G'day

I like to build my own models but I also have a fair swag of ARFs. I have a Hanger 9 1/4 scale Cub which went together well, a Sopwith Camel which was also good and a Piper Pawnee which was built by someone else but seems OK. If you think Hanger 9 kits are bad you should try some of the others.

How about -

1. steel wire that snaps when you try to bend it,
2. nuts which have not been threaded,
3. glue used so sparingly that the plane is in risk of coming apart,
4. holes drilled off centre,
5. wheels that shatter,
6. covering that won't re-tighten,
7. covering that is falling off,
8. wood called balsa that looks like old fencing material and weighs about the same,
8. hardware that is so poorly made that it would be unsafe to use,
9. firewall drilled for a mount that was completely different to the one supplied,
10 fuel tanks that split or leak
11. undercarriage wire so soft it bends on every landing,
12. wing braces that take hours of sanding to get them to fit into the wing halves
13. warped ailerons and even warped wings. I have lost a couple of planes to this problem.
14. my favourite - useless instructions some of which were quite wrong and contradicted them selves.

And so on.

I don't blame the Chinese grandmothers who build the planes. The problem lies with the people who contract to have them made and then don't follow up with quality control.

On the plus side, fixing most of these niggles is not very difficult and the result is usually a relatively cheap and effective plane.