Edge 540 Electric

About

The Zivko Edge 540 is the product of Zivko Aeronautics, a small American aerospace company that has spent three decades designing purpose-built unlimited-aerobatic aircraft. The type made its first flight in 1996 and was conceived for one job — winning at the very top end of competitive aerobatics, where airframes need to do what most aircraft cannot: hover on the propeller, knife-edge with no rudder support, and snap-roll at staggering rates.

A lightweight airframe with oversize control surfaces and a high power-to-weight ratio gives the real Edge a 420-degree-per-second roll rate and a 3,700-foot-per-minute climb — numbers that have kept it dominant on the international Unlimited circuit since the late 1990s. When the Red Bull Air Race World Series launched in 2003, the Edge 540 became the most common aircraft on the racing grid, and the airframe most associated with the series during its peak years.

Today the Edge 540 silhouette is one of the most-modeled aerobatic shapes in the RC hobby — available in every size from giant-scale gas-powered competition mount down to micro indoor foamy. This particular model represents the smaller end of that range: a small electric park-flyer with a brushless outrunner motor, the kind of foamy that fits in the back seat of a sedan and lets you practice 3D in the local park on a calm evening.

In the simulator

A friendly entry into 3D handling. The electric park-flyer scale of the Edge 540 trades the snap-aggressive personality of the giant-scale versions for a lighter, more forgiving character — you can experiment with hovering, knife-edge, and slow rolls without the kinetic consequences of a big nitro or gas airframe. Use it to learn the basic 3D vocabulary before stepping up to the Edge 540 25 Percent or 33 Percent in this same pack. Pairs well with calm-weather small-field landscapes and indoor flying environments where the lower wing loading shows its best.