Chuck,
Thank you for taking the time to post. I have added parts of your secon paragraph below and addressed your concerns in red:
I still haven't finished mine, about 90% done but this is my 4th Aeroworks airplane and I have to say the quality has gone down. The fit and finish are excellent but they have used super thin balsa sheeting in a lot of places, one place is where the wings go in to the fuse, I've put my finger through several times, that's how cheap it is.
The wing saddle joint is not structural, we elected to use thin balsa in this location to help save weight as well as to create the air-foiled shape. It is advised that the airplane not be picked up in this area.
Another area is where you put the fuel dot and switch, cheap balsa that I had to reinforce and the fuel dot is cheap, you glue it in and when the fuel dot is in the fuel line using the recommended 1/8 i.d. , it won't fit, even when I put Vaseline on the line as instructed, it is a bad fuel dot and remember the cheap balsa it goes into, it is getting crushed while trying to put the fuel line into the plane since fuel dot doesn't fit when inserted into the fuel line, bad design, cheap hardware.
The supplied fuel dot does fit a little tight when using 1/8" fuel tubing, we have found that slightly drilling out the fuel dot can help the fuel tubing slide in and out easier. We also suggest upgrading the fuel dot to the one supplied in our fuel line installation kit, this can be found on page 40 of the manual. As for the balsa sheeting, our sheeting size has never changed on the fuse sides for any of our airplanes. We use this size to help maintain strength but to also save weight.
Another area is in the fuse behind the cowl where you have to cut a vent hole and it is the same super cheap balsa.
See my answer in regard to the fuel dot above.
Another issue I see is the hardware for attaching the elevators the the fuse, looks pretty cheap and my previous Aeroworks planes always had great hardware.
I am not sure exactly what you mean by this? We have always used the same 7075 Aluminum tubes and 4-40 bolts/bonded washers to attach our stabs to the fuse. Nothing has changed in this area since we stared the QB series in 2005.
Another issue for anyone using gas, as I am, Aeroworks does not supply any gas tubing with their plane.
We elected to stop supplying fuel tubing back in 2009 due to inferior quality from overseas. We would rather the customer purchase their own tubing that they feel comfortable with then tubing that will become stiff and can cause an engine out situation.
I love Aeroworks and their planes fly great but I do not like to see them skimping on quality to save a buck, these planes have to last for awhile so they need to have good wood, sturdy wood not just look good.
I can assure you were have not skimped on quality to save production costs. We do strive to keep our airplanes as light as possible, that is why we use the highest grade balsa we can get, this balsa is considerably lighter than many other manufacturers but that does result in it being slightly more fragile than the lower balsa grades.
I hope this has answered some of your questions and concerns, please let me know if there is anything else I can do for you!
Mark Dennis
Aeroworks
(303) 371-4222 Ext 105
[email protected]