LOOKS LIKE A HOTROD, FLIES LIKE A ZAGI.  So proclaims Trick R/C on their website.  The Fixx has had a long gestation period of about 2 years.  There have been so many false starts to the delivery of this plane that it has long ago become the butt of numerous jokes on the Ezone.  So how is the Fixx?

The Fixx arrives with everything needed except 2 HiTec HS-55 servos and a receiver.  You receive 3 pieces of foam – 2 wing panels and a hatch.  In addition, the kit comes with a motor/gearbox assembly, 370ma 8 cell NiMH battery pack, ESC, propeller, pushrods, special Zagi CA glue, a set of decals, a charging pigtail and a detailed assembly manual.  The plane itself is constructed of a new type of foam that Trick calls Z-Foam.  Laminated to the surface of the foam is a slick, smooth urethane coating making the surface unlike any other foam airplane that I have ever seen.  It looks like it wants to slip through the air just looking at it.  The upper surfaces of the wing panels are white while the underside is red.

Assembly took me about 2 hours but I was taking my time doing other things in between steps.  I probably could have assembled it in a bit more than an hour if I had worked at it.  The assembly manual is quite easy to follow with lots of pictures.  The most difficult step was gluing the 2 wing panels together but the motor mount stick plus a built in slot/finger assembly at the nose, made it simple to align the panels.  Everything else was a press fit or used Velcro to be attached. 

The hatch itself is held in place and hinged with two of the supplied decals.  This works but I must say that it did not really give me a warm fuzzy feeling.  Unlike the 400X, there really is no easy way the hatch could have been mounted with Velcro and still be easy to take off without possibly breaking it.  So this mounting will do but I might end up using a more durable and flexible tape for the hinge in the future. Two caveats to tell you about.  The manual tells you that you can use Windex or alcohol to remove the mold release on the surface.  DO NOT USE ALCOHOL!!!  I started to do this only to find that alcohol causes the surface to become soft and sticky.  When the alcohol evaporates the surface once again returns to its normal state but this was totally unexpected and resulted in some dirty fingerprints embedded in the surface.  I was eventually able to remove them.  In addition the alcohol will remove the red from the red urethane surface.  The other caveat is DO NOT USE CA ACCELERATOR.  It will accelerator the cure of the Zagi CA but it also eats into the surface of the urethane covering.  Not good.  The wing panels have built in elevons that are freed by cutting through a strip of the urethane.  The hinges for the control surfaces are built in via the urethane coating.  The coating itself appears to be pretty tough but only time will tell if a strip of

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