I love these Vmar threads! The best reading on RCU.

I want to share a story about my Vmar Aero Subaru. When I first got the Plane,and opened the box I really thought I had bought a pretty descent Plane. The design looked pretty neat, and the covering didn't have a wrinkle anywhere, and the Plane was really done up neat looking with the graphics incorparated into the covering. What in the world were all these RCU folk talking about?

Well a couple days into the assembly process I found that the Planes inside structure was not glued up to my satisfaction. It was sorely lacking in properly glued joints. Then I also noticed that the covering started to develop a few sags. No big deal though I thought. I will just iron them out. IRONING THAT COVERING JUST CREATES MORE WRINKLES I found out. I then used the heat gun with a little success, but the iron had caused so many creases that I was unable to get them all out.

Finally I finished the Plane, and had a new engine installed and my Radio Equipment installed. It was ready for a maiden at the field. I took it to the field, and did all my preflight checks, and was ready to put it in the air. A few other people were there and they commented on how nice the Plane looked, and they to found it kind of hard to believe that so many people disliked these Planes. I told them that I had to do a little extra gluing and that the covering was causing some problems, but other than that I thought the Plane was probally going to be OK. So out to the runway I went with it. Ready to put on the big maiden show of my Vmar Aero Subaru. I throttle her up, and down the runway she goes tracking straight as a string, and just as I go to feed in some up elevator, the firewall, and engine flop out of the front of the Plane with the Plane about 5 feet off the ground. The Plane comes down, and inflicts some minor damage to the wing. Any potential Vmar fans that day, including myself quickly discovered that what everyone was saying about these Planes held some truth.

Anyway I take the damaged Plane over to the side lines, and drag out my little Great Planes Super Sportster and fly it the rest of the day! At the end of the HOT day as I go to load up, and head home, I now notice that the covering on the Vmar has some serious sags inflicted from the hot sun. Man, what a first experience. I had glued everything within reach inside the fuse, but I had neglected to reinforce the firewall, and now I had some damage to fix, and some more tedious work with the heat gun.

To give this potentially tragic story a happy ending, I will share with you the reader that I fixed the Plane, reinforced the heck out of it, and now have a ton of good flights with it. I have had to replace constantly warping jungle wood pieces like the ailerons, and some pieces on the tail, but actually I enjoy flying the Plane very much, and it has held up well after much reinforcing, but I would never ever buy another, and would not recommend this Plane to anyone unless they are looking for something to just hang from the ceiling and look pretty for awhile until the covering sags. I am not here to knock Vmar, or be mean. I am just stating a fact that the quallity is just not that good with these Planes.

I have included a few photos of the Plane in this story.