8178

My Feedback: (17)

Recently a Tower Kaos 40 ARF showed up at my doorstep! I have no clue why an ARF would be on my doorstep but it looked forlorn sitting there in the rain and I decided to take it in for safe keeping. While I have it, I thought it would be interesting to compare it to my modified kit built Koas 40, my NIB un-built kit and the old Tower MonoKote covered Kaos 40 ARF.

The first thing I noticed is that it is covered with some type of heat shrink covering that looks OK but is not as shinny as MonoKote. It has a few wrinkles that are typical with ARFs.

The distance from front of the wing to the nose the fuselage is slightly less than the MonoKote ARF and kit. The firewall also has built in right thrust and the front of the fuselage now has a U shaped brace in front. I’m not a big fan of right thrust. The motor mount is now a single piece metal unit rather than the two piece plastic unit used in the MonoKote ARF and kit. The shorter nose should help solve tail ballast weight that the MonoKote ARF required.

The red and white parts are the new ARF, the purple and white is the MonoKote ARF and the red, yellow, blue and white is the modified kit.

8178

My Feedback: (17)

The fuselage has a slight rounded shape on top that is accomplished by using sheeting rather than the solid balsa plank that was used on the MonoKote ARF and kit. There is a frame work to support the sheeting. The belly pan is now a separate single piece rather than the ill fitting two piece pan that was pre-attached to the wings on the MonoKote ARF.

8178

My Feedback: (17)

The wing uses a center plywood rib extension keys to hold the front of the wing to the fuselage rather than the dowels used on the MonoKote ARF and kit. The wing platform is the same size, airfoil and shape as the MonoKote ARF and kit. I did not cut off the back edge of the wing tips on my kit. The wing ribs are cutout on the front and back of the wing spar area all the way to the wing tip. I do not recall seeing that on the MonoKote ARF and I know they were not cutout in the kit. The wheels have a plastic hubs and foam rubber tires.

8178

My Feedback: (17)

The vertical fin has lighting holes and now has a key to lock into the horizontal stab rather than the butt joint used on the MonoKote ARF and kit. This should improve the strength. The butt joint stab required the use of round wood tooth picks to key it and were hard to install.

8178

My Feedback: (17)

Overall the new ARF looks like it might come out lighter than the old MonoKote ARF. My kit built Kaos is just a little over 5 lbs, about ½ lb lighter than the old MonoKote ARF. At five pounds and an Irvine 53 for power it becomes a ballistic missile that is extremely fast. A fun way to fly pattern! With a 40 for power it is a great low wing trainer that is very forgiving and is very easy to fly.

The selling price on the new Kaos 40 ARF fluctuates from $99.99. to $109.99 depending the sales going on at Tower. Tower sales deals can lower the price to only $89.99. This isn’t an ad for Tower, but I can’t think of any other SPA approved 40 to 50 size ARF pattern aircraft that will deliver this type of performance for the money. With a strong engine like the Irvine 53 or OS 50SX, I think it would do pretty well in SPA competition, even against some of the 60 size SPA aircraft powered with OS 91 FSs.

If you are flying a Tower Kaos 40 of any type, please feel free to add comments and pictures of your aircraft to this thread.

Got run now and figure out where in the neighborhood this ARF should have been delivered!

flybug

Hmmm, let me give you my address, maybe I end up with your luck having models arrive at my doorstep just like that!

friesen5

I downloaded plans for a Kaos called CadKaos. It has a span of 58" and is designed for a .61 engine. Does anyone know how this would be different than the Tower Kaos designed for a .40 with a span of 55"? I'm interested in building it and using an OS 46FX since I have that engine. Any comments?

One difference I see is that the wing is mounted a bit higher in the Tower Kaos, and has part of the fuselage built onto the bottom of the wing.

Mervin Friesen
http://mefriese.hsd.ca

8178

My Feedback: (17)

I don’t know the CadKaos but I believe the original 60 size Kaos used a 58� wing span and because the root cord as so wide it had a lot of wing area for a short wing span. Most of the aircraft of that vintage had around 650 sq in, used 60s and had about 11� root cords. I believe the Kaos 60 had a root cord of about 12� or 13�! The Tower Kaos 40 has 566 sq in wing area and flies well with a 46. You could reduce the plans to a 40 size. Rainedav reduced his CadKaos even smaller to a 15 size http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_3691626/tm.htm

Paternguy

My Feedback: (1)

Maybe my eyes are deceiving me. In the picture with the 3 wings, the newer ARF wings apear to be longer than the original. Is this the case ? Do you notice any diferance in flight charectoristics ?

8178

My Feedback: (17)

I did say that all the wings were the same size but there is a very slight difference in the wing span.

The all white kit built wing is 55�.
The MonoKote wing is 54 ¾�.
The new wing is 55 ½�.

The camera angles distorted the view a little.

The kit is ½ lb less in weight so it flies better than the MonoKote Kaos except for windy conditions. As I said before it looks like the new Kaos should be lighter than the MonoKote Kaos.

NM2K

My Feedback: (14)

The original Bridi Kaos 40 had a 52" wingspan. It was really on the small side for the radios/servos of the day. Ditto the Bridi Dirty Birdy 40 wood kit.

I was using KPS-15 servos with my Kraft radio at the time. The two kits mentioned above needed the smaller KPS-14 servos to avoid problems with the aileron torque rod linkage getting tangled up with the elevator and rudder linkage. Ace came out with their Bantam Midget servo kits in the late seventies and that solved the problem for me. Imagine paying $120 per servo today, just for sport flying, and you have an idea as to why Ace had a winner with their Bantam Midget servo kits costing only $20 ($60 today). We hadn't figured out using a servo in each wing yet to eliminate the torque rods because the servos were so expensive.

The original 52" wingspan Kaos 40 could skoot right along with a K&B .40 crossflow engine. All I can picture with a modern schneurle ported .50 or so engine would be a nose heavy blur. <G>

XTOL

That is an understatement. I built a Bridi Super Kaos 40 last winter and it was very
tricky fitting 4 servos in the radio compartment. There was just barely enough
clearance between the aileron torque rods and the elev/rudder servos.
I had to get a bit creative.

I powered it with a TT46 Pro which was also a very tight fit. I actually
had to length the nose about a 1/2 inch to accomodate that motor.

The plane flies great and is very fast. It did not come out nose heavy
at all. I was able to balance it fine without adding weight.

Another guy in our club has the Tower ARF Kaos. His is powered with
an OS 46AX and flies very much like mine. Speed is about the same
but his has a slightly slower roll rate due to the larger wingspan. 55 vs 52 inches.
The ARF fuse is also slightly wider and longer as well.

One thing about the ARF...dont try to reshrink that covering. It melts at a quite
low temperature and doesnt seem to want to shrink at all. His plane is slowly
being recovered in Monokote.

Mike Hammer

8178

My Feedback: (17)

The original Kaos 60 has a 59�span and 644 sq in and the original Kaos 40 has a 52� in span and 507 sq in. That puts the Tower Kaos in between them with a 55.5� span and 566 sq in. Odd that the Tower Kaos box and website shows 566 sq in and the manual shows 585!

50%plane

My Feedback: (5)

Here's my Kaos:


Flies great and I love it. I might check out this new ARF, but it won't be for a while. IT looks promising though. I think you need to flight test all three back to back.


Woops

CCRC1

My Feedback: (13)

Aside from the change in covering [:-], is there any change in the quality of the airframe? I got to inspect one that a fellow club member purchased about 18 months ago and all of the ribs in the right wing were distorted. Glue joints were awfull and the wood quality was very poor. Is the newer version a better buy?

8178

My Feedback: (17)

I’m not sure what version they were selling 18 months ago. As far as I know there was the early original that had the terrible non-shrinkable covering, then the MonoKote version, and now the Red and white version. Surprisingly the wood quality and glue work on this one looks pretty good. The main gear blocks and firewall look like they are done well and they usually are the week points in most ARFs. The engine bay and fuel tank area is pre coated with some type of fuel proofing. Both wings look very good on both sides and all the ribs look solid and straight. The covering looks OK but has a few wrinkles. After XLOTs heads up on the covering I sent Tower an email asking them for their recommendations for shrinking out the wrinkles. I’ll post their response in this thread. If the covering doesn’t fall off it looks like a great value! I’ve posted some more images showing the construction and glue work.

8178

My Feedback: (17)

Two more! The covering needs some trim work around the engine bay!

Jim_Purcha

My Feedback: (8)

It also looks like it needs some fuel proofing on the ends of the square stock protruding past the firewall.

The original Super Kaos Jr. plans did not have a full belly pan under the wing. I bought a copy of the RCM plans this last July. Was debating about purchasing this arf. Bought a Bridiairplanes Utter Chaos for $65.00. "Money-kote" at the LHS is $20.00 a roll. Might need three rolls if I want a choice of colours. The price of the arf is looking a like a better investment. By the time i'm done with engine mount, fuel tank, and covering it should run me about $170.00 CAD to complete. The tower koas might run me with shipping, Canadian 7% pst (provincial sales tax) and 7% gst (goods & services tax) about $150.00. Yes our health care is free, but we pay for it in other ways.

8178

My Feedback: (17)

Looks like it. I like to trim the covering and then paint the engine bay with epoxy and seal the edges of the covering around the bay as well.

8178

My Feedback: (17)

After looking at it again, I see that all of the engine bay, including the square stock is coated. I keep putting all back in the box in case the owner of it shows up. It would be embarrassing to have it spread out all over the house and have the owner show up. If they don’t show up soon I may just snap it together and fly the darn thing.

CCRC1

My Feedback: (13)

8178, thanks for the feedback. I was interested in one of these until I saw how poorly my friends was constructed. I am a bit concerned about the covering change. If it is now a low temp variety, it will turn into a wrinkled mess in the hot Maryland sunshine[&o] we have in July and August.
Please keep us informed. If Great Planes has got their act together on this one I may order one to toss together while I am building other stuff.

Stripes

My Feedback: (19)

Did your wife believe that?

8178

My Feedback: (17)

So far so good! Somehow it got charged to my Tower account too! What a mystery!

Jim_Purcha

My Feedback: (8)

Just return it. Phone Tower Hobbies get them to send out a motor, radio and servos and tell them you'll fly it back to them.

Jim_Purcha

My Feedback: (8)

The belly pan could use some additional reinforcement of thicker sheet material behind the balsa. If the bolts are tightened too much you could crack the belly pan at the bolt holes. The original kaos had this carved out of 1/4" sheet.