bokuda

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I'm considering a Flair 1/4 scale DR 1 kit. Anyone have any experience with this kit? Flair kits in general? Quality? Flyability?

Thank you.

wagas

My uncle has one. Great kit, flies great (yes, it is typical for them to nose over on landing so don't feel bad when you do it) He flies his with OS twin 1.60. Good luck I'm tring out the Balsa usa kit myself. I've got it and plan to start on it this year.

wagas

another pic of it flying

p38nut

My Feedback: (6)

I'm building the BalsaUSA kit my self and it's great. Don't start this kit unless you like building lots of wings and painting a lot. Mike

bokuda

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Thank you guys.

Actually, I built a 1/4 scale DR-1 years ago from WE Technical plans, which were terrible! Their shop drawing dimensions didn't match the main plan among many other problems...

I am also curious about the Balsa USA kit. I built several of their kits years ago too. One was the 1/3 scale Pup which I framed up for a friend and one was a sailplane. The quality of the kits was quite poor, I thought. Have they improved? How do your DR-1 kits look?

The flair kit is the same price and they seem to have a better reputation. Comments?

Dave

bokuda

My Feedback: (7)

A scan of the DR-1 I built. I regret selling it because now I want another one like it. It was a lot of work!

It's my first time trying to add a photo to this forum; hope it works.

Dave

bokuda

My Feedback: (7)

I'll try one more time to attach that image!

Dave

wagas

Where did you get the color scheme for that one? I'd tell you how I'm doing mine but it's top secret. I'll give you a hint. It'll be transparent. I'm not in it for the scale, I'm in it for the fun and getting ooooowwwws and aaaaaws from the younger genereation and the "I can't beleive that whiper snapper ruined a perfectly good scale airplane" from the old guys. He he.

bokuda

My Feedback: (7)

The color scheme for the DR-1 posted above came the cover of a plans catalog put out by Model Airpane News some time ago. I saw several photo's of this plane after that. Replitech has a few photos of this plane, which I obtained.

One of the photos from a magazine had a caption that the pilot was Jim Appleby. Jim is a well known vintage aircraft builder and restorer. He's performed in a lot of movies like The Great Waldo Pepper etc. too.

I loved that color scheme. It also appealed to me because this was an exisiting DR-1 so the color scheme could be verified and made accurate. One photo clearly showed a tailwheel on it too! So I was happy to put one on my model without guilty feelings!

I contacted Mr. Appleby by phone and he was kind enough to provide me with color chips so I could match the paint. I had latex paint mixed to match. He also included a sketch of the instrument panel.

Sad thing is he repainted this plane for promoting Red Baron Pizza! He crashed it and was seriously injured. Spent some time in a hospital.

My personal life took a sudden downturn and I wound up selling the model at the WRAMS show to a hobby dealer from New Jersy who said he was going to hang it up in his shop. As far as I know it is still there and has never been flown.

Now I'm back in the hobby and want to another DR-1 with that color scheme.

robert

As for flair quality, I have a couple of their kits, and they still fly very well. (One didn't fly since 1990 when I got it, but still goes strong!)

ron45

My Feedback: (1)

Here is mine ( flair dr1 ) had a st.90, now has a maloney 100 and still flies great.