iflyg450

Today made my 3rd flight with my smoothie which is great I mean was a great flying plane. Halfway into the flight the bell crank cam loose, after looking a the wreck the plate the crank was attached to was on a 1"x1" square of 3/32 lite ply and was held in by four drop of CA at the corners. I have the plate a Brodak will be getting a call Monday. This what you get when you go ARF. I should have just built my own. Out of 20 planes I have only done the ARF thing twice now I know why.

icerinkdad

A large part of the problem is the manufacturers in China. At least one other importer has had problems with the Chinese manufacturers using too little glue in high stress areas. Thanks for sharing your issue but I do have to ask if you pull tested the plane before flying it. I have never bought a prebuilt plane without a very careful exam before flying it.
Bob

dennis

My Feedback: (90)

Having delt with Brodaks for a long time, don't be suprised at how well you'll be treated. I wouldn't be suprised if he replaced it.
dennis

iflyg450

Thats good to know that they have good customer service. I purchased the plane from Sam Stuff which is a great company to deal. I had 3 great uneventfull flights before it went, I pull tested the lines but I guess I should have done the same for the leadouts. My next one is going to be the P-40 profile kit from RSM

culver

Let Sam's Stuff know whats up also. I bought an ARC from them that was stepped on by UPS and broken, they replaced it with no problems. Either way you should be all right.

Hossfly

For anyone building assembling any ARF model these days may I suggest you take a very good look at all the engine structure area, any load bearing areas such as wing mounting, tail feathers mounting and especially bellcrank area in CL models.

Heck, even U.S. kits from days long past showed Bell Crank mounts and usually the wing LE through the fuselage as an accident waiting to happen. Guys that did not know how to tie the wing LEs to a ply bulkhead on the LE wondered why the noses cracked and looked ready to fall off after 20-30 flights. Doesn't hurt to assure 1/4" ply for bellcrank and well attached between two ply ribs.
Some extra ply and even metal brackets for firewall engine mountings. Add a couple ounces and save some fingers.

I have seen RC ARFs have tail feathers shed in the air, wings fold in the air, engines leave the airplane while sitting for run-up (one took better part of 3 fingers), leave on take-off, and in the air, ailerons and/or elevators leave the aircraft, and it's all because inexperienced model fliers simply don't know what to look for as they have little or no building experience. NO, they were not all mine.

As Mark Twain said about newspapers, "If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed."
Well, the same goes for most of the ARF Instructions these days. No read instructions - uninformed: Do read instructions, usually misinformed. [X(] [:@]

gcb

You might also want to check everything VERY carefully is using a more powerful engine than the plane was designed for.

George

iflyg450

I was running a VERY OLD Fox 35

Hossfly

Edited to remove post. Wrong answer for this thread. Mind running slow, still in previous thread. [sm=cry_smile.gif]

cutaway

I've got an unassembled ARF smoothie that's been sitting around for over a year. I knew right away I'd be redoing all the leadouts because of the plainly bogus crimps. I wasn't too happy about the inferior motor mount wood either. It's not maple, and appears to be a lot less dense than maple.

Brodak needs to charge a few bucks more and convince the Chinese to make better product with better quality materials. The covering job looks fine, but I know all the trim will peel off after a couple of flights. That material they're using really bites.

da Rock

When you see the shortfalls in all the ARFs no matter the price, you might wonder if that's possible.

iflyg450

Nothing will change! Folks these days just want cheap oh well. I saw a post in the extream speed prop forum the post was "Cheap ARFS on ebay do you think they are good?" I replied "the first word of you post says it all what do you think?" and boy do I catch a tone of flak. Next U/C is going to be a streling Yak 9 with a Super Tiger 35 combat should be a great set up.

iflyg450

BrodaK did the right thing. They gave me a credit towards another plane. I have the laser cut Yak 9 on the way

cutaway

Yea, it is. They make some perfectly acceptable higher end machine tools and firearms. When they want to do (or need to do) world class work they can.

One thing that's crucial to getting a good product out of China (or any offshore vendor for that matter) is having one of YOUR PEOPLE on site during all factory work hours to constantly make sure they're using materials/glues that were spec'd and using spec'd assembly techniques.

Part of the problem here is these factories and the people who work in them aren't modelers know nothing about modeling, and don't understand what matters and where you can go cheap without it mattering.

If you have a guy on site to correct their mistakes before they get into a box, the quality WOULD improve dramatically.

They don't want to deliver garbage if good would take only a bit longer and they could get a bit more for it. Its just that the workers and factory managers don't know the difference.

I would bet a donut that Brodak (or any of the other ARF vendors) doesn't have anyone on THEIR payroll watching the China factories.

When I was with IBM Boca (when it still exited), we had similar problems with the IBM labs in Japan whenever we'd vend out some manufacturing job to them. The intra-company contracts (yea, IBM had internal "contracts" between the lab entities) had to be managed very carefully, and frequent visits to Japan engaged in, if you wanted to get what you expected to get.

da Rock

So how many modeling retailers would be large enough to have on-site coverage. Consider the cost. A full time employee... travel to/from, and living expenses.

cutaway

What's the cost of having customers who only buy once and never return because they were disappointed? I'll certainly never buy another Brodak ARF after seeing what was in my Smoothie box.

I suspect the cost of ill will generated vastly exceeds whatever you saved. This isn't an unlimited market with tens of millions of victims who you can burn at will and never care about losing some, because there's always fresh suckers stepping up.

I'd have gladly paid an extra $50 or $100 to get something I didn't have to spend dozens of hours reworking. I could have built one from scratch or a kit in less time that it will take to do all the micro-surgery needed to replace the lame motor mounts, eliminate the CA hinges, tear off and replace the crummy covering that will peel off in in flight, install proper control system, etc.

da Rock

Sad to say, any company that's not large enough to put one or two inspectors into a factory that's on the other side of the world is going to be in the situation you describe as long as those factories do the quality work that they do.

It is interesting that there is a thread on the ARF forum that is mostly positive about Cheap Chinese ARFs. So maybe the problem isn't a guaranteed door closer.

BtnFlyGuy

Maybe I'm just too "old school" and I'm not trying to detract from those without the time or skills to build their own, but the best part of my joy came from building from a kit (or later plans or scratch), swapping the "how to" stories from the old timers and showing off the latest accomplishment wrought from ambroid, balsa, silkspan and butyrate. It didn't matter if it was a Baby Ringmaster or Nobler from a green box. It was cool just to say "I did that." Heck, it may only last one flight before the crunch down, but we couldn't blame it on the manufacturer or some underpaid outsource that will never know the joy of the tight lines in his own fist.
 The plans are cheap, the tools are better and the supplies plentiful. Let's face it, the time spent to build "your" plane is better than a crash of something someone else built for you. If you have kids, you might even find something to do with them rather than get your butt whupped again at Wii tennis.
I'm off the soapbox for now and back to making balsa shavings...
Keep the planes light and the lines tight...

TFF

I am not an arf guy, but in the world of business who can get the best factories with the best non compete agreements have the best arfs. Hobbico and Horizon are those people. No arf is going to satify a scratchbuilder. With the good companies locking in the best factories, it leaves companies who are trying to make a name and do good, or the leftovers. Most are the leftovers. Because the demand is there, arfs are where the profit is, and a bad arf will sell forever if it is supported where as a good one that has one production run is forgotten. The market has changed to feed a pastime instead of a hobby.

cutaway

The control line (and free flight) markets are fundamentally different than the large R/C market where crap can sell for a long time. We are a closer knit subculture.

jpooch00

"Made in China" - 'nuff said!

Clean

I've got Brodaks Ringmaster ARF, it's ok. Kinda like buying a used plane from someone. You check it out, see what you're willing to fix for the time you have and go fly. I hate plastic covered fuses and I don't like Monokote or monokote rip offs but in the 2 or 3 years I've had it I've flown it as much as I could, bout 10-15 flights. I should clean it off, strip it and cover it right. I SHOULD have bought an ARC and touched up the areas that were lacking. I SHOULD have bought a laser cut kit or did the real work and find myself some nice balsa and built it right, Andrew does it that way, they come out well.
BUT after last years Ringmaster flyathon I remembered I needed to replace motor mount bolts and put some weight on the nose the weekend before this years Ringathon, and thats all the time I've had.
You suss up the job, you makes your call and you accept the consequences. The money I've spent has lasted several years. Hopefully it will hold together while I get a chance to build a replacement. We'll see how my time allotments go this year. I won't have to babysit as much BUT my wife has ordered chickens. I may be babysitting one whole heckuva lot more PLUS they're stupid chickens. Oh well, the Rural life.

Green Acres is the place for me.......

If you can get your plane as an ARC and have time to cover but no time to build, you can generally fix the problem spots. Otherwise, how bad do you want to fly? My backup plane is about 2 foot of aluminum channel for a fuse, coroplast flight survaces and an LA 25 for power. Its fantastic at Balloon bust, nothing really breaks exept the rubberbands on it.

Bob Mears

I had the same thing happen on a Top Flite ARF Flite Streak. Bell crank platform pulled out after 4 flights.

AJ Sun

Really old post but I feel Brodak is a really good supplier. Hurd Sig is moving and Anyway my impression of ARF is not favorable at all. I did buy a Top flight Nobler but I looked at it,and seen lots of issues. Don’t get me wrong but it’s all fixable. But I invested in the Brodak Nobler. Been looking for a green box original Nobler but haven’t found one. I’ve built two Brodak kits and I will say they are good quality and I’ve been told they are in house manufacturer. All their ARFs are overseas maybe Vietnam. AJ

AJ Sun

Well my advise if you invest in an ARF inspect it. And look in over I know some locations are very hard to see. My ARF Nobler was all covered seen a few You tube videos on the plane but my plane was different and I cut open the bell crank area. It was hid by the fuselage anyway. So not a big deal. The wood that held the bell crank in place was glued in four corners. And the bell crank moved up and down about 1/4 inch. I have not built it as of yet. I bought a Brodak Nobler it’s a kit. Haven’t seen it. Or open the box. Later build maybe much later. Still have several ready to fly. My winter project is the Super Ringmaster. Built the right wing now working on the left wing. AJ