the bottom of the fin centring through the fuselage top and stabiliser and holding everything quite square. With the wing dowels fitted and the wing mounted with a couple of bands, everything was squared up before the tail feathers were glued into place.

The elevators are simply joined with a pre bent wire and again all the required holes are drilled. Epoxy secures the joint and the elevators and rudder can now be fitted. The word 'Cyanoacrylate' must not translate too well as no mention is made of it in the English instructions for the fitment of the hinges. They are slotted 'wick' type Mylar hinges specifically designed for use with a cyanoacrylate glue, but you have to look at the French translation to actually find the word. Again an erratum in the instructions which could mislead the first time builder.

Pushrods are next and to be honest this next step could have been done by Protech at little extra cost instead of detracting from the extensive ARTF nature of the kit. This would simultaneously remove an area of work fraught with problems for many people.
You are required to solder the threaded adapters onto the ends of the wire pushrods before inserting them into the outers already within the fuselage. Now I'm not big on soldering myself, but I do have the tools and knowledge to do it.

The subsequent fitting of the clevices and the control horns onto the surfaces exposed the first slight clanger with the kit itself. The exit for the elevator pushrod was so close to the hinge line that the clevice had to be screwed all the way onto the adapter to provide the stipulated down elevator throw. It does fit, but only just and leaves scant room for adjustment of the linkage. You could try moving the control horn further back from the hinge line or using a shorter clevice, but with the exposed rudder pushrod being some 7 inches outside the fuselage, surely it wouldn't have hurt to move the elevator exit along a bay.
With the fitting of a small reinforcement plate and the tow hook through it, the fuselage too was now complete.

Radio installation is restricted to two standard sized servos and the mounting of a switch harness. With the front end of the pushrods made off in a 90 degree bend and the swinging keeper supplied, a standard NiCad and receiver can be placed quite easily in the nose. The moulded canopy and frame fit comprehensively onto the front of the model with two tiny screws. A bit fiddly on a cold windy hillside, but in practise you would probably never need to remove it again unless you wanted the gear out.
Set the CG at 70mm from the leading edge of the wing with a tiny bit of noseweight and adjust the control throws accordingly.

Stop the clock.............
Not counting brewing up time, a good advanced read of the instruction booklet or picking up the tray of pins I sent scattering around my workshop, it took me 2 hours and ten minutes total! Now that IS Almost Ready To Fly!
Hopefully, as you may have gathered, I am not a novice builder and the build did not really tax me at all. However, there really is no more to it than described above. Drill a few holes, mix about three lots of 5 minute epoxy and spray a little Cyano here and there and its done. Not exactly rocket science now is it?

The Malibu builds into quite a tidy model. Very lightweight, quite sturdy and a nice 'high vis' colour scheme. The proof of the pudding though would be found on the local slope a few days later.

The South Easterly wind was forecast to start off below 10mph and gradually increase to 20mph throughout the day. It did exactly that in the end. However, with it a wind chill which took the temperature to minus 9 degrees! Hence the woolly gloves in the pictures! Two or three of us headed up the local slope for a little cold weather fun and to try the Malibu in the thin Lancashire air. With a range check done she was held aloft and felt like she wanted to go.

The gentlest of pushes and she was off into the 9mph slope lift and climbing easily. Penetration was no problem and there was the odd thermal about too. Pitch response was just about perfect, and in trying to keep the review aimed at beginners I had refrained from utilising computerised exponential and the like.
Rudder response however was a little poor and there was hardly any more throw to be had before the rudder hit the elevator cut outs. I fear that I am spoiled by Ailerons!
The Malibu hooked a winter thermal and steadily rose in a nice flattening circle with ease. At around 200 feet above me I pushed the nose down to around 60 degrees and built up speed for a series of inside loops. She made it into double figures with judicious elevator usage over the top before positioning became a problem. A further climb out, again with ease and another push to try the roll. With full rudder either left or right there was just no way. This really is quite a stable little model. Perfect for the novice. With a little skill and a modicum of good luck you can get a passable stall turn from her but that really is about it!
Protech do not profess that the Malibu to be an aerobatic model. In fact, they say little about the flying of the model at all other than to be careful! Stick with it's knitting.
Slow thermally flight is what this one is all about. The Malibu holds track well and is chunky enough to be seen at a reasonable distance. I had no problem turning my back on her to make the short, uphill walk to the landing zone. She was always just where she was left in the lift. The first landing was quite easy really with the model penetrating the low winds with ease to a landing right on the spot.

Later in the day the wind had increased to 19mph and when the fingers had warmed up she was tried again. As expected, a little more down trim was required to get her moving forwards, but nothing dramatic. 20mph is about the sensible limit for her though. Some better turn anticipation and slightly increased throws improved the yaw response but I did have a feeling that more dihedral would have been more productive.
Time to pass the box around the less experienced fliers and all were tasked with wringing her out. Again, loops, chandelles and the odd stall turn were tried as were inverted, spins and rolls once again. There was just no way that she would do these latter manoeuvres no matter how hard we tried, and the Malibu really does make a very good, stable first time slope model. With her light weight I was surprised she handled the stronger winds so well, especially with the blow back on this hill. She was even steady enough on finals to hand catch as long as I did it on the underside, as the canopy is a bit squashy! Ask me how I know!

She flew many more times over the next week or so and there was occasion throughout the day that the Malibu (in the interest of adequate field testing you understand) was pushed fairly hard. Occasionally right near that bit of the envelope where the stamp goes. I sometimes wished then that I had a bit more response in yaw, but found that a sharp application of some simultaneous down elevator got the nose around to point her safely back away from the slopeside. She only really got away from me once whilst being silly on a landing approach and this ended up in an unceremonious dumping at the back of the hill which did little more than leave the wings a little twisted under the bands.

I also flew her from a mini bungee on the power site when the winds had died down and indeed Protech do advertise the Malibu as a Slope, Thermal or Hand Launch Glider. I would hesitate to say that she met the last criteria though. It is indeed possible to throw her to a height, but flight time is invariably short and you would be disappointed if you had bought the kit with solely this in mind. She is far from a competitive specification in this field with modern HLG's weighing about a quarter of the Malibu's weight. She does thermal from the line very well though and I thought I would lose her in one boomer. She tracks well up either a mini bungee or single man towline and the low all up weight against the large wing area pays dividends in lighter lift.
A bit of an all rounder to be honest. Really quite a nice beginners model.

The Protech Malibu is distributed in the UK to most good model shops by Pro Models UK. Tel. 01689 837602 or visit the website at www.promodels.be

If you follow the links you can even download the instruction manual before you buy one!

The Protech Malibu retails at around £59.95

Andy Ellison