RE: Skymaster F-86 1/5 first products
My 1st F-16 bought in 07. In addition to the usual problems of rudder flutter and weak center beam, the rear gear former was glued in crooked. Had to make a shim to true up the former and gear.
The 2nd F-16 I bought a couple of years ago and the elevator shafts were sticking way out. I contacted SM, who always got back to me quickly, and said to cut the ends off until they fit! When I replied, I told him that the issue was the shafts were not put in the stabs correctly. Anton got back to me and told me to send them back and he would exchange them, which he did. They forgot to paint the "eye" on the Lion head.
My F-4 did not have the rudder servo mount installed, even with all the QC stickers. I ended up making a mount. The wing spar tube(s) are slightly misaligned making it very difficult to mate the rear of the root to the fuse side.
The F-86:
Replaced all the servo covers, none of them were even close to fitting, way to small.
The slats were bowed, both up and down and front to back. I know this is/was a common problem and some people cut the slats and realigned them
The LG mounts were not drilled for the gear. When I asked for a template, they said to check with the dealer who had no idea of the correct hole locations. Finally, I scaled up some pictures and guessed the location. I was close but not exactly correct, I'll have to live with it.
The painter missed several areas that should have been painted.
And on and on.
On the positive side, my buddy who owns a body shop was very impressed with the paint job and masking, SM did a really good job.
Here's a pic of one of the paint issues.
Jon
PS: Make sure you order some touch up paint. With out the paint, I never would have been able to touch up the paint issues. The touchup paint matched the original paint perfectly.