ORIGINAL: Hill202
That's right, I forgot about that, you have to print the manual yourself if you want a printed copy. They pitch that like its a plus but I'm sure it's cheaper to send it on disk than it is on paper.
If I had caught some of these issues sooner maybe I would give them a chance to correct them. It's really not worth stripping it down and boxing it up to return it.
But it is enough to make me think twice about buying another one of their planes.
I found the shipping to be a big issue due to the cost. I recently purchased a "good deal" or "blowout sale" plane from someone in the US on the west coast. Talk about disapointed even for a blowout sale! The hinges were so bad that I honestly wondered if the plane would fly, not too mention many other issues. None of the hardware would even work. No bolts fit anything and appeared as if they were not even made for this ARF at all. There were no bolts/screws for the horns. The screws included did not fit anything on the plane.
Screw holes were drilled at such angles they had to be re-drilled larger and bushing used or use larger bolts. Hinges were drilled at angles and bound up. Some hinges had two holes drilled and they did not even cover the hole they did not use! It had a pull-pull cable but no hardware to set it up. The axles would not go through the wheels, so there was no way to put a wheel collar on them to secure them. The vendor said all the planes had aluminum wing tubes, but this one had some alloy junk and you could bend it without hardly trying. There were no landing gear bolts, no wing bolts, etc.
I kept thinking to myself, I better remove the hinges instead of chancing hinge tape. Wow...good thing I did. I started removing them and I could take a small pair of plyers and pulled all of the hinges out of both sets of ailerons! All but one had little to no glue on them and fell right out. The only decent thing on the entire plane was the covering job. Other than the covering the workmanship was horrendous! Outside of shipping damage this plane should have been sent back to the manufacturer, or thrown in the trash, and someone else BESIDES THE BUYER eat it. The consumer all too often winds up taking the hit on this junk. If it would have been advertised for what it was and I bought it then that would be my problem.
After I sent pictures the dealer he finally agreed to send wings if I would package and send the wings out so he could re-hinge and put them in another unit. I appreciated the offer and certainly understood, but the problem I ran into was packaging and shipping cost. So I bit-the-bullet on this one and won't buy from the supplier again nor advise any of my fellow pilots to buy from the supplier. Can you imagine how much money will be lost because of the shoddy workmanship of this single sale on one airplane? Once I get done, I will have almost the cost of a decent airframe like AW, Goldwing, Pilot, Great Planes, etc.
Just to mention, I have had some slight issues with the major vendors, but nothing that comes close to this. A decent plane like I purchased will go for around 300-450. I did get this one for 200. If I would have seen this plane at a swap meet, I would have paid 125-150 tops! Will I have 300 or more in it? Yes, absolutely! And some things you cannot change on a junky plane. I know a lot of folks will say, "We told you so" however this is from a reputable dealer and not CMP, Nitroplanes, or Hobbyjunk sites and the dealer on this particular plane raves of the quality on their web site! I suppose that even disapoints more.
At any rate, hopefully you wont' get another plane in that condition from AW. They are a good outfit. I have a friend that has about 5 or more AW planes and all have been quite good. Keep us updated on the results.