Grampaw

Just seen Ace Hobby's Decathlon 40 ad in the Dec. 03 Model Aviation and I like the looks of it. The molded parts in the Decathalon are said to be of fiberglass. Better than thin plastic. But my experiences with a few ARFs in general has not given me any reason to to be too optomistic. I used to have a buddy that said "Airplane covering hides a multitude of sins!" And in the ARFs I have found a lot of truth in his words. At this point I would prefer to build my own from scratch or from a kit.

However the Ace name goes back as far as I do, and I would hope that it still means quality products, and perhaps due to the association with Ace, the quality of the Thunder Tiger ARF line has been a whole lot improved.

If any of you out there have had any experience with Thunder Tiger ARFs in the last year or so, especially in the structural areas, would care to sound off Pro or Con, please lay it on me, I'd be interested in hearing from you. I'd like to have that Decathalon, but a few possitive words of encouragement from satisfied users would help.

Hypter

My Feedback: (2)

I have a TT Tiger Sport 40 ARF. Its a great flying plane, but not the best built and its heavy. The plastic turtledeck is starting to part from the rest of the fuse, and its cracking up the shelf-paper covering. After the first flight, I had to re-glue the former behind the fuel tank and a place where the servo tray sits inside the plane. A friend of mine had one also, same thing with his fuse falling apart. I ordered a TT Fun Tiger Extra, and after reading some very bad reviews about some structural issues I canceled the order and got something else.

Because of the problems I have had with the Tiger Sport, I check and even re-glue some places on new planes now. I know the TT Super Decathlon is covered with Ultracote, hopefully its better built than the others I mentioned above.

Grampaw

Hypter, thanks for the reply. I will wait a bit on theDecathalon and maybe I'll find a review on it for more input. But what you said about regluing joints is a good idea. A friend does the same thing to every glue joint he can get to in any ARF he assembles, just to be safe. A week ago I had my .40 ARF sport model go in. It's almost repaired, but while I was putting it back together I got a chance to check out the original assembly inside the fuse, particurlary the glue joints. Most of the wood that was fractured or pulled loose showed no signs of the glue penetrating at all, and some bulkheads were only held in place with a ridge of dried glue on each side. I recall a similar model in kit form when they first came out years ago. Kits back then were stronger as they used more reinforcing and had no lite ply sheets in them. The extra weight didn't seem to bother them, as they were flown with .40s too. I remember that model crashed in the same manner as mine, yet the only damage was a few scratches and a lot of dust. That fuselage was strong enough to use as a baseball bat once the wings were removed! I just don't have too much faith in ARFs when it comes to their durability for day in and day out flying.