patrnflyr

My Feedback: (7)

As I've already mentioned above, no problems with Dreamworks or BVM so far. I had the Dreamworks in my Élan which I regrettably sold this last winter. We even did the electric conversion. Loved them. I just wished ALL of our gear worked like this.

patrnflyr

My Feedback: (7)

AMEN! Chris

Chris Nicastro

My Feedback: (3)

Thanks, just being honest and sharing my experience in the industry.

Another example; I had a company that makes fiberglass boats look into making full fiberglass 60 size warbirds. So, wings and fuse all fiberglass with polyester resin, laser cut wood parts, painted, boxed, manual, landed cost = $150 each. No retracts but Robart ready.
I designed everything and provided all the info to the factory. I toured the factory and saw the production areas for boats and future area, entire floor of a huge building, that was gearing up to make planes anyway. I just wanted to get us into the fray early on to establish a relationship and to control quality.
In the end the deal didnt materialize for a couple reasons but the fact is I got full composite warbirds priced competitively.

Production workers on the lines make very little money and live onsite in apartments and work in 8hr shifts 24/7. Designers that can draw parts in CAD make something like $25-30K per year depending experience, education and if they speak other languages. One of our guys made about $35K but he translated and helped coordinate projects.
I spoke with the owner of Walkera one time and asked a kind of stupid question. I said in the US we have a minimum wage of $5.75/hr (several years ago) do you have something like that? He laughed and said "$5.75 an hour!?! They dont make $5.75 a week!!"
That was interesting dinner conversation and it stuck with me ever since.

This is what your dealing with and typically the designers dont use the products they produce.

lawrence b

I have been a fan of pneumatic gear ever since the early 80's with the Rom-Air and Spring Air gear. I have several large scale models that I scratch built and have had Lenny at Shinden Machine custom machine retracts for me. I have had very little problems with the air set up. I decided to try converting a set of Lenny's gear to electric so I sent them off to Mitch at Down & Locked. I have been fighting the electric gear since last November until I finally gave up. After a couple of nice gear up landings and several times failing to retract I'll never go electric again! Mitch has been fantastic with his help and service but his gear still fail to work reliably, so I have given up on electric for now. I have spent close to $900 on the gear that don't work, and to the best of my knowledge the electric parts are not made in China.
I attached a photo of my last beautiful gear up landing, all it did was rub a small bit of paint off of the radiator, you can see the R/H gear never did retract all the way up before the motor burned out.
Larry B

Jgwright

Larry

For sure the electric motors and gearboxes will have come from China. I cannot believe that small electric motors and small gearboxes are made anywhere else these days, certainly not in the USA.

I too have had poor experience with electric. I think that they just install too weak motors and gearboxes. All works fine on the ground but will not work reliably in the air.

Pneumatics are a problem with the larger planes and I even made my own ones with large commercial pneumatic cylinders and larger trunnion action. They worked great on the bench but not in the air.

My final conclusion is that Hydraulic is the way to go for the really large models and those where pneumatics do not work. I have it working ready for my next plane and 2 of my friends locally have them fitted in Mick Reeves Hunters.

John

4ptroll

My Feedback: (35)

The Elan will be back in stock early September.

Kindly,

Larry Roper
Boomerang RC Jets