While on the subject of VMAR I thought I should add a few comments about the old VMAR Stick 60. Though I can't comment a whole lot about the Aero Subaru I have because it does not have sufficient Flight Time to make a good analysis, I can post a few comments about the Old Vmar Stick 60. The Old Vmar Stick 60 has very thin slab sides which can virtually be puntured just by picking the Model up. Also the tail section of the fuse is extremely weak. I had to build a Ply Collar around the back part of the fuse on the Vmar Stick 60 to keep it from busting off. Being a Tail Dragger the tail will not handle the stress of Takeoffs,landings, and Taxi's. I can safely put this Plane on the list of ARFS to avoid at all cost.

How about other Flair kits?

My father has a Sig LT-40 ARF. Great flying plane, well built.
I have a Sig Kadet Senior ARF that I use as a wireless video platform. Well built and a great flyer.
I would recommend Sig.

Dont know if anyone has checked, but Ricardo sells ARF's himself so is in direct competition with the Asian ARF makers.
Not exactly going to have an objective opinion on the subject...

I have the model tech Dragon Lady and she flys real nice. The covering is ultracote and I have not had a problem with it. Our weather here in Tenn. gets pretty hot (90+) and the covering is holding up nicely. Won't ever recover a plane till the covering goes bad so it still has original on it and is over a year old. Was disappointed that the advertisement said the plane was a 60 size though, and she performs best with a 120 magnum in her. Had a vmar edge 540 and destroyed it. The plane is made of wood something like balsa but must be some local cotton wood and bamboo. The plane was too heavy and the cg was too hard to find. My vote is on vmar products.

I recently purchased the ModelTech Magic. The following design and kitting mistakes were noted:
Rudder and Elevator pushrod connectors are the wrong size.
Fuel tank does not fit into fuselage properly. Mounts in at a rearward sloping angle of 15 degrees.
Landing gear is weak and breaks easily. Recommended mounting method of landing gear of 4 small screws is weak also. I modified the landing gear.
The worst item is that the fuselage is constructed in two pieces joined just behind the trailing edge of the wing. After about 30 flights this fuselage splice cracked and I was able to land it with considerable effort. I have written to ModelTech requesting a replacement airplane. If I get the new plane I will reconstruct the fuselage joint.

Other than that the airplane performs very well in the air. The airplane only costs $99. When I complained to the dealer about the defects he said that "What can you expect for $99"? I believe that we can expect at least the correct parts in a kit and can expect basic good construction.

awleder, don't count on getting a new plane from them....I had many problems with a Magic Extra, and I worked them out......but in the instruction manual, there was a quality survey about the plane.....so I filled it out, and gave them my thoughts on the plane. (I won't go into all the problems that I had, but I had A LOT). Within a week, I had a letter from Modeltech.........I wouldn't even call it a letter, it was more like a "nastygram". They defended their product to the end, and said that I must have gotten "old stock". They didn't take responsibility for one of the errors on the plane, even though NUMEROUS people on this forum had the same problems......It wasn't like I was asking for a new plane....I just filled out a survey. In my opinion, that was extremely unprofessional of them.

You are right. That sure don't sound to professional exspecialy when they are the ones who wanted your opinion. A manufacturer shouldn't put out a survey if they are not willing to accept how a customer might answer that survey. Shame on Model Tech if they truly treated a customer this way! Customer Service is very important to me, and I have personally always had good experiences with Tower Hobbies. Sometimes I pay a little more by buying from them, but they have always been great to me whenever I ever had a problem. Thats worth a couple extra bucks to me to have a little peace of mind that a retailer will actually backup what they sell.

Since VMAR took a heavy bashing here I wanna say that I saw a few doing its maiden flight today:

VMAR 3D - plane is light flies ok but will tip stall at ow speeds. What 3D plane is suppose to tip stall at a slow speed???!!!

VMAR CAP 232 (40) - plane is not to scale with a high aspect ratio wing but flies darn fast on a TT46 and goes into turns very very nice!!! This plane is a good one to own.

VMAR Donier - flies very scale like with a Saito 72. Worth buying.

Still I am biase ... I like well built planes! Heheheee ...

great to know all this fellas..in fact today a friend came to a meet and showed me his extra 300 from giantscale planes..he had mostly negative things to say.sooooooooo turn this around I am about to buy a satio 150 and desperately want a great arf to fly.so what is good??

It's all about personal preference and flying style to decide which would be best for your Saito 1.50, but if I had that engine on my bench(and I don't, but wish I did), I would like to have a Hangar 9 Super Cub ARF. A slow fly by with that Mello Sounding Saito onboard would be shear delight! I have a 4 stroke Magnum which I think sounds pretty nice until someone at the field fires their Saito up. Kind of like a Honda next to a Harley. Both run nice, but nothing can compare to the sound of a Hog.

Personally had luck with SIG, Hangar 9 and Great Planes.

My Vmar Aero Subaru went in yesterday. Just seconds after take off it tip stalled massive to the left, and not all the amount of right aileron could get it out once it started to go over. It is my thought that I should not have split the ailerons for flaps. There just isn't enough control surface on this Plane once you split the ailerons to do you any good to get out of a bad situation. I don't think the best pilot could have saved it. It just didn't have any control authority, and had a mind of its own more or less. The firewall came completely off the front of the Plane. It came off in one complete piece breaking loose all the glue joints. This tells me that it was not glued or supported good enough at the factory. Hardly any broken wood at all. Its just like the front of the Plane was tacked together with Elmers Glue. Every Glue Joint on the Front of the Plane Failed. One thing about it, the Plane will be easy to fix by doing some good gluing with epoxy and CA, but this should have all been done correctly at the Factory. I will fix the Vmar and fly it again, but I will also say that I will NEVER buy another one. Live and Learn I guess. A tip to anyone who owns this Plane: Check all your glue joints! The glue is either inferior or they just don't use enough of it. Also forget about setting it up for flaps. This Plane just don't fly well enough to sacrifice 50% of your Aileron Surface. Lucky for me I had my Great Planes Super Sportster with me that flies like it is on rails. It really makes me appreciate my Great Planes Model more after flying the Vmar. I tried to be objective about the Vmar, but objective is out the window now! Please avoid this ARF AT ALL COST!!! When a Plane crashes like that you should see splinters of wood everywhere, and not a pile of pressed out whole kit pieces without no glue. Maybe some might think that a good thing, but I do not. The best flying Plane with glue joints like that will never hold up to years of high stress manuvers. If all you fly is gentle lazy circles then one may last awhile, but I even have trouble believing that.

Kangaroo ... you are most right about the glue joints. It can be a blessing in disguise. On Sunday on of the newbies lost control his VMAR trainer on landing and the plane kinda "tip stalled". The plane came down on its side. When he retrieved it the wing came off, broke at the wing bolt brackets (just like it should). All the other firewalls broke free of the side of the fuse. It was obvious that the joints were not well glued, however by breaking it allows the crash to be 'cushioned' also. A blessing in disguise?

I have a spa3d and so does my brother. mine has no fuse flex. but i can't stand to fly my brother's. it flexes so bad its scares me. and they WILL do 3d. i have a 6 year old tower 40 on mine and it will hover no problem...

Just to muddy the waters a bit more -- I don't have a VMAR model, but a good friend has a VMAR Harvard II (his second one- he lost one when it tip stalled in a landing approach). It is powered by an OS .46 FX & it looks great & seems to fly pretty well. It is about 8 wks old so far & hasn't broken anything yet. I have flown a few "dogfights" against it with my Blackhorse Spit & it doesn't fly nearly as well as the Spit, but it still flies well enough for the owner to like it. Maybe they have improved.

The Blackhorse Spit was not recommended either, but with a few stab/elev mods, it has turned out to be a real winner.

Are you saying the Seagull 540 Edge is crap....I think you're blind,I have one and it went together without a hitch and looks GREAT!
It is just as nice as ANY Hanger 9 or World Models or GP in that size!
Thats my 2 cents[>:]
If you got a bad one,maybe the builder had a little to much saki the night before.

I have heard people say KYOSHO arfs are sooooo good,I have had bad kits from them too,wing would not fit to the wing saddle,
wing did not glue up together without extensive sanding and fileing, the wood in the elevator was cracked and hung limp and that was just in one kit,I bought another kit of the same about a year later and everything went together fine.

I've owned the Model Tech CAP 21 and was totally satified with it's performance. I flew the heck out of it for 3 years, no complaints here. Also the guy that says the GP Christen Eagle flips over on every landing? I have one thing to say" HOW ABOUT LEARNING HOW TO LAND!!! I've test flown 3 of them in the past 2 months, no flip overs and a great flyer. Try landing with the use of some power, a big bipe has a lot of drag and needs to be powered in. My worst ARF's were any ARF from Lion models that were around some years ago, and I had the Kyosho Giles 60 which was nothing more than an autographed, high priced POS!

So...

I guess this means people generally think Yellow Aircraft ARFs are OK?

ever try a SIG SENIOR ARF 80"inch winger wow waht a thrill....woohhoooo

i dont have the personal expirence of thees planes but i flew my buddies u-can-do-3D 46 i do a harrier landiong with it and its mains colapse the rudder pops off and the wing cracks i was going very slow and it was a gental touch the bottom of the rudder didnt hit stay away form this plane.

I've got a friend with the Yellow Aircraft 60 sized CAP 232...it's a great little plane!!! I'd love to have the 120 sized CAP...but, alas...I'm married[sm=angry.gif]

Mark ... tell your wife a man could be doing worse things ... that usually works!!! Hehehe ...

In past -all electric ARF planes from great planes were crap -to heavey , under powered , The old Zero was a brick .I wont buy electtric from them today
I have had luck with Sportsman avaition
Model Tech is a roll of the dice on the plane and release
Global- I like the value , again depends on the plane
V-mar - P51 is a brick sled
World -P40 is total crap and shows what happens when a foreign company has no respect for US military history , they should have called this a Piss40