ORIGINAL: mikedenilin


I am now in China and just doing what you had just said - bridge the gap. I have the opportunities to visit almost every jet factory over there frequently to cherry pick jets for our members. I have seen a lot of improvements from all of these factories in the past few years. On RCU, you heard a lot more complaints than praises. The ones that got good jets don't normally show up here and say it. Collectively we heard more of negative comments here. The sales volume speaks itself. If they are not giving value to the customers, why do people keep buying them? Mercedes has better quality than Hyundai, then why Hyundai outsells Mercedes? It's the overall perceived values.

Jack has pretty much said about the things you should do. Here are the things that I suggest

1. The ARF JETS should be considered Semi-ARF. - There are many factory installed options. However, to improve the reliability of your jet, you should take most of the hardware, landing gear apart and put grease, threat locker, and clean up burs, dirts, paint chips, etc. You get to be more familiar with the parts that go into the planes and know that they will not come out in the air. Taking them apart and put them back in is easy, even I can do it. The factory installation has given you a good reference as where to put it back. This is still a lot easier than trying to build a plane from a kit and ensure that no parts are coming loose in air.

2. Get an inspection camera and use it to inspect internal structures regularly. Do it more if you are using Gyros. They induce internal stress more than jets without them. If there are defects, the factories that we are working with would be very happy to replace them for you within the warranty period. You must think like an aircraft mechanic. It's easier and cheaper to service it routinely than try to repair it.

I did some calculations and found that if we want to use the same building procedures and QC standards that the full-size aircraft companies use, the cost of each ARF would be about 3 to 4 times that we are currently paying for. It's doable, but would it be affordable? It depends on how deep your pocket is. Right now, at this stage of Jet era, it's better to budget some of your time to lightly disassemble and ''optimize'' your jets. The time that you can open the box and imnmediatley go fly a jet that costs less than 5K(turbine included) without any issue is still not here yet. We are still working on that.

Mike