I don't know, but I love it. The plane gets a lot of attention at the field, everybody asks who makes it. I think the thing that impresses people about it is that it looks like a little trainer, but you take it up there and do things that the guys with sticks are doing, and that really gets their attention!

By the way, what happened to your first one?

I still have the first one.. Still flying it.. I made a tail dragger out of it and did some repairs on it and it has gained a little weight in the process.. I am running a 46fx in it. I want to modify the nose gear as you did and straighten a few other things out from the git go on this next one. The one I have now also has around 3/4 an ounce of lead in the nose. Probably because I cut the elavator apart to straighten it and then used a lot of epoxy to put it back together. I have an Irvine .53 that is just sitting around also. I am looking for a lot of torque (verticle). Figure I can replace the lead with the slightly heavier Irvine.

I'm using a .46 FX in mine as well. I went with an 11x6 prop yesterday and was very happy with how it flew, vertical is outstanding with this set up! I have never had to mess with the CG of either plane, got lucky I guess. The sun is coming out, I think I'm going to head to the field shortly!

Been using a 11x5 APC on mine. The sun is out ?. Were on our third day of rain here. Temps in the 60's. Not good flying weather.

Just a few lines from a VMAR ARF reciepient. Last Christmas, Santa brought me a VMAR T-6A Texan II. I specifically requested the Air Force version since my son is involved with the full scale aircraft for the Navy. Following are "likes" and "dislikes".

Liked covering and detail. Very authentic! I put my glow driver port where the real external power port is on the full scale.
Also neat was the cockpit with the pilot and trainee.

Disliked the instruction book which was very vague and missed a lot of steps. I am a relatively ner RCer and need all the help I can get. When it came time to install the cowling, I asked for help since there was NO info on how to do it in the instructions. It took a Master Builder in our club about 10 or more hours to get it fitted and installed.

Plane has flown twice and both times the test pilots remarked about sensitive ailerons. They were set per the "instructions" and are now set to less than 1/2 the throws recomended.

Would I buy another VMAR ARF, probably not. I will stick to the ARF's provided by American companies and proven flyers. YES I know most ARFs are made overseas and I have no problem with that. Just my .2 cents

Mike F.

I bought the rv4 about 6 months ago, and had a hell of a time getting the warping out of the elevator (kinda important) and the flaps, just goes to tell you that looks arent everything, the model looks great on my wall, flew it 3 times too many. ill probably make new surfaces for it when i get older and more patient

well i am very happy with my vmar harvard

everything fit to gether with out any problems

here are 2 pics of it

enjoy

[:-]

Well, here's my Vmar story. My instructor liked Vmar and said the VAN RV-4 might be a good second plane for me. He liked his Vmar T-34 and thought the quality was good. I got on RCU and read a number of posts from fliers who thought Vmar quality was lousy, so I was skeptical about getting the plane. I called Richmond RC and spoke with a gentleman who assured me that their quality was good and implied that some of the posts on RCU may have been put there by competitors. So I ordered the VAN RV-4 ARF kit. It was back ordered for a couple of weeks, but it finally arrived.

I agree with those who describe a bad smell coming from the box. Pew! No problem, I just let it air out for a while. Everything in the kit appeared to be there, so I began by dry fitting the wing halves together. The first thing was that the wing brace was too long. I had to remove about 1/8 inch from each end to prevent it from bottoming out inside each wing. Once I was able to push the wing halves together, I noticed that the wing halves were misaligned by slightly less than 1/10 inch. The left leading edge was trailing the right leading edge by that much. I couldn't believe it! The two halves did, in fact, fit into the bottom of the fuselage, but just barely.

So I called Richmond RC. The man there said that they have a 3% tolerance on all of their dimensions. At first, that doesn't seem like much, but over 5 inches, that is .150 inch! Anyway, he told me if I was unhappy, to send it back. Well after spending $39 for shipping and insurance and waiting nearly two weeks for it to get back to Canada, the guy calls me back. (I should add here that there is a woman who works in customer service who was quite unfriendly whenever I would call to see if my plane had arrived). Anyway, he said there is absolutely nothing wrong with the plane and that he joined the two wing halves together and they fit perfectly. I couldn't believe it!

The guy said he dry fitted the whole plane together and everything fit perfectly! I know that's not true. He also said the precision of the plane's parts were as good as his $60,000 Mercedes! I asked him if he would sort through some wings and find two halves that fit together better. He said he would do whatever I wanted as long as I paid him $85 per hour!

Sorry for getting long winded. He said he would send me a refund check right away. I'm really bummed because I really liked the look of the semi-scale ARF and even had a radio with enough channels to operate ailerons separately and still operate the flaps.

I was very tactful during all of the conversations I had with VMAR. I was never sarcastic and angry with them. Nevertheless, their attitude was poor. So as far as I'm concerned- I won't be buying another VMAR.

I can't wait to see the guys review on the rv-4? I bet it flies like its on rails and the packaging is great. For those of you that don't GET IT I say that as a JOKE. The kits are BAD. The wood is poor at best and the covering is no match for monocoat.

I have to confess, I am addicted to the Vmar HotRod. These things are junk, but they fly good. I am on my third one. I throw a .46 fx in mine and they go like a bat out of you know where.
I do think they are trying to improve the quality on them. On the first couple there were warps in all the control surfaces. I had to "laminate" the ailerons, rebuild the elevator and replace the rudder. A lot of the wood in the HotRod anyway is not balsa. Some kind of brittle thinly cut hardwood. It tends to shatter like glass. The hardware is junk. The clevisis have a screw threw the end instead of a pin. The threads look like they could quickly ruin a servo arm. On the last HotRod the control sufaces were straight. Granted they would not flex, but after a short time of forcefuly flexing them they actualy loosed up.
The covering looks nice out of the box, but after awhile in the sun the red starts turning to white. Especially where the engine oil gets on it.
Bottom line is if you can work out the warps, and put in some decent hardware, this is a cheap great flying plane you can have a lot of fun with.

here is another pic of the harvard it has a super tigre .51 on the nose of it

auw is 6.5 lbs
it looks very nice i hope it flys as well as it looks

they look good but not the best quality.

Lt Dan
Wanted to let you know I am on my third HotRod now. #2 is still alive but set up for plyon racing in the Trainer class. Goes really fast with an OS 46 in it. They seem to be making some improvements. The control surfaces are straight. No detectable warps !. The elevator and rudder however are attached to the stabilizer so tight you can barely move thim up and down. After several minuets of forcefully flexing them however they did loosen up somewhat. Big improvement is in the nose gear. It is much heavier wire now. It also has a metal steering arm soldered to it. Works great. Other changes made also but more subtle. The lightning holes in the inner side panels now have a different pattern etc. It still has lousy hardwar IMHO and still uses a lot of that "Funny" wood. Still the same great flyer though.