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Tämän testin alkuperäinen suomenkielinen versio löytyy Rockway-blogissa.

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Slovenian company Flight focuses entirely on ukuleles and has been able to expand its range considerably in recent years. The design of the instruments is European, but the ukuleles are made in the company’s own factory in China.

Tampereen Musiiki has recently become the brand’s new importer in Finland, which I thought was a good opportunity to try out three different ukuleles from Flight’s range.

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Flight’s NUT310 (119 €; includes bag) is a basic tenor-sized ukulele with a rosette decorated with beautiful shamanic symbols, laser-etched into the wood.

The NUT310’s soundboard is made of sapele mahogany plywood, while the neck is carved from African okoume. The neck is made from one long piece, with one piece added for the neck heel and another for the peg head. The neck is glued to the body at the 14th fret.

The fingerboard and bridge of this tenor ukulele are made of walnut. The neck hold 18 well-installed frets. The position markers are round. Both the bridge saddle and nut are made of genuine bovine bone. The nut is 35 mm wide.

The Flight NUT310 has open, guitar-style tuners with black plastic knobs.

All Flight instruments have at least a strap pin at the soundbox’ butt end, allowing a standard guitar strap to fit without any problems.

The Flight NUT310 is comfortable to play and has a beautiful, round, and resonant sound.

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The Flight DUC380CEQ (149 €; incl. gig bag) is a concert-sized ukulele with a cutaway and an active preamp. The DUC380CEQ is available in four different colors – amber, coral, topaz and jade (like the test instrument). The laser-cut rosette consists of Inca-style animals.

The soundboard of the DUC380CEQ is made of mahogany plywood, too, while the neck is made of okoume. The uke’s body has a beautiful cream-colored binding on both the top and bottom.

The neck structure is similar to the other two instruments in the test. The neck is glued to the body at the 14th fret.

The concert ukulele’s fingerboard and bridge are made of walnut. The fingerboard is decorated with black binding. The fingerboard holds 17 neatly installed frets. The position markers are finger-shaped inlays placed on the bass side of the fretboard, like on some Gretsch guitars. Both the compensated bridge saddle and the top nut are made of genuine cow bone. The saddle width is 35 mm.

This model uses modern closed tuning machines with black plastic knobs.

Mounted on the side of the bass side rim is Flight’s own FU-T3 preamp, which is used to shape the signal of the piezo mic located under the bridge. The preamp is powered by two button batteries, their compartment can be found at the bottom of the soundbox next to the output jack. In addition to a volume control, the FU-T3 preamp offers a three-band EQ, as well as an internal chromatic tuner.

Successfully installing a piezo microphone on ukuleles is relatively difficult, because the piezo works best when the strings are pressed tightly against it. Due to the short scale, ukulele strings are quite loose, which often results in the C and E strings sounding louder than the G and A strings. The DUC380CEQ that we tested also suffers from the same problem – so using a compressor is recommended.

Acoustically, the Flight DUC380CEQ sounds very beautiful, with the slight midrange emphasis typical of a concert ukulele. The ukulele is very comfortable to play.

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There probably aren’t many ukuleles with a quilted ash body, but Flight’s DUS410QA (159 €; incl. gig bag) is just that. The strong cloud-like pattern on the plywood of this Flight model is very impressive. The top of the soprano model has a multi-layered edge binding, while the bottom of the body has a single-layer decorative strip.

A very beautiful walnut fingerboard is glued to the front of the okoume neck, where 12 frets are very neatly seated. The DUS410QA model’s impressive multi-piece fingerboard inlays are reminiscent of inlays on a 1930s Gibson Advanced Jumbo model. Both the walnut bridge saddle (compensated) and the instrument’s nut are made of genuine bovine bone. The saddle width is 35 mm.

Such an impressive instrument is just the ticket for gold hardware – a strap pin, as well as modern tuners with black (wood patterned) plastic knobs.

The Flight DUS410QA soprano has a suitably bright, yet strong sound, and it projects its sound surprisingly well.