I received my GP Wagstaff Extra 300 from Chief Aircraft early last week. After opening the box, I was a bit disappointed with what I had. The elevator and center section were completely missing from the box. The cowl was chipped in several places because of poor packaging/boxing with the hardware and wheel pants. Also, the canopy is painted the wrong shade of red; kind of a maroon-red monokote color that is on my UCanDo3D - not the true bright red.

The wing tubes did not fit as I suspected. I used the technique outlined from Great Planes to fix it. I had to enlarge both wing tubes and fuselage tube openings with sandpaper. It took about 20 minutes.

The covering job on the wings looks pretty good. The fuselage is a different story. Where the monokote was trimmed, the trim lines are quite jagged and are easy to see on the white monokote on the under side of the fuselage and the red monokote on the fuselage top forward of the canopy. Also, the vertical stabilizer covering looks terrible. It looks like there was monokote placed over monokote which bubbled terribly. Basically the airfoil shape of the rudder near the fuselage has probably 30 bubbles and looks like the monokote iron's temperature was set at too high as it is slightly discolored.

I called Great Planes this morning and told them everything listed above. They are going to send me a new canopy and the elevator assembly. They would not do anything about the cowling or covering quality. Why? It is terrible and not just my impression. I guess I am stuck with a cowl that needs to be repainted and will have to recover some of the fuselage myself. I am VERY disappointed here and will think twice before purchasing another Great Planes model. I have previously owned several and currently fly a UCanDo3D and an Extra 300S .40 ARF. The quality on both these was FAR superior compared to my GP Wagstaff Extra 300. Anyone else have problems or concerns?

I have one and although I haven't built it yet, I have looked over everything and it's pristine. Sorry for your bad experience.
Dave

Everything in mine looked good except the cowl. The told me they would be sending another one. I haven't seen it yet!

One of our club members has one, and it's beautiful. I guess the quality runs the gamut from excellent to bad. Kinda like the Sig SU31.

Vince

Ya no surprise there. This is kind of old news. Have your read the big long thread about this plane? Mine has similar problems that I had to fix myself as well.

Good luck getting a cowl I've been waiting on one for 3 months.

Excuse after excuse is all I get from Great Planes. Others have said (oh ya I got mine in three days) well that's bull because a week ago Great Planes told me that all the ones they got with their last shipment where broke.

Bottom line the people over seas don't give a crap as long as they get fed. Great Planes has a big quality control problem, but what can we do. The answer is NADA.

Bottom line #2 if you want perfection build the plane yourself. This is what I will do from now on. Great Planes should get their rice back from the jerks that built the Patty for them. That is all !

Its not just GP, World has similar quality variations. VMAR is almost always truly bad. Kyosho probably has the most consistant quality. Oh well, what do you expect, for a bowl of rice a day anybody would be as disinterested in quality. Too bad the manufacturers still charge a lot compared to the pennies it costs them to have these manufactured in Nam or China. Some say that ARFs are a great bargain! Looking at the price escalation over the last 2 years alone, I see a 20-30 percent jump, now that is a little more than the typical inflation rate.

3dflyer,

Not to make your situation worse, but if you strip and recover part of the plane it will void the warranty. That comes from GP. When I first got mine I thought about recovering it because there were some things I didn't like. I called GP first, after having been through the whole re-cover and then warranty being cancelled with another manufacturer, and was told that any stripping and recovering would void the warranty. A real catch 22 . . . .

vtsmx

I sent Great Planes an email a few days ago outlining my problems. I have yet to get a response. I have started work on the things I am not waiting for. I am planning on running a DA50R so I have added a lot of triangle stock the the inside fuse-front and firewall. The fuselage looks like it is pretty beefy. While I was in there, I planned on adding some reinforcement to the landing gear blocks. I couldn't because it's already been done! I just hope Great Planes stands up and replaves my canopy, cowl, and missing elevator. I have heat-gunned out a lot of the imperfections. It took me a couple hours, but it really looks a lot better.

I would like to see you back up the idea that ARF's are not bargains with some hard facts. Nothing about rice bowls or whatever. Just some numbers.

I still have not had any response from Great Planes...

Wonder if I'll even hear back from them.

I think all of you who are complaining and referring to another human being as a rice-eating jerk (CAP232), really needed to check yourselves. All things that evolve around this hobby, at one time or another have had another human's hands on it. What did you learn the first time you lost a plane....nothing is perfect. No one, not you, not them, definitely not the racist overtones on this thread. Let's get back to the hobby please.

The problem starts with GP if they allowed this type of quality to be passed on to their customers for such an expensive aircraft. It is their responsibilty to observe the quality of their product, and adjust accordingly with the fabricators of the this product overseas and here in the great United States.....home of some of the laziest individuals on the face of this planet. In our economy we know that value per dollar is everything that creates a happy consumer. Sorry to hear about your misfortunes....I would be pretty upset myself. But that doesn't ok me to make racist overtones about anyone. This hobby isn't built on that...
Take it elsewhere.

Regards,

100% born and raised Proud American

Calflyer
World models quality is inconsistant ??. I have never seen ARF's more consistant the WM.. I have seven of them myself including 3 T-34's, a Dago Red, the Frontier, the Rambler and others. At the club level there are probably another 50-75 of them. Lots of T-34's there too (racing) and I have never heard of a quality issure with any of these. The biggist gripe we have with WM is they can't seem to keep up with sales on them.

What he said...............:thumbup: :thumbup:

I just had to jump in here and add my not so humble opinion.

I visited several regular "weekender" type flying fields while in the USA during October and November, and I must say that the nicest airplanes out there where the ones made by the prodominantly rice eating peoples of the Far East.

The home grown kit built airplanes, on the otherhand, for the most part where hideously finished, wing twisted, mal-aligned, canted rudder'd beasts that where lucky to fly if only from the basic soundness and simplicity of their basic designs.

So, in my not altogether too humble opinion (I'm a pattern snob/pro-builder), I'd say those rice eating folks are actually turning out a fairly decent to downright fantastic product, especially for the money being asked.

CS

Nothing racist about it bud, maybe you'd better ck yourself I'm in and have been in the hobby.

Now your saying that I'm a lousy flier, I take offense to that you don't even know me nor have you seen me fly.

(100% born and raised Proud American) Hmmmm sounds a little racist to me.

Telling me to take it elsewhere I also take offense to that. Maybe you need to grow up and take a little bit of your own advise.

A person also needs to know somebody a little better before making statements that they can't back up.

This post was about quality concerns and Great Planes I've spoke my piece in the orginal thread stating my experience. If you don't like what I said then I'm sorry, don't read it.

CranstonSnord: I agree to a point about what your saying but were still getting a ton of damaged airplanes and it's not from shipping. So who ever is boxing them up isn't taking the time to make sure there not all busted up. IMOP this is becoming a big problem and not just with Great Planes. That's why I said build it yourself, at least that way you can say I built it and I'm happy with what I built no matter how hidious it looks. If the people from the far East are such good builders then WHY can't they get them here safely and make sure they are packed well? Seems to me that would be a bigger concern.

I'm wondering why these threads always end up in a heated discussion? Sorry, but these comments will not be allowed at RCU. Have questions, my email and PM button are below these comments. But before you message me, read RCU's community policies first. Thank you.