Barry_DVRC

Skydemon,
Sorry I didn't see your comment earlier.
My YS110 has not yet split the stock tank and I have 5-10 flights on it. I did wrap the middle of the tank in strapping tape.

Barry

gnirwin

My Feedback: (25)

The big brown airplane delivery truck is suppose to deliver mine tomorrow. I have a choice of either a Saito 120 or a OS 91 surpass w/pump and I'm trying to decide which one to use. I prefer going with the OS because the Saito would be real nice in another plane I am getting but I don't want an underpowerd plane. I've read through this thread but I've not seen any real good flight reports or video on this plane.

gnirwin

My Feedback: (25)

I received my Skybolt today and after unpacking mine I must say it's darn near perfect, just a couple small wrinkles to tend to. I have only ever received one plane in the 30 plus arf's I've assembled that didn't have any wrinkles in the covering, this one is way above average. After unpacking I was comparing it to my Goldberg Bluebird Ultimate and they are roughfly the same size with the Skybolt having narrower wings. I believe the Skybolt will also build a littler lighter. I fly the Ultimate with a Saito 125. I have decided to go with the OS 91 Surpass on my skybolt, I don't want the heavier weight of the Saito 120 and if for some reason I need more power I will buy another Saito 125. The four color scheme covering is really sharp also, a beautiful plane.

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

Hey guys, the review has gone live - Enjoy!

Click Here: [link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/article_display.cfm?article_id=750]Great Planes Skybolt ARF Review[/link]

150flyer

Nice Review!

Rate1

Minnflyer,

Great review. I liked the video, good close up of the aircraft while airborn compared to other videos.

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

Thanks Christian, I know that my videos can be a little shakey at times due to the excess Zoom that I use, but I just hate those videos where you see a big sky with a little dot flying around!

elderair

My Feedback: (29)

I've got four flights on my Skybolt and must say that it flies just great. The O.S. .91FS with a 15X4W apc prop is perfect. I had to dremel out the spinner a bit to fit it but it was worth it. Inverted flat spins are fantastic and exit is just a matter of neutral on the elevator and opposite rudder and out she comes. Landings are a no brainer to three point and I have only had two problems so far one being the tail wheel wire falling out due to the small phillips head screw coming out. I replaced the hardware and locktited the new screw in and don't anticipate any more problems. The other was with the wheel pants. They cracked on each side of the mounting block so I added a piece of fiberglass to the front and rear of the block inside and they seem to be fine now. I have vast amounts of control throw on high rates and use 65 percent expo to keep it in check but that gives the awesome flat spins and other wild maneuvers. Hope everyone enjoys their Super Skybolt as much as I have enjoyed mine so far.

Swager

My Feedback: (1)

NIce Review. Iam looking to buy a Skybolt. Thanks for the time you put into the review!

da Rock

Swager,
When you're in the LHS looking through the kit, make sure to look at the cowl. It's a beauty. However, it appears it's packed securely so nothing will hit it from the outside, but they threw in a bag of heavy stuff, loose. inside it.

Mine came with cowl damage. It was busted OUTWARD in about 4 places from the tight little bag of heavy stuff they threw into the box inside it. Any shaking the box took basically slammed the cowl with that bag of bolts and the motor mount parts. Amazing.....

And while I'm steaming..... The one thing I've seen over and over in this last year is that the glass stuff sucks. It looks awesome. Shiny. Good paint detail. And they could have saved time and made it with real glass and saved us time and our expectations. I can't remember a week going by in the last year when I haven't seen lousy glass work eggshelling.

And personally:
..My Sukhoi cowl was cracked from the mfg. It was also warped. There was a "fold" molded into it. (pulled from the mold too soon?) I didn't use the wheel pants because they were so lousy. One was broken already and I pressed the other with my thumb to see how strong it was and it gave and eggshelled with the first press.
..My Mini Edge cowl was eggshelled over half the bottom when the plane tipped over in high grass. High grass! The CF gear wasn't straight and isn't strong enough to hold the wheels straight for takeoff.
..My CAP's cowl splits every couple of weeks from stress. I oughta wise up and simply layup the entire insides. I didn't use the supplied wheel pants.
..My P40 cowl easily eggshelled around every opening I had to make. I did wise up and stop until I'd layed in another layer. I still wasn't very smart because where the lower rear is unsupported it's way too easy to push out of shape and way too fragile.
..The 109 came with a crack in it's cowl.
..This Skybolt cowl...
..That covers EVERY ARF I've got that has a fiberglass piece on it.

I've looked closely at every fiberglass fuselaged model that's crashed or hit hard or landed rough at our field. I've yet to see a one come through without 3 or 4 times the damage that should have happened. That includes a big B25 that cost over $600. It was total mush. Everyting broke except the tires, wire struts, engine, and radio gear. Of course it went in from maybe 100 feet. A couple of guys won't buy any more ARFs with fiberglass fuselages. Most wouldn't dare use the supplied wheelpants without reinforcing. Most just don't use them at all.

I don't ever intend to buy an ARF with more than a FG cowl. No way I'd buy one with a FG fuse.

Even the ones that look strong enough have jellcoats that aren't part of the layup. Either that or paint that didn't stick worth spit.

The one caveat is that almost all of that applies to the 40-60-90 size models. All the 20% and up I've seen look good.

ok..... rant over......

da Rock

ok, one last blast.....

For what we're paying for these things, the Chinese oughta be able to put one more layer of cloth in those things and lay the sucker up before the jellcoat has cured.

sseward

My Feedback: (1)

darock.....Even though I like the fiberglass cowls, I echo what you say about how they are packed and shipped. Just got my Super Skybolt arf, and as you said, pack and achored nicely, but then they throw a big bag of bolts in it just to juble around. The inside of that cowl looks like someone shot bb's all at it, and you can see the cracks and spiderwebs on the outside. This has been such a problem that they are out of stock. I'll fix up the cowl I received while I'm waiting on the replacement.

My GP Hawk P-6e also had a crack, but I got the replacement in fine shape. You would think they could learn why bubble wrap was invented! A little extra packing would save us some aggrevation and them some money! On another note, the cowl on my CAP was just fine, as was the cowl on my GP GeeBee.

Steve

150flyer

I now have around fifty flights on my Skybolt and it's fair to say it is one of the best flying planes I have ever flown. The take-offs and landings are effortless and it is quite the aerobatic performer. The only maneuver I can't get it to do well is hovering. Because the ailerons are located at the outer half of the wing, the prop wash completely misses them and the plane goes into a torque roll.

I am powering the plane with an OS 1.20 AX and does it ever pull the Skybolt around. The 1.20 AX fits into the same space as a 90 size engine but it swings a 15 x 8 or 16 x 7 prop at 9,500 to 10,000 rpm. The weight of the 1.20 AX is also perfect for the Skybolt. I did not have to add a single ounce of weight to the plane to get it to balance. I did decide to run a Perry Pump to give the engine adequate fuel flow at the high power settings. Without the pump, the engine would bog down slightly during take-off because the fuel tank is quite a ways behind the firewall. The fuel pump completely solved any minor fuel flow issues the engine was having.

I know this model calls for a 60 - 90 size engine, but considering how much fun this plane is to fly with the more powerful 1.20, I would never recommend anything less. And besides, it fits into the cowling nicely.

opjose

Darock:

Exactly!!! My Skybolt cowl arrived damaged in exactly the same way...

BTW: I keep following your choice of planes... excellent advice on the 40S....

jedijingle

My Feedback: (45)

Yep, mine too, just call GP's and they will set you up with new items that are damaged.

Maidened mine yesterday. SMOOTH! even at the high rates on 40% expo. One thing I notice was that in Knife Edge, It pulled to the wheels really bad. Has anyone else noticed this, if so how did you mix it out. How do you get this plane into a flat spin. Thanks john

jjman11

I finished my Skybolt last week and have about 15 flights on it now. All I can say is it fantastic! My new favorite airplane.

The build was pretty straightforward, some of the hardware was a little lite for my liking but other than that, I found the quality to be 1st rate, awesome covering job, had some wrinkles but no big thing. I put the specified OS 91 Four Stroke in it with the 15x6 APC prop and it flies great. Mine balanced out very slightly tail heavy, which is the way I like it, no additional weight required. I found that I needed alot more control throw than specified in the instructions, in fact, I just maxed it out so its there when I need it, I like to use about 50% expo all around.

It has a very short take-off roll and kind of surprised me the first time I took off. If flying off a grass runway it has a tendendcy to nose over so you got to use aft elevator on the early takeoff roll and definitely during taxi. Mine required only 2 clicks of up elevator to trim it out. It cruises around nicely at just half throttle. Plenty of verticle at full throttle, will do just about anything that I'm capable of doing. The wings make a cool whistling noise at about 1/4 throttle coming out of verticle. Knife edge seems to couple to the landing gear and has plenty of rudder. Flies inverted as easily as upright. Its very visible in the air, thanks to the covering job.

This thing lands as easy as any trainer Ive flown, really stable, just carried about 1/8 throttle and let it come down, just before touchdown cut to idle and it slid right in to a perfect 3 point, makes me look better than I am.

It fits into the back of my Toyota Highlander without taking the wings apart, so thats a big plus also.

I'm trying to think of something negative to say about it, but I really cannot come up with anything. I like it, get one and you will too.


git ur dun, JJ

Snowmass

My Feedback: (12)

Sorry, darock, but I gotta disagree. I've built at least 30 large ARF's and I've never had that eggshelling experience you describe. When I mount a FG cowl I just glue a CA hinge flat inside before drilling each mounting hole, and that's all the reinforcement any of them have ever needed. I hope they don't start laying more cloth inside, because I'd rather not have the weight. What brand kits are you referring to?
And about the cost - I'm not rich but I sure wouldn't want to put the labor they do into each of these for the money they get. I think the average ARF is a bargain.

da Rock

--The Mini Edge landed on lush grass at a very slow speed, tipped over and the lower cowl is basically junk.
--The Phoenix Sukhoi came with a cowl that had a crease around/across it and was lopsided. It was easy to reshape to round because it was so weak overall. The crease didn't come out however. And after flying about 20-30 flights the 6 hold down screws were holding down basically unsuported glass cloth.
--A buddy's B25 crashed. Yeah crashed, but it was one that didn't look bad and as everyone walked to it everyone was commenting on how straight it looked and how lucky and etc.... Turned out there wasn't anyting on it that wasn't worthless. Everything fiberglass.
--Same buddy had two cargo something or others (CMP? I think) twins that crashed and had little or nothing fiberglass survive. Both should have had something come through.
--The cowl on my CAP 232 stress cracked about every week. They were top-to-bottom and from nothing more than airpressure inside or outside. No hard landings no crashes no nothing. New crack somewhere about every week. I was too dumb to simply layer the whole inside at once. Every patch held, of course, because the area around them couldn't.
--My brand new Cub's engine went crazy a night or so back and shook the heck out of the airplane for about 10-15 seconds. I had been breaking it in for the last few days and hadn't installed the cowl. The cowl was lying in the shop AND CRACKED FROM THE VIBRATION IN THE AIR..... chuckle..... just kidding..... but I do wish it'd been lying on the workbench. But I had decided that the engine was close enough that it was time to put the cowl on had just put it on. And the shaking messed up just one thing. Guess which one.
--I built a CAP for a friend and when cutting the holes in the cowl had big chips of surface pop off. Not something you want to do for a friend. It was that particular run of cowls, because I've not had any hole cutting of my own have the least problem. Wouldn't you know it'd happen when you're doing someone a favor. So what's he think of my building expertise..... I got a replacement without mentioning it because I don't like anyone to think I do crappy work. It wasn't a whole lot better but didn't blow up on me.
--I usually don't use the wheelpants included in ARFs. So I often have destruction tested them, especially after seeing last year how shoddy the finished held up. It's an eyeopening thing to do. I don't know anyone at the field with wheelpants that look worth spit. I would think the construction should match the expected workload. It doesn't seem to.
--I've only been assembling ARFs for the last year and yet to have any one fiberglass part that didn't have something blow out.

I'd say our experiences cancel out. On the other hand, I don't know many guys at my field who've been as lucky with their fiberglass parts. But this ain't a duel..... I'm glad the models you've gotten worked well for you.

And your idea sounds good.
But it's not just the hold down areas I've seen blow out, and I do plan to do a complete layer inside every cowl in the future that looks to need it. If I run into any that look good enough, I'll epoxy some hinge and see if that works. My thought is that epoxy is flexible and should support compression better than CA which usually is fairly brittle. Have you ever used epoxy instead of CA?

gnirwin

My Feedback: (25)

I worked in a fiberglass shop 25 years ago while attending college. We manufactured Semi Truck fiberglass hoods (The whole front end assembly). We basically had two types. The first type was hand laid up, a very slow process and very heavy. Layer after layer of fiberglas and resin applied into a mold. The second type was a fast process, much thinnerand much lighter, cured in a mold with heat. Some of these latter types would crack just by lifting them in the wrong way. there was a large price difference between the two also. I think the cowls on the ARFs we are buying are not hand laid and if they were they would be very nice but the prices we are paying would be much higher as well. I have cowls that have lasted several years on frequently flown planes and i didn't have to add a ton of tail weight to balance. My skybolt cowl came without any damage.

da Rock

Actually, the cowls and pants look excellent and most look strong enough. Trouble is that either the paint or jellcoat layer or whatever the outside layer is, it doesn't seem very securely bonded to the insides. And so far in one year's experience with ARFs, it seems to be fairly universal with the models the guys at my 2 clubs have assembled and flown (and crashed).

I'm not lobbying for the Chinese to solve the problem a certain way. I'd just like them to solve the problems. Some seem too fragile. Some seem to fail to keep their skin on way too easily.

I would bet that if any single plant (if there actually are any competing ones inside their country) started making better glass parts and it became apparent over here, that plant would get the majority of the business. But I doubt their industry could do that. So maybe if any single marketeer over here, say like Hangar9, specified or required better glass parts, that marketeer would increase their sales.

whatever........

I've just started sticking mine together. It's gonna be a beauty. Well, when I get the replacement cowling it will be.