RE: Giant Model Products Introduces a 50cc GeeBee R3 ARF
We ordered two of these beauties, the 50cc version at Toledo, and with great anticipation they arrived yesterday. Both boxes arrived in good shape with the kits, fairly well packed and the contents secured. Unfortunately, we found damage to both models.
The wood ring formers on both cowls were cracked, wood missing, with the fiberglass on one cowl being dented and cracked. The thin wood formers were not even glassed to the inside of the cowls, rather just spot glued in place. Not too tough of a fix as new cowl formers can be easily be traced and fabricated out of thicker, better quality wood. The broken cowl however cannot be fixed.
The covering seams on one of the fuselages are really bad and I'm not sure if they can be fixed without doing a re-cover. I was surprised at this as film covering is one part of ARF manufacturing that the Chinese have really mastered in recent years. Additionally, there was a broken and loose former on one of the fuses. I would recommend that a complete inspection be done on the fuse framework to identify any loose glue joints. One of the wheel pants was also cracked
The canopy/turtltedeck on one model is bent and cracked. Not sure if it can be repaired.
All in all we're a bit dissapointed . We were actuallly thinking about doing a written reveiw of this model after we got them airborne. In our discussion with Gerry at Toledo, he assured us that ALL models were thouroughly checked out prior to being shipped by GMP to the customer. Looks like a couple must have slipped throught the cracks. This is obviously a first run,new ARF product and some problems are to be expected. Rarely do the manufacturers get it right the first time, no matter what country they are made in. Having said that, we're probably going to send one model back to GMP and just build the one. For the price we paid, there's just too much repair work needed to make it right.
I'm sure we'll get a good response back from GMP as they seemed to be honest and very focused on customer support.
Good flying,
paul