it’s been quite a while since my last post in this category, but finally it is about time. more or less by coincidence i got my hands on two flight ukuleles which got quite positive reviews in the past. both are from their so called “travel series” which features a lot of sturdy abs plastic with little wood. in fact only the soundboard and headstock veneer are made of wood, the rest is moulded abs plastic. which is not necessarily bad imho…

specifications

• body back & sides: black abs, arched
• soundboard:
  • tus35: linden laminate, satin finish
  • tus50: walnut laminate, satin finish
• neck: wood-like color abs, moulded with a wood-like structure
• fretboard: black abs, zero fret, 15 frets (12 to body), fretboard and side markers on 5, 7, 10, fretboard marker on 12, fret crowns painted silver
• nut: black abs, compensated
• open geared tuners with black plastic buttons
• strings: aquila supernylgut, as usual these days (immediately swapped them to fluorocarbon)
• weight: 486 g (tus50)
• length: 55 cm, body 24.2 cm
• width: upper bout 13 cm, lower bout 18.2 cm
• height: 6 cm
• fretboard width: 1st fret 3.7 cm, 12th fret 4.5 cm
• string spacing at nut (g to a strings): 3.2 cm
• string spacing at 12th fret: 3.7 cm
• scale length: 35.7 cm (soprano)

first hands-on impressions

i went for the walnut topped tus50 and a natural tus35 which i will decorate later (in a way i don’t know yet); the tus35 is originally available in many other colors (at the time of writing: black, white, red, orange, yellow, light blue and dark blue).

with the arched black abs body it immediately reminds me of the flea – but there are differences not only in the price (the average flea is roughly 5-6 times the price of a flight ukulele). it definitely feels rock-solid, like a real beater “go anywhere” travel ukulele. Just the gigbag is not padded at all, it is a mere transport cover. But hey, at that price point I consider any bag a nice add-on.

tus50

tus35 natural

tus50 soundboard

zero fret and compensated saddle

headstock matches soundboard

sound is amazingly loud with quite a lot of sustain, well balanced with no tinny heights. a lot of sound for very little money (ukulele + a set of fluorocarbon strings were less than 50€ when i bought it)

this ukulele will definitely make it to my list of recommended instruments for beginners.

if you want to read more in depth and i can recommend barry maz’s detailed review on gotaukulele.com – there’s not much more to say. he scored the tus50 at 8.6 out of 10 and i would definitely sign that.

ps: i haven’t found the time yet to take some own pictures, for the time being all pictures are shamelessly borrowed from the flight website www.flightmusic.com.