FPV-Community Reviews

Dear friends of FPV flying,

Here it is, the long awaited, much-desired aircraft which offers enough space for all your equipment and even can take some extra weight. You are free to choose how you lay the cables – without any spaghetti syndrome.

The “Maja” is developed by the German Borjet aeromodels company and is a real workhorse for FPV with a high loading capacity, high-quality flight characteristics and enough room for all your equipment.

We, the FPV-Community, had the honor of testing this aircraft exclusively. On the following pages you are going to find all the results.

A review by Markus Schumacher aka Mashu

Product description

“Maja“, probably called after “Maya the Bee”, is an aircraft made of black-yellow EPP. This material combines flexible rigidity and a high compressive strength in comparison to elapor, arcel, etc. Maja has a wingspan of 1.8 meters and is 1.2 meters long. The dimensions of its usable interior are:

• in the middle: 15.8 x 3,2 x 3,2 inch

• in the front: 15.8 x 2 x 2 inch

The model has been designed for a total weight of 3 kg. With the RC components recommended by the manufacturer it is ready for take off weight of 1.5 kg. This means an additional loading capacity of 1.5 kg. Equipped with two Li-Po accumulators (both 3700mAh) connected in parallel, according to the manufacturer, it can fly up to 1.2 hours.

The wings in three parts are pluggable and lockable. The Maja is used in the fields of aerial photography, measurement and air surveillance.

Packing and Dispatch

I was quite amazed when I had received the package. It was an unexpected big box having the dimensions of 47.2 x 12.6 x 12.6 inch. Compared with former deliveries, it seemed like the manufacturer had improved a lot the quality of its packing.

All parts were protected from damage: each component was wrapped in foil and closed by a tacker.

Components and Construction kit

The construction kit includes the following components (see photo):

• 1 fuselage with motor mount and firewall
• 1 elevator
• 1 rudder
• 4 canopy closures made of thermoset
• 3 wings with aluminum reinforcing profile (see also following part of report)
• 2 winglets for wings
• 1 EPP universal element for fuselage (for additional installations)
• 2 elements forming the nose
• 1 wooden motor mount
• 1 assortment of small parts (linkage, fixations, etc.)
• 1 construction manual in English/German
• Some remains of EPP (very useful)

The fuselage

The fuselage of Maja has a lot of refinements worth mentioning. The canopy, for example, is opened in two stages: first the forward half of the fuselage which is planned as the battery carrier, and then the posterior half of the fuselage, made for technical installations. For more stability the fuselage has some sheets of thermoset (plastic panels) pasted into the top and the bottom. So, the aircraft can even land on uneven ground without damaging the EPP. The canopy hinges are made of this robust material, too. At the beginning, I was skeptical if it could withstand any stresses, but the manufacturer guaranteed there will be no problem. I will see how it will handle the stresses. Another highlight are the wings, which can be adjusted. In case of additional installations this can be useful to adjust the center of gravity. On the picture below you can see the red cable gland for servo cables. The cables are lead directly into the fuselage interior. In the motor mount at the rear will be the firewall, the motor, the controller and two servo cables, one for the elevator, one for the rudder.

A special characteristic of the motor mount is that it can be removed for maintenance work. It is locked by plug-in pins. Unfortunately, it is necessary to remove the control linkages of the elevator servo when removing the motor. Furthermore, the cable gland for the motor mount and its RC cabling are already fixed. It is conspicuous here that the model has a high level of prefabrication.

The Canopy latch

This well-reasoned construction combines the upper with the lower half of the fuselage. When assembling the model, two closures are stuck on each side of the fuselage. These closures consist of plastic panels, too. So, after that the supplied plastic sticks are passed through to close the fuselage.

For a short moment I feared that I lose the sticks during the flight. In contrary to all of my worries, I noticed that it is fixed tightly when I first passed through a stick. A fabulous construction.

The Wings

As I have already mentioned, the wings are divided into three parts. The middle part is fixed permanently with screws on the fuselage. The outer parts of the wings can be plugged in and locked comfortably. So, the locking mechanism consists of an inflexible steel wire plugged into a pre-drilled perforation.

Building and Construction manual

The Construction manual

The construction manual is very short but meaningful and contains a lot of illustrations. At second glance, however, I saw some inaccuracies in the illustrations. Nevertheless, they are not engraving. I already contacted the manufacturer to point these flaws out to him and he assured a fast correction.

Moreover, I noticed that there is a lack of information about the rudder angle or the note to put some expo on the elevator during the first flight.

This tip I got from the manufacturer via e-mail (see also paragraph “Flight tests”).

The Building

Anyone who has some building skills will be able to build the MAJA without major problems. Before starting, make sure that you have all equipment and adhesives available. In contrast to elapor or arcel, we do not need any super glue when using EPP, but 5min Epoxy and a glue gun. Don’t worry about using hot glue on the joints, my reaction was similar. However, my experience with Epoxy and glue gun are very durable. Once these two materials were glued together, I could not separate them without damaging the parts.

With the exception of the motor mount and the rudder, I glued all the parts of the Maja with hot glue. For the other parts and the elevator I used 5min Epoxy.

I was surprised about the good overall bond strength. Nevertheless, I found some negative aspects:

1. EPP is known as a material whose strength fades by and by when stressed permanently. The manufacturer knows about this problem and added aluminum braces to the stressed parts. This is a good solution for the wings. Unfortunately, the manufacturer forgot to add braces to the elevator which is wobbly. Even if it does not break, it influences the control linkages of the elevator and thus the flight characteristics. The manufacturer should improve this, for example by pasting in a 3mm carbon/CFK rod.
2. As I have already mentioned, the motor mount is locked by 3 plug-in plastic pins and thus is also wobbly. The manufacturer could add some extra plug-in pins. In this way, the user can plug in as many pins as needed.

The ESC and motor can be installed in a universal way. The kit includes a laser wooden motor mount with a pre-drilled hole on the motor mount. With the help of threaded rods the motor is mounted firmly, the down thrust is adjustable.

The ESC is placed under the motor mount. So, it is cooled during the flight and the cables which lead to the motor are short enough. A perfect motor for the Maja is a brushless motor with at least 350 watts. The ESC should provide about 60 amps. The manufacturer also sells a motor system which is available on his web page.

The manufacturer added a nice feature to the Maja. The construction kit includes a nose which can be removed, fixed with Velcro or adapted to personal needs, for example when installing a camera or sensors in the front of the fuselage (see also “Usability for aerial photography, measurement and FPV”).

The manufacturer recommends four 20g mini servos. In my opinion, they have enough power to drive the model, even when loaded. For the wings, however, I recommend using digital servos. The manufacturer also recommends gluing the servos in the wing. I would say it is better to use installation frames for servos with covers.

Flight tests

After programming the rc transmitter, finally, the day came to fly. It was windy and gusty.

Pointing the Maja into the wind and a light throw, it glided quietly through the air with very little trim. It withstood the gusty winds and its flight characteristics were similar to a high wing airplane. Gliding with motor off was good but it lost height quickly. Using one quarter power of the motor it floats smoothly on a constant altitude with low power consumption. Equipped with two Li-Po´s (11.1V 3s 2400mAh) connected in parallel I got 20 minutes flying time. When I landed there were still 950mAh remaining in the Li-Po´s. For more information about the first flight, see also the video below.

Usability for aerial photography and FPV

The Maja has a lot of room for all your equipment. For comparison, you see a photo of an installed GF OSC-Cam 480TVL, EZ OSD and a current sensor:

The OSC Cam fits well into the nose – making it resistant to vibrations. The headtracker could be installed on the top of the fuselage. It can handle some extra weight without any problems.

Video transmitter

Even with high frequency video transmitter on 5.8 GHz, I got high ranges with the antenna position shown in the picture. The shadowing effect caused by the fuselage and the wings was impressively small. This is another further strength of the Maja.

The weather conditions were not good for long-term testing. In spring I will carry out further testing.

Scoring and conclusion

Pro

+ Material EPP, high compressive strength and flexible rigidity
+ Long flight time
+ High-quality flight characteristics when loaded
+ High level of prefabrication
+ Wings divided in three parts and lockable
++ Well-reasoned locking system
++ Wing spars made of aluminum
++ Extra EPP material for individual installations
++ Bottom side of the fuselage protected during landing
+++ Center of gravity adjustable by wings
+++ Generous amount of space available

Con

- Construction manual partially inaccurate
- Motor mount is wobbly
- High initial purchase costs
– Elevator is wobbly – no spar

The Maja is a well-reasoned product which offers a lot of space for own design and installations. It is a good aircraft which will withstand the requirements of our community and other pilots for a long time.

For beginning users of FPV it is only suitable to a limited extent because of the high initial purchase costs. For advanced users of FPV, however, it is highly recommendable.

Further information about this product

• Bormatec MAJA review – German
• Bormatec Homepage
  
• Bormatec MAJA Discussion thread (English)
• Bormatec MAJA Discussion thread (German)
• Bormatec MAJA – Review of the new wings (English)
• Bormatec MAJA – Review of the new wings (German)
• MAJA as platform for FY20A review (English)
• MAJA as platform for FY20A review (German)
• MAJA as platform for FY21AP review (English)
• MAJA as platform for FY21AP review (German)

Tags: Borjet, Borjet Maja, Bormatec, Bormatec MAJA, Drohne, Drone, FPV, Maja, UAV

This entry was posted on Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 7:47 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.