RCU Forums - View Single Post - Why no .61-.91 (4 stroke) sized ARF WarBirds???
Old 08-26-2015, 08:50 AM
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danpos
 
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Originally Posted by David Eichstedt
I wish I could share the details with you, but unfortunately they're too sensitive to share. Horizon is obviously having supply issues with their warbird supplier in this class. But the underlying cause is that the wood airplane market is much smaller than it used to be, which has put a lot of pressure on the vendor base. Foam has taken over everything smaller than 20cc. 2005-2010 were the golden years, but once China let the yuan get strong prices had to go up. That and massive increases in the minimum wage, which impacts wood airplanes more than foam due to the amount of hand labor required to produce an ARF.
I have to say I'm not a fan of foam planes any longer. I look at them as a starter plane. There is a couple of us that still fly our 50 size Corsair and P-40B planes every weekend at our local flying field.
My Corsair has a Saito 72 and the P-40B has a Saito 91. In fact I cut up the firewall in my Eflite P-51B and fly it with a Saito 56 All three fly great.
Try to find a balsa warbird that will fly well with a Saito 100. I can't.
The choices to me are to either fly foam and electric. NO! Or jump up in size to the new and heavier 60 size warbirds that require larger engines.

JeffH you mentioned kits coming back in style. The last three planes I built were kits. Two last year and one is on the bench now.