chrisrafter

Disgusted. Disillusioned. That's all I can say I feel after 3+ weeks building this thing (Flatouts CAP 580) and having it fly for 20 seconds then crash, out of control yesterday. This was my first build, and I learned a lot, so much so in fact that I could probably re-write the manual (doubling its size) and probably get a good build out of the kit, knowing what I know now.

Blame my newness, lack of experience, which I freely admit, but SHOULDN'T I be able to follow the instructions (including reading them completely through several times) and get a halfway decent experience out of this kit?

This is my 4th plane, definitely the least ARF I've ever attempted (how they can call this an ARF is well beyond me).

I appreciate and was sucked in by the $24.99 price. How bad could it be? $25? Heck. Well, technically yes, but count the additional $15 on foam-safe CA, kicker, tape, and extra parts.

In theory, and with an experienced builder, this kit could be very nice, IF everything came together correctly.

1. CONTROL SURFACE LINKAGES: WORST EVER! UGH!!!

By far the worst feature is the control surfaces. They don't tell you there's a technique to installing those mini clips to the carbon bar. You have to keep pressure on the two "jaws" or else they will crack. It also helps to approach the bar at a 45 degree angle, approaching the bar with the side edge of the clip's jaws. It probably changes the flex requirement by maybe a third of a millimeter, but it is the difference between breaking and not breaking.

If I had it to do over, I would glue the carbon bars to the top of the wing instead and use actual control hinges inside the foam, the "snaps off in a crash" claim is BS, those little suckers will either break, separate or the foam will crack before they "snap off". Had they used even a slightly more flexible type of plastic, it might work, but these guys are very brittle.

2. PUSHRODS, Z-BEND THINGS + CONTROL HORNS! 2nd worst thing.

Some real manufacturing tolerance issues here. We have a simple-sounding 3 part assembly: a nice carbon push rod, plastic z-bend ends that get glued to either end of the pushrod, and plastic control horns that the z-bend ends snap into, which in turn connect to either the servo head and the plane control surfaces. BUT - Not a single part fits the way it should out of the box. Why? The manual tells you to hone the edges of the carbon rods with sandpaper so they fit through the z-bend ends. I succeeded in turning mine into a sharp spike that nearly skewered my finger several times trying to push it though the z-bend end. It still didn't fit. Then I wondered why I was sanding the hell out of a 10 inch, 1/2 millimeter thick carbon rod, weakening it, when I could just make the damn hole a smidge larger. Then the z-bend things don't "snap" into the control horns unless you drill the hole a bit larger. But guess how you get to discover this?

You haven't experienced fun until you've glued in your entire aileron assembly, then snap the top off of each control horn in turn trying to get the damn z-bend things in. This is not tight because it needs to be a friction joint, either. They tell you to use CA to lock each joint. Would it kill them to mold them a hair bigger so I could get the parts in? If you drill out the control horns and use a micro-drill to drill out the z-bend ends, the parts fit together a lot better, then comes the glue. How hard would it be to either TELL YOU THIS, or better, manufacture them correctly?

2. THE TAIL

The front of the plane is not so bad. I was actually impressed with the foam doublers on the firewall to where I mounted my outrunner. Even though it's just foam, glue and a small wooden mounting plate, it's solid. The tail, however, is another story. It's pretty lean. The elevator is not too bad, but my rudder needed a lot of reinforcement. Gluing a carbon rod to a piece of foam 5" long edgewise EFFECTIVELY, where you can only use glue on about 50% of the surface (due to the hinges) is a tall order. Were I to do it again, I would put a reinforcement bar at the very bottom of the rear fuse and bottom of the rudder (this area is prone to scraping on the ground, and it's just raw edged foam. It would have been nice to have a stiffener bracket or something to bolster the raw foam along the bottom of the rear-fuse. They did a great job of this on the front with the foam doublers, where the outrunner mounts. Those make the foam very stiff and durable.

3. FOAM SAFE CA and KICKER

I learned a lot about this material. First, it rarely bonds instantly, unless you are using a pinhead size amount. The kicker helps (I used a clean printer-ink syringe with the needle crimped flat by pliers to apply it, this gave me a hair-thin stream of the stuff and great control with applying it.) The CA itself actually works OK, especially when you let it dry on its own (w/o kicker). The kicker worked, but it also seemed to shrink the CA slightly, causing it to curl up and pull off a bit from the surface. Wasn't huge, but sometimes you want the glue to stay exactly where you put it.

4. BATTERY LOCATION

So the heaviest single item, (the battery), is located off-center. Not sure why this is designed this way. I pushed it up as tight against the centerline as I could. The manual tells you to counterbalance it, but then you're adding weight. WHat would have been wrong with. The servos are all located along the plane's centerline, they counterbalance. Wouldn't it have been smarter to put the servos on one side (where practical) to counterbalance the battery's weight? I was really, really tempted to cut a hole in the center of the fuse so I could center the battery. I was worried about doing so, but after witnessing its first flight, this is necessary if you are using anything larger than a featherweight 350 mAh lipo. On mine, I will probably cut a hole in the fuse above the center carbon spar, right below the grey cockpit, and secure the battery flat somehow, maybe with a velcro belt or rubberbands.

So yes, this kit could be pretty good. IF you spend about $30 on some extra parts, like real control horns and pushrods. That will remove a lot of the stress in building this thing as well, especially if you can learn from this thread on where to listen to the manual and when you should go off on your own and do something differently. Great Planes should hire 2 editors, take this thread, which is in the public domain, and re-engineer this kit. Doing so will give buyers a much more satisfying and successful building experience.