I received my Can Do .46 yesterday--and it is the second worst put-together ARF I've ever had (Lanier's Dart takes first in that regard, pitiful): 1) I spent an hour trying to get all the wrinkles out of the UCD's monokote, no good, left those tell-tale, however narrow, wrinkles. Virtually every surface, especially the LE of the wing, cCAN'T be tightened, smoothed--and I know how to do that, built many a plane; 2) the two-bolt saddle, receiver, for the wing is OBVIOUSLY out of kilter with the fuse (that was a return-no return issue for me--if the wing was out of kilter, too. It wasn't!?); 3) the ribs for the top of the fuse do NOT fit into their three-sided holes on the former. There has to be 3/32" of space there, so the ribs are only contacted on two sides. Bummer; 4) the fuel tank wouldn't fit into the fuse until I took about 3/32nds off the upper cross support--which weakens the whole foreward end; 5) the forward pivot, dowel, for the wing wouldn't fit the fuse until I sanded the dowel down--quite a bit.

Did you guys find these production problems for the UCD .46? For $!50, that's a really poorly produced ARF. All my Hangar 9 Twists ($99), even Tower's Uproars ($89) have been near perfect. What gives with Great Planes?

I called Great Planes to complain. Naturally, they said they would replace the bird IF I returned it. I have to FLY it Saturday. And it will be a bird I shall not be proud of.

GP recommends 50 oz/in torque servos. Futaba S3004's are 44 oz/in. I'll use those, because I have them. Need I worry? They also recommend a servo reverser, expensive, for the elevator servos, but if you just turn one servo around, they work in the same direction. I did that with my UCD .60 and had no trouble. Is GP just trying to get our money, or is there very good reason for all the expensive hardware?

Very pissed,

Jack