Does anyone know anything about these ARF's
I know lots of stuff comes outa' china these days, but i'd like to know how they rate on
History, performance, value ???[8D]
I'm just trying to figure out if they're worth the money.
Thanks!

The Spit and the Hellcat are decent in terms of quality, and they fly great. There are several threads in the warbird forum on these planes.

There are tons of threads here with the same topic, and you will find people that both love and hate these planes. I have owned the C130 transall and the baby cap 232. Both were decent planes for the money. I probably would purchase again.

Thanks, I'll have to check that forum out...I'm looking at a P-47 (.40 size)
I heard it's fast w/ an OS .46fx.
I wonder about the wing loading and stall characteristics, as well as the strength of the sheeted foam wings if i put in retracts.

I had their Cessna 182 Skylane. Very nice plane!!! Just about to scale. Flew great!!!! However, a fractured xtal ended its life on the 4th flight. I'd buy another for sure. The fuse was fiberglas. Next time I will beef up a few areas. And, if your not used to building arf's,
it will take you along time to assemble because lots of things they assume you already know about. The landing gear I felt were sub par but I made do. I did replace the front gear though after 1st landing, it bent.


Dave...

I have had many of their ARF's as well, the Baby Cap232 and Cessna (red version) and still have their Yak 54 140 NIB. Both planes were nice but the Cessna needed a little time in assembly as LuckyArmpit already stated.

They are generally good planes though a little on the heavy side. The Cessna with a 61 fourstroke wasn't by any means powerful and needed a little dive to get it around a larger loop. But it is a scale plane with scale characteristics.

The Cap232 with the 32SX was great but not a 3D machine.

Yak 54 looks great and seems to have great quality BUT many have said that it is much too heavy for 3D as well.

Overall I give them a buy with care rating. They are good but require a little love during assembly and while fly fine, may not be as aerobatic as you expect.

I have the Spitfire. The assembly was kinda tough at a few areas. Other parts of the build were just fine.
One thing that crossed my eyeballs was the wing. There wasn't a string installed along the root like most ARFs of that size.
Fishing the servo wires was an adventure in self control . Kinda like playing the kids game "OPERATION".
The retracks weren't too bad to install. I've seen worse. The Spit is a long tailed aircraft so one pound of weight was needed in the front. Flys great !! But which ever one you end up buying,,,, if it has retracks,,,,,don't go cheap on the gear. I wish I had spent the bigger bucks on my retracks. The plane weighs 11lbs. Also don't spare the fuelproofing around the engine and cowling.

Tip on fishing servo wires I stumbled onto......... (Elec fence wire) it's soft and bends easy yet it will follow the formers and spar and can be fished out without breaking stuff.

An easy way to get the servo lead through the wing is tie a bolt to a piece of string, stand the wing half up vertically, and drop the bolt into the servo hatch. Let the bolt fall down through the holes in the ribs. Wiggle the wing half if necessary.

Mine balanced fine with a YS 91FZ and just one ounce of weight in the nose.

A bit off topic, but I usually use piece of the very thin music wire for this. It is stiffer so it doesn't stay in a bent position after encountering a rib, but will flex to let you you know you have hit it without punching through.

NoFlaps
I have their P-51 and Spit and like them both.
My friend bought the P-47 and installed an OS 46 ax but could not get one decent flight out of it.
We could not get the CG right w/o adding massive noseweight , the wing incidence was 3% off the thrust line and we had to pour loads of epoxy around the firewall because it was poorly attached to the fuse.
Two or three weeks later my friend was relieved when a mercy fatal crash rid him of its headache. I suggest you avoid this one!?

Thanks for the Tip!

I'd lie to hear more about your spit...maybe I'll go for one of thopse instead.

CMP Spit, powered by a YS .91FZ:





A couple of short video clips:

* [link=http://www.whitetyphoon.com/rc/gsp_spit_show_pass.mpg]Spit Show Pass[/link] - full throttle
* [link=http://www.whitetyphoon.com/rc/gsp_spit_figure_8.mpg]Spit Figure 8[/link] - half throttle

Can't beat the power and sound of a YS four stroke.

I have many of the CMP ARFs, from little electric gliders to the 1.40 aerobats. I have not looked at too many of their warbirds, only the Hellcat.

Opinions will vary depending on how recent the design is. Most of the latest ones are very good quality - all laser cut, very well laid fiberglass parts with good paint jobs, and plenty of the right kind of glue (e.g. real epoxy in the stress critical areas). Some assembly design could be better thought out (e.g. canopy mounts, etc.) but nothing outright bad.

Opinions will also vary depending on from whom the ARF was purchased. You need to weed out those neagtive comments that pertain to the SELLER, not the product.

excellent point there volfy, while there are a lot of complaints about GSP, actual complaints about the planes have been less. I think their balsa planes have been excellent but their glass planes still need some more work though they are getting much better. my skylane had a fuse with tolerances +/- 3mm, which i don't think is good. the horiz stab needed an extra plank of balsa to make it fit in the oversized hole. The wing alignment was off as well. Their balsa kit was excellent and I've seen many very good examples of them. the lark, magpie have been excellent. i did see a 3D giles horiz stab fail in mid air but that could've just been a fluke. overal cmp planes are not bad.