The Vantage from CCM is a really interesting plane.

The quality is best in class. The fit, finish and attention to detail are second to none. The strength to weight ratio is remarkable - the rigidity of the D box is totally outstanding. The Vantage has a real joy of ownership like you get with an expensive watch or nice car.

It has two ballast compartments in the wing that take 3kg of lead! The forward compartment would bring the CG forward quite a bit but fortunately the rear compartment sits directly on the CG and accepts 2kg, which is plenty!

I’ve only flown the Vantage on three occasion so far. Twice in circa 2 m/s and once in an F3F competition with the 10 m/s wind cocked off by 25 or more degrees. The first sessions in 2 m/s basically proved it flies. I didn’t even have enough height to do the dive test to fine tune the CG. Fair play that it flew at all in such light conditions though!

So at the F3F competition the Vantage was pretty much untested. Cross wind conditions are a pretty brutal test of plane and pilot as it is so easy to slow the model up and lose the momentum that you’ll never get back. The Vantage however was faultless and won the competition against some great pilots flying great models (FS6s, Pitbulls etc).

The fact it won is amazing but such cross wind conditions don’t really give you a feel for the nuances of a plane so I can’t wait to get out on a decent slope in reasonable air. I’ll get a few flying shots and videos too hopefully.

Thanks to Paul Fram and Mike Shellim for the flying photos.