BaldEagel

Yes I thought so, I may even get the whole build completed and post all at once on a different thread. LOL

Mike

ModellbauUK

This supplier is no secret. I've also got gliders, high wing and low wing trainers & 30cc petrol models coming in the same container. Bulk buy, keep the cost down per model, pass that on to the customer. That's good business. If our sales price isn't right they won't sell. That's simple economics. What's the big deal to you anyway? You have no idea what the price is going to be or what deals I can do on combos with retracts, turbines and radio gear. Lay off me or I will request your personal attacks be removed and by the way I haven't yet but I am getting a bit fed up with your posts.

jetster81

Like it or not Ian by presenting a known design that has lengthy threads clearly stating numerous faults simply by re naming it is asking for remarks you may not like to hear don't you think?

BaldEagel

Only if none of the numerous faults have been addressed.

Mike

siclick33

The quality of the model is not the problem. Modellbau UK looks like it was set up to bring Modellbau USA products to the UK - even the logo has been copied. It looks, from an outsider, like Ian is now trying to undercut the very company that he previously promoted.

Why not just import more Tornados? Has ModellbauUK ditched ModellbauUSA?

Seems like a rather shady business practise that would be more akin to some of the far eastern suppliers that have been so heavily criticized in the past.

BaldEagel

Not correct Modellbau USA have vehemently and constantly denied any association with the Falcon 120 and source their model from South America, the Kestrel however is the latest incarnation of the Falcon 120 sourced from China and Ian has made no secret of that.

I don't know the business circumstances between the two companies, but can guess just as you have, have Modellbau USA ditched Modellbau UK

Mike

ModellbauUK

They didn't ditch us. The deal on the new Tornado version wasn't as good as before so we decided to move on. We had to buy 50 models per shipment which we just could not finance. Simple business decision and dictated by cash flow. The Kestrel name was adopted just to differentiate the model from the original Falcon 120, which is still available, and a very different model designed for pusher props. They do come out of the same factory and have the same pedigree.

The Tornado still comes out of South America as far as I'm aware. Not that it matters to this thread.

Our main philosophy is to bring models to the market that for one reason or another other dealers have decided not to promote.

The new Aurora is a good example of this

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_11...m.htm#11318913

We also strive to sell products at the lowest price possible to remain competitive. Take a look at out website, price compare and you'll see for yourselves. The price once set for the Kestrel will be priced with this in mind. We won't sell at a loss but won't make a fortune either

Combo deals will also be available. Any one interested in securing one from the first batch please PM me.

Thanks

ian

ModellbauUK

Price finally set at £380.00, Red & Blue Schemes.

Models due to clear customs this week with 30cc Petrol Thunderbirds, SBach 342 and MS2's, Low & High Wing Trainers and a very nice glider. Keep and eye on our website for further details.

http://www.modellbauuk.com/modellbau...rel-2210-p.asp


Ian

ModellbauUK

Well that's 4 Kestrels sold, before they've even left the container at the shipyard!!!

Decals and new stock of swept back turbine mounts arrive tomorrow

Hope to have them for Classic Jets if anyone would like one let me know and I'll take them to this meeting. If they clear customs in time that is!!!

Edit: Confirmed for delivery Wednesday


Ian

tim777jet

Hi Mike (BaldEagle),
Ive been off the radar for couple of years, family health problems, but up for building another Falcon120. Just found your thread, couple of questions,

- have you seen the Kestrel fly in its prototype form, as I understand, it has a modified semi-symmetrical wing section.
- Ref weight, any idea if this airframe is heavier than the original Falcon 120, I will be using my home made turbine I had in my previous Falcons and at around 14 lbs thrust on a good day, I need a comparable light weight airframe. I think I still have the weight of all the individual subassemblies at home, for the Mk1 and Mk2 falcon so would be interesting to compare.

In advance- thanx for taking the time to start up a build thread that will benefit all, the initial Falcon thread was excellent and exciting to see what other flyers were doing to modify and improve their machines and find the weak spots, really good. ( what-ever happened to the guy who did an excellent job of turning it into a sea plane, I recall it taking off in the sea, amazing)
As I recall, I think I had around 170 flights on the first Falcon and around 130 flights on the second, both had heavy landings due to my pilot error, not the plane, but little strengthening mods around the gear and engine mount balsa block, would be welcome additions, as these were the known weak points and high hour airframes.

all the best Tim

BaldEagel

tim

Nice to hear from you after all this time, hope your family health problems are not too serious, but anything like that is serious I know.

I have the prototype Kestrel in the workshop and will weigh the individual items for you on Monday and post the results, certain modifications have been carried out to the airframe, and these will be identified during the course of the review.

To all others that are interested I am nearing completion of the review and will begin posting my findings starting the early part of the new week.

Mike

tim777jet

Hi Mike,
Found one of my old posts with weights of the Mk1 Falcon see below.
As I am still using my home built engine, with conservative restricted rpm and around 14 lbs of thrust, I have to be very weight conscious. Just for info to others, my Mk1 took a beating as I was getting used to jets and learning along the way. The Undercarriage with spring back scissor style mains and a good sprung nose are the key to making the plane last, especially taking off/ landing on grass. These are now available off the shelf, we had to use what ever we could lay our hands on and adapt.
With heavy repairs to the wings (undercarriage mounts) and nose gear frames, plus full fuel and smoke fluid, brakes, landing light, camera, extending nose leg, I could get airbourne with my 14 LB turbine off a short wet grass strip with and all up weight of around 20.5 lbs, which is very impressive.
My second Falcon was a lot lighter.

Heres the old post:-


i wanted something lightly loaded, which will fly slowly and not have any nasty vises(tip stalling). Because my engine is home built, it weighs 3 pounds without accessories, so have been looking for a model like this for a while. some rough calculations show a wing loading 38.8 oz/foot squared at 18 lbs AUW. My dry weight complete with UAT full of fuel is 14lbs 14 oz. i have tried to keep weight down as much as poss. I have ordered a carbon main spar, which should save @ 35 grms. I weighed the individual parts when the kit arrived, for info here they are Fuse - 1-045 kgs 2lbs 5 oz Booms- 255 gms 9 oz (each) wing - 575 gms 1 lb 4.25 oz (each) Canopy - 75 gms 2.5 oz Main spar 100gms 3.5 oz front spar - 20 gms 3/4 oz Tailplane - 115gms 4oz note my scales are only acurate to + or - 5 gms U/c legs and blocks (fixed) 185 gms 6.5oz optional retracts 455gms 1 lb Fuel tank 1500ml 190gms 6.75oz hanson UAT - 55 gms Although I was trying to save as much weight as possible, I fitted the opt retracts (69 UK Pounds), which added 270 gms. I used 225mg servos on rudders and flaps, but fitted one DS811 servo into the tailplane to save the weight of two servos and extra wiring. Ailerons are DS811 The Hanson UAT weighs more than I expected, the festo conection on the front is really heavy and has a really small hole in the center (1.8mm, if i remember correctly). I opened this up to 2.8mm and machined the hexagon down on the outside of the festo, this saved @ 10gms.

cheers tim

BaldEagel

All good stuff, will be interesting to see the weights of the Kestrel in comparison, which I will post on Monday in this post as an edit.

Mike

ModellbauUK

All good stuff as at the end if the day the Kestrel is just the latest incarnation of the Falcon 120 as was the Tornado.

ModellbauUK

Was good to see more of these at Classic Jets on Friday. They just fly so well and slow up for landing to enable near greaser landings. It's just a joy to fly.

They just look the part in the air and with a vt80 fitted are really quite quiet which is good as I routinely fly off a grass strip which is very noise sensitive.

BaldEagel

Guys, I am updating some of the previous posts with extra pics and information, so if you are interested go back to the beginning and take a look.

Mike
3927

EDIT to add weights:

Falcon weights first Fuse - 1045 grams Kestrel 1206grams, extra weight is in reinforcing the turbine mounting platform.
Booms- 255 gms, Kestrel Left 239grams right 261grams
Wing - 575 gms Kestrel 670 Left 698 Right
Canopy - 75 gms (to add later)
Main spar 100gms Kestrel 75grams
Front spar - 20 gms (to add later)
Tailplane - 115gms Kestrel 152grams.

Not surprisingly with all the added reinforcement on the Kestrel it weighs slightly more than the original unmodified Falcon 120, I will get my modified Falcon 120 out of the loft and see what that weighs, I know its a lot more than the Kestrel as I went overboard on the reinforcement to the wings and fus.

tim777jet

Hi Mike/Ian,
I have placed an order for a red and white Kestrel, I will be at home for around 2 weeks and will endeavour to get her built and flying during that time and try to add constructive comments during the build. I will use my existing fuel tank/engine mount/ undercarraiage and retracts/ wiring harness from my old Falcon which will speed the build.

Bit of history - my first Falcon- I had to put her down in a field in France, next to the flying site when my ailerons locked in a slight right banked manouver. Landing was pretty perfect (gear up), but the field was freshly ploughed and the nose dug in, buckling the fuse. It was my first jet and with previous repairs to nose gear and main gear mounts, to repair the fuse would have added lots of weight. I built a Mk2 falcon in my hotel room in 1 week and flew the following weekend. The aileron lock out was due to a tiny hair of a strand on the aileron wiring plug, in the fuse to wing joint, shorting from one wire to its neighbouring wire.

My second Falcon, flew beautifully with no hic-ups at all, until one day I did a low inverted pass down the strip, got to end, pushed the nose up (down elevator), no response. Rolled upright and pulled stick back and she reacted. I had lost down elevator but up elevator was working. Slowed down got flaps out and gear down and nursed her round the circuit. Plane had been airbourne for very little time, full of fuel, heavy, heavy cross wind. When I slowed down with flaps down,, there was no down elevator so plane slowed a bit too much, got to about 10 feet off the ground and mushed onto the strip. Engine and all radio survived, but gear ripped out of wings and the fuse. Could be repaired but a lot of work and weight. The cause was the elevator servo (single), nylon control arm had a hairline crack in it. When selecting down, the crack opened and the hub of the arm rode over the splined cone of the servo. Selecting up elevator allowed the crack to just about hold and grip the splines.
Both planes had been used in very high temps and below freezing flying conditions (snow/rain) with same radio equipment, for many years and many many flights, so it was just normal fatigue. Answer is to change the arms periodically or use metal arms. Note, I have never used thread lock on any servo arm securing screws, this can have a chemical reaction with the nylon servo gears and arms, never do this, we have very little vibration anyway.

cheers tim ps , Happy St Georges Day

BaldEagel

Re you point on the modified semi-symmetrical wing section, I am afraid that is a myth put out by another re-seller, the section is exactly the same as my Falcon 120, you will be able to check when you get yours.

Weights posted above, I will not be able to compare the weights of the completed wings until I have the Kestrel further advanced, I am waiting for the Olio's at the moment.

Regards
Mike

tim777jet

Hi Mike,
Thanks for clarifying the wing section non-differences

I did a search and found my old post comparing the Falcon Mk1 and the Falcon Mk2, (This is not the Kestrel). I will try to do a similar comparison with Mk2 Falcon and Kestrel

-

quote:

ORIGINAL: tim777jet

Ok, here we go,

following my incident the other week, I have built another Falcon. I bought from the same supplier and found that my original Falcon is quite a bit differnet to the Falcon sold today, see below, ( I contacted the supplier to check in case there were two different versions, turbine and piston engine)

- Then fuse is a lot thinner overall
-Fuse root area is about 1/2 the thickness of the original
-The wing structure is differnet, the ribs are thinner and the cut outs in the root area are massive compared to the original
- the Undercarrige mounting is further out
- Aileron servos in different position
- Main gear postion is about 1 inch further out board
-flap servo in different postion
- The wing is held on with two bolts instead of the original with one in each panel ( pain in the a???)
- Booms are thinner
- Canopy from original does not fit the new fuse
- Larger hatch on underside of fuse for wing aft mount bolts ( good move)
- rudders thinner
- Anchor nuts in booms are really poor, changed with the original anchour nuts which are still good (really poor)
- Fuse radio installation decking is just 1/2 thickness of original
- Tailplane bolts are a lot smaller than the original, really small diameter
- Tailplane cut out in the booms dose not have the ply doubler extending to the aft edge of the tailplane, therefore the tailplane is only bolted against the front of the boom and the mid position of the boom, not the aft part of the tailplane, ( really poor design)
- Wing spars fornt and rear, not in same postion as original
- Elevator is now built up not solid balsa, (i personaly prefer a solid item which must weigh vertually nothing more)
- The nylon horns on the original Falcon, were brilliant, the new ones are crap and should not be used, they only have 2 mount holes instead of the excellent three fixing horns of the original Falcon.
- Tailplane is a lot lighter construction, not as much balsa sheeting.


All in all the model seems to have been made a lot lighter, weather it can take the jet application waits to be seen.


DEAD URGENT, MY REAR SPAR SUPPLIED WITH THE MODEL IS TOO SHORT.

ALSO

THE FRONT SPAR IS TOO SHORT.

BOTH SPARS ARE 22 MM TOO SHORT, THEY DO NOT REACH INTO THE END RIB, THAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO REACH.

I have built this model in my bedroom of my hotel room, with limited resources and tools. I cant help thinking that Nitro Models have pulled out the stops in designing a lighter model, but I would rather have a stronger model for jet application, so the old design suits me better. I think the control horns should be binned, the root area of the wing should have double the thickness ribs in this area.
I thought that a quick change over of bits from one plane to the other would be easy, but nothing really fitted, everything is different.
The spars really worry me, everyone should check them, they should extend to the last rib, they were intended to reach. I bet yours stop short like mine.

Had real problems trying to source parts here in France especially carbon rod, so went to fishing shop and found 8 mm carbon tube which i hand sanded down to fit the inside of the front ally spar. I cut off 22 mm from my old spar and extended slightly.
I found an extending cheap fishing rod for 3 euros which was carbon, and fitted inside the rear large spar, and did the same here , extended it to reach the end rib in wing, which it was designed to reach. This is a really bad design flaw, and please please check your spars to see if they are long enough, please post on here.

One flap was slightly warped, boiled my kettle and straightened it out.

One wing tip was miles out from the aileron out board edge alignment. I had to cut the tip off and re-glue it on at the right angle

My wing to boom attachment balsa blocks, had been machined my some physco on speed, I had to make up balsa infill circles to fill the void left here and strenghen the areas.



All in all I would say to Nitro models that my first Falcon was superb, I hope this lives up to the punishment I gave the last one. I think that the work you have done in producing a lighter modelm is great but lets hope the model can take it. Nothing fits from the old model to new, there are differences everywhere, even down to the spars which are about .010 thinner, WHY, how much extra has this cost in tooling up, for what? It is really frustrating when nothing really fits and at the end of the day, I would have rather paid another say 100 pounds and had a model which was jet proof, like the original one, with decent strength in the right areas. You should throw the 2 positon horns away and go back to the old three postion horns, I personally would not use 2 bolt hole horns on an around the pole model.

Come on Nitro models, the original Falcon was brilliant, what are you doing here, why dont you supply a piston engine version, and a proper Jet version ( or the old style Falcon with stronger wing ribs etc).

Was going to fly today, but weather really bad and heavy rain, but will report on difference between this and the old Falcon soon.

All in all, still pleased with the model, I dont think you can buy a better model to power a home built engine, but would rather pay a bit more for better accessories, or drop the price and ditch the crap accessories and we will source our own.

Cheers Tim

tim777jet

Hi Ian (modelbauuk)
Received my Kestrel this morning, excellent service, thanx Ian,
I am flat out at the moment but managed to have a quick look at the parts and assemble the model quickly, it went together perfectly.
- First of all, all frames in the fuse and all visible ribs and structure in the wings, have had a fillet of glue applied, so no loose frames in the fuselage like the first Falcon's
- the undercarriage mounts in the fuse and wings, have been reinforced with carbon mesh and glue, they look a lot stronger
- The wings are fully sheeted now
- The tailplane is fully sheeted
- The elevator appears to be solid balsa, very light, but I don't think its a built up structure
- The wings have carbon cloth applied to the front spar and a section near the rear spar.
- The pick-up blocks in the wings, where the bolts attach the booms to the wing, are now a hard wood construction and not balsa
- The Booms, have been reinforced with carbon cloth along the lower half of the booms and the captive nut mounts are stronger in construction.
- The flaps, ailerons, elevator and rudders have all been slotted to take the hinges, which saves a lot of work.
_ The control surfaces have notches pre-cut to take the control horns, which are a fibre board type of horn, very nice
- Included in the kit are the original style material canopy (with nicely pre-painted frame detail) and also a new style stronger thicker material canopy
- Nice pilot included
- A fuel tank is included, which is lighter than I thought it would be (203 gms, without fittings)
- Undercarriage plastic wheel buckets for wings and fuse, look like a stronger, better type of material (less brittle)
- Tailplane is held to the booms with 2 bolts each side instead of one

All in all, very impressed with the better construction and the standard of the covering, The colour scheme looks really great, the pictures on the website do not do it justice, very,very happy.



Not so good
- The Kestrel decals on the wings are a representation of a Kestrel, not too detailed, but adequate. They have been cut out around the shape of the bird and applied well to the wings. In contrast, the lettering on the tailplane (kestrel) is really nice script, but it is simply a rectangular decal applied to the surface. It is not cut around the lettering, if you see what I mean, so just looks like a cheap decal slapped on with a few air bubbles underneath. This is a shame, it would be better to supply this decal in the kit and let the user apply it. He can cut round each letter and apply it, for a professional look, or take the easy route and simply stick it on. Just a small observation
- The elevator is handed, only because of matching up the covering colours of the top and bottom sides. The machined slots for the elevator horns, have been left covered over on the wrong side (the lower surface, instead of the top). It is a very small observation, nothing really, but trying to give a balanced view of the model.

After assembling the model, I just wanted to tear into it, get the engine on, gear fitted and go flying, it is a beautiful model, the swept wings are stunning in shape and the colour scheme really enhances the model. When you look at the construction of the internal structure of the wings and the booms, you have to take your hat off to the designers, it really is a stunning and light weight design.

I weighed the individual parts tonight, here you go;

Left wing- 683 gms
right wing -660 gms
tailplane and elevator - 140 gms
L/H boom - 245 gms
R/H boom - 250 gms
Fuselarge - 1060 gms
Rear carbon spar - 40 gms
Front Ally spar - 15 gms

cheers tim

ModellbauUK

Hi Tim

Glad you like the kit and points regarding the decals are noted

I will cut around kestrel letter decal in future before I apply it.

Ian

BaldEagel

New Oleo's have arrived and are slightly different to the originals, the brakes and wheels are now on the outside of the leg instead of inside a yoke this means they are set deeper into the wing and a small amount of modification is required to accomodate them, details in the pics, first pic shows the new Oleos fitted into the Springair retract unit with the old type long Oleos beside them, a lot of difference in length should make the Kestrel look much better on the ground and not like a Stork.

Second pic shows the area of rib in the wheel well that stops the wheel from retracting fully, the third pic shows the modified wheel well insert also modified to allow the wheel to go far enough into the wing.

Mike

EDIT: Forgot to mention the side of the wheel well insert also needs a small amount of relieving to allow for the knee joint.

BaldEagel

First pic shows the small amount of trimming needed to clear the knee joint in the Oleo's.

Second pic shows the retract laid in position waiting to be screwed in place.

Mike
5252

Jgwright

Tim

I am confused. Who are Nitro models? Do you mean the US plane retailer Nitroplanes? The plane I understand is designed and made and sold from China.

John

BaldEagel

John

I think you will find that Nitro Models UK where the first importer of the Falcon 120.

Mike
5392