GRANT ED

Well I ordered a TT 46 2 stroke today and am very close to ordering a GP RV-4 kit. Just want to make sure i'm not making a mistake. Has anybody here built this kit? Any opinions on this plane would be welcome.

bps

My Feedback: (3)

Yes I am building this plane. I am very impressed with the plans and instruction book. Plan on replacing some wood, (hard as a rock), and ordering the fiberglass cowl and wheel pants. I am trying to put together my wheel pants and the ones that came in my kit just will not fit together. In my opinion they are total junk. Maybe some one else has had a better time with these parts but my set was not up to Great Planes usual quality. My landing gear was not bent correctly from the factory. I called them and they replaced it no questions asked. Great customer service from this company and they have always givin this level of service. The cowl, wheel pants and wing tips are just not usable in my kit. Sad to spend 100 bucks on this 40 size kit and have to buy more parts. I am an experienced builder with many years of building under my belt. Having said this I would still build this pane again. I would suggest that GP do something with these parts though. Engine choice should be fine. Keep in touch.
JEB

tailskid

My Feedback: (34)

Built and fly one....OS .52 ....nice building kit except for the trailing edge center section (lot of work). Made mine with flaps - they a fun to play with on landing!

Used their plastic cowl for a template and ordered fiberglass cowl from Stan's Fiberglass and that was a good choice.

Jerry

bps

My Feedback: (3)

Jerry,
Could you give me the information to order from Stan's. I need the web address if he has one. Thanks for your help. I forgot to mention that I built my wing tips up as well from sheet balsa. Kit ones did not fit.
JEB

tailskid

My Feedback: (34)

JEB,

Try: www.StansFiberTech.com

Jerry

bps

My Feedback: (3)

Thanks for the information. For the money I am going to have in this plane I could have bought a quality RTF.
Thanks again,
JEB

tailskid

My Feedback: (34)

Ah, but not the REAL quality of building your own...ARF's are 'Pot Luck' ....you get what you get (and hope it wasn't built on a Friday!)...

Jerry

bps

My Feedback: (3)

Jerry,
You are correct. I truly love the building process. Just a little flustrated at the vac formed parts in this kit. They could have formed them out of a little thicker materials and wound up with some thing that at least was usable with out many hours of work to make them rigid enough to use. I used to be in the plastics forming business and this could have been easily acomplished. Still it does build a very nice plane.
JEB

GA_fanatic

I am currently building this kit as well. While the kit itself is real good there are some things that could have been better, the most obvious being the plastic parts. Great Planes could do a little better job of forming the cut lines on the ABS parts. The hardest part is seeing where you are supposed to cut! I suppose it's nothing a little trimming and A LOT of Bondo won't fix. I am almost finished with it and I sure look forward to seeing it in the air, they sure are nice looking planes.

zope_pope

Guys,
How long did it take you to build this kit? I have a friend who built his (and its a quality build and covering job) in like a week and a half!!! he amazed me but just seeing if its a really easy kit to build. I built the GP Extra 300S .60 Size and it took around 6 weeks. Let me know. Thanks!

Adam

bps

My Feedback: (3)

I would have to say this is an average build time plane. One and one/half weeks is very fast though. I am still working on mine but hope to fly this summer. (not my only project) I found a good way to do the ABS parts in this kit. I used ca to put the parts together and thin very thin fiberglass cloth for the seams. The cloth was cut and put in place and then bonded using ABS,PVC cement. Just rub the cement into the cloth with the dauber that is in the glue can. Works great and holds better than epoxy. Not to mention a bunch cheaper. Additional layers of cloth can be applied the same way.
JEB

GRANT ED

Well i picked up my kit last week and started building last night. So far so good. I'll let u know how it goes.

K_Martin

Almost finished with mine, been at it for about a week and a half. Glad to see some good pointers here, especially the part about sheeting the tail feathers. This is only my third kit, and the other kits were smaller ( 1-.049 and 1-.40). This is my first low wing and I'm very glad to hear that it 'floats' so slow on landings. I'm putting an O.S. 70 surpass in mine, anyone think it will be able to hover??

I'll keep you posted on how it all turns out.

barto

You picked the wrong plane to do such tricks, besides I don't think you will have enough pullout, you need an 80 or a 90 to do that
You should have pretty much unlimited vertical, depending on you elevation and nitro %

barto

And ofcourse the weight of your airplane

ksechler

I have been flying one for almost a year now. It is by far my favorite plane. Mine is equipped with a .46 FX which is great for sport flying. I have heard people bash the ABS parts, but if you take your time you can use what's in the kit. Mine turned out fine, but they definetely aren't as good as they could be.

kerrydel

My Feedback: (2)

I agree about the ABS parts not being great, but the kit only costs $99. So I went ahead and used them. I'm finishing the monokote on mine right now. I'm putting a OS 46 LA in mine. It's left over from my trainer. I know it won't do 3D, but that's okay, cause I prefer to see planes fly on the wing and not the prop.

Kerry

bps

My Feedback: (3)

The plastic ABS parts for the wing tips were not very good in my kit. I did use the cowl and wheel pants though. I used thin fiberglass mesh and ABS pipe cement to bond it all together and it provided a very though assembly.
JEB

GRANT ED

He he I thought this thread looked familiar. Well the RV is finished and has flown. I am very happy with it. I have fitted a TT 46 pro and performance is pretty good. Roll rate is pretty high and the rudder is quite powerful.
But yes the ABS cowling sux. I recommend putting fiberglass in the spots the screws go.