First off, are you sure it is supposed to be completely covered, and not covered but needing the final trim? If you are I'd send it back. I always use my warranty options unless it's something minor like a little touching up on the covering, or misplaced hinges. I look at it like this: I bought it to build and fly. Not to fix, build, and find out something else is wrong. My experience is that if there is something major wrong with one part, then it is usually not the only thing. I wouldn't worry about the glue though. You could just get some foam safe CyA, and it would be just as strong if not stronger.

The solvent used to "weld" the platic on this airplane is MEK - be careful, this is very dangerous to the eyes.

I've had a couple of these ARFs over the years. They fly well but have some problems. Within a short time, engine vibration will make the plastic crack - this can be repaired with fiberglass and epoxy but will be a never ending repair and the weight will constantly go up. These ARFs were the source of the term Rubber Duck as the tail will flex quite a bit.

RCPAUL

Usually, the kit comes with a vial of it. But, you can get it at Home Depot or Lowes - in the paint section. Regular servos are OK. The plane may not last long but it is a good flyer.

Enjoy!!!


RCPAUL

First, MEK is a solvent and very dangerous to the eyes.

As far as the soft mount is concerned, the plane comes with wooden engine bearers that are part of a wooden frontend assembly. I think you'll find that the firewall is quite thin and made up of cheap ply - not aircraft ply. Even cutting the engine bearers might be a big chore to install a firewall soft mount.

RCPAUL

Dan ,
No one has mentioned the cowl . It is thin plastic and needs beeffing up . I did not do mine and fuel destroyed it . A friend of mine bought one at the same time as myself and fiberglassed his cowl , it still looks new . Someone also told me to reinforce the landing gear (main) because they tend to break from the foam wing . Rather than cut ip a new wing I just made my Dart a taildragger , works great !
On your first flight , hang on . Model is very "tail happy" and requires very little elevator input . Once you get the hang of that it is very fun to fly and slows down well to land . Very nice model .
Tim

The dart, while fairly ugly, is a superb flyer once you get used to its character. I too converted mine to a tail tragger and that improved the appearance very much.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that you might want to do a little re-inforcing on the wing joint.


I'm sure that the few crashes and many brain twisting aerobatics I did had an affect on this, but once while performing HighSpeed inverted flyby's (prob about 80 airspeed and over 100 ground speed, very windy) where I would fly by myself then push up and do a tumble, when I did push up....the wings just came apart at the joint and fluttered away from the aircraft...leaving me with....well, a "Dart" with a full power K&B .65.......that was the most spectacular crash I've ever seen.


Thanks,
Micah (SloFlight)

MEK is shown on the can as MEK. I think you can use CA as well - try it on a piece of scrap.

RCPAUL