Does anyone have any experiences (personal or otherwise) with the Aircore Colt 40 SLT ??

I hope you haven't bought one already.

Vince

I don't own one, but I did see a student with one a few weeks ago.. it looked BARELY air worthy out of the box. It did fly, and it did take a beating like they say it will.. we joked that when he came in to land it was to check the fuel and replace the prop. you definately get what you pay for from what I saw.

Cheers,

FW

A friend of mine has one of these and it really flys nice for what it is. He has a bearing .40 on it and it is a great low wing trainer. It has basically taught him to land without any major repairs. I think this is a great airplane to learn the characteristics of a low wing airplane. I was impressed with how well it flew. The worst thing about it was after several flights the red paint started coming off of the plane. But, it was not a beauty queen to start with.

It's pretty obvious the first two guys have never owned or flown one. But you know what they say about opinions...

I had one for years. It was my favorite knock-around airplane, and was an absolute ball to fly. After a while it wasn't much to look at (and wasn't to start with!). It'd lost it's canopy and turtle deck, and the red markings began to streak after being covered in oil over the course of many hundreds of flights.

Mine started out with a Fox 40BB on the nose. It needed more power, so I put a 46fx on it. That was just about perfect. Once you move the CG back (way back!) the Colt just comes alive. Great spins and tumble! It was easy to do a knife-edge spin with that one. There was nothing to flattening out a spin and just watching it sink. The Colt has no nasty recovery habbits either. The only time I had a problem was with an inverted flat spin. For some reason I couldn't get it out that time, so I just let it go in like that. I was flying again 10 minutes later. Can anyone say that about their chosen balsa model? I doubt it.

It's a docile airplane when it comes to handling. No bad ground habbits, and it's great for shooting touch and goes with.

One of the changes I'd recommend is putting a servo in each wing rather than using the torque rods. There's not a lot of clearance between the aileron servo and the others with the stock setup, and you need a high-torque servo if you're going to go with just one.

It was a fine airplane, and I'll likely buy another at some point.

There are much better trainers out there, such as the Sig LT40. The key to a successful training program is getting an instructor that can teach you to fly without crashing, not to get an aircraft that is barely airworthy hoping to survive a crash. I have personal experience with the Aircore line, and I would not recommend any of them to a new flier.

Vince

I've had a Colt 40 for a long time, it's a great flyer. I have a Fox .50 on it, if you have it anywhere near the runway when you pull the throttle back it will land by itself. Loops are big and graceful, rolls are not pretty, takes off are smooth as an airliner.

This is a great little knock around plane. I used one as an engine/radio test bed until it fell apart. It would land softly in a flat spin. Ugly, but definately a good plane.

Mark M.

IF you build it right, it flies right
I had one (lost in swamp now) it flies good, I don';t know if anybodya had made the clipped wing versio, should impove roll rates.
I agree it's no beauty queen but it flie smooth and graceful, and as building goes it's easier to build than the balsa/plywood model because it has less pieces and such pieces are less likely to get damaged, in the air doesn't look bad either!!!
regards,
Patrick

Thank-you for your info, guys.

Finally had to fly my Aircore into a large tree to kill it. Plane was a lot of fun to learn with and fly. Pretty cryptic instructions for building but that's part of learning as well. I got a few negative comments, but most of them were from guys who show up with a scratch built pile of junk or arf builders who had a lot of parts left over. Go for it!