I ordered (4) of them this weekend. They arrived yesterday in good shape. The included sims arrived on Wednesday. I will be building (1) along with showing, teaching my brother and (2) brother in laws how to build them. I know I should say put together and not build.

The skill level varies from pretty much first time using an exacto knife to way to many planes under the belt. This will be the first time for my brother in law Jim putting an ARF together. My other brother in law Mike has a single ARF under his belt. My brother Brian has built, flown, crashed planes with me on and off for 35 plus years. He would order them and then have them shipped to me so I could build or put them together. He is working on a Phoenix Extra 330 right now. He needs a little help with a few of the NEW things. Carbon fiber push rods and the like. The last time he built a plane he use golden rods.

I looked at one of the ARF's. It looked OK. I did not have enough time to inspect each piece. Needed to put it in the car and get to work. I figure I can throw it together in about 2-3 hours. So it looks like I will be there all day with them showing how to do it. Should be a good time. We plan a BBQ and fun. I can not think of more fun to have with family then food and model airplanes.:O

I will write more tomorrow night or Sunday morning. I will give my opinion on quality, fit and finish, how good or bad the hardware is, and what is or is not usable in the kit. The quick glance I did take in a box I did not see a bunch of wrinkles and it looked like it was covered pretty well.



Dru.

I have built (assembled) two of these planes and have been very pleased with the results both in terms of quality of construction and flying ability. I got mine from Texas RC but they are the same planes as there is another one at our flying field that was bought from Nitro Models. I dumb-thumbed one into a tree and it survived quite well and was an easy rebuild. I got to see more of the structure while repairing and it was surprising good especially give the very low price. Good luck in building and flying.

Mike H.

Well we survived each other for a day. That is a good start.

The manual was not used. It had a single picture of the wing. SO I went with what I thought it should be.

There were 4 of us building these in a single garage. It was a little crowded but not bad. The radio gear ranged from Airtronics 94102 standard servos, Cirrus CS-601's and Hitec 745's Power is going to be K&B .65, Tower .61, ASP .61 and yet to be named. He is thinking going electric, but not sure yet.


I started by installing the three servos in the fuse. That started off with the doubler falling off the rear servo mounts. No big deal just glued it back on. Servo's installed then went for the tail. Started by mounting the horizontal tail. That was straight forward. No issues with that. All parts fit well. Then the vertical tail was glued in. It seemed that the pocket for the vertical was a little wide. Did what we could with epoxy. It was about 1/16 inch to wide so no real big deal. Just make sure it is pointed in the correct direction.

When I went to install the elevator I was missing a hing. There are 6 slots and I had 5 hinges. Luckily Mike had a pack of pack of CA hinges so so we just used them. The hinge slots did not really line up. We had to extend the slots on a few for the elevator to get a good fit where there was more then 1/4" of hinge material in one side or the other. The rudder fit pretty good.

The next was the push rods and control horns. That went petty well. I do wish they would not use the screw on type of push rod connectors. They are easy to install but do not have a strong lock on the servo arm. I am going to replace them with EZ-Links. http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXAZC3&P=7 They may be old school but they work. I can adjust the push rod with the snap link on the control horn.

Next I started on the wing. The ply wing joiner fit pretty well on mine and my brothers but was extra tight on the other two. The wing went together with out any issues. Two of the wings would not align very well. The leading edge would be correct but the trailing edge would be 1/4" out. A little fitting it was all good. The aileron servo opening was to short. We had to use a 3/16 inch piece of ply under the servo for a good fit. The push rods from the servo to torque rods went well. This is how the other servos should be connected. The fun began when we went to glue the ailerons on. Mine I had to almost re-slot one aileron but the other just dropped in place. Mikes was the worst. He was missing (2) hinges and only two slots matched on one side and 3 matched on the other. After some time with an exacto knife we got everything to fit.

I then went to mount the wing to the fuse. I have never liked pre-install blind nuts on planes for the wing mount. I made a paper template so I could match the holes in the wing with the pre installed blind nuts. The other way is to put the mounting screws in so that they hold the wing trailing edge up just a bit. Measure so the wing is squared up and push down on the trailing edge and that will put marks where the holes need to go. The wing has a tab that is part of the center section that goes into a slot in former #2. After the wing was bolted in, the slot is to long or the tab is to short. I will check the wing incidence to see what need to be done. Do I glue a shim on the tab or the former?

I mounted the main gear to the wing. That was good. The I went to mount the wheel. Well the grub screws are some Allen wrench I do not have. I tried every metric and every standard size I have. Nothing fit well. The best I could get was a 1/16" Allen wrench. With just one wheel collar on the out side of the main gear the wheel rubs on the main gear leg so you have to use a collar on the inside and out. There is not much extra for the second collar. I could not get the collars tight enough to stay on. I am going to by some Dubro collars and not worry about it. I had to drill out the wheels 3 drill sizes to get the wheels on the wire. No real big deal there, just another step to do.

Now I go to the nose gear. The pre drilled holes in the fire wall are not spaced wide enough for the plastic nose wheel bracket. I hogged out the hoes to make it fit. Just elongate the holes to the inside and it fits. I then see I have to drill out the mount to fit the nose wheel wire just as I did the main wheels. Well do not put the drill away yet. I had to drill out the nose wheel control arm as well. Not much metal left inside. Looks like I will replace the arm with a Dubro arm and see what happens. The way they have it set up you put one of those EZ type connectors on the nose wheel control arm and the servo arm. I put a "Z" bend in the end that goes to the nose wheel control arm and a small bend to the right just before the "Z" bend to make a nice straight shot for the push rod. I can see using a EZ connector here just in case you jam the nose wheel hard over the rod can slip in the EZ connector and maybe save you a stripped gear in the servo.

The fuel tank went together pretty well. I think it is a little small for a 60 sized 2 stroke. It looks like a 8 oz tank or so.

I mounted my old, abused, crashed, well worn ASP .61 in the nose. Well I mounted it as far forward as I could and it is still tail heavy. To get it to balance I may have to use a 3000 mah 5 cell battery under the fuel tank and then add some lead just to get it balanced. To me, it looks like this plane is MADE for a .91 four stroke. The extra weight would put it about right in the middle of the beam mounts and give a good CG. I may end up twisting my arm and getting a Magnum .91 FS engine for it. That would also make the tank about the right size. There is plenty of room for the longer prop.

Things I would like changed about this ARF. Get rid of the screw on EZ type connectors. They are a crashed plane in the making. I have them loctited and CA'ed and I still do not like them. Make sure the wheels will fit the landing gear wire, the landing gear fits the plastic mount for the nose wheel, better wheel collars with better grub screws, a nose wheel control arm that fits the nose wheel wire, larger sized fuel tank, maybe two servos for ailerons, that way you can setup flaperons. This plane would be good with flaps.

The things I liked about the plane. The construction seems pretty good. Glue joints are done well. The engine area is fuel proofed and the blind nuts are glued in. There was no fuel proofing in the blind nuts. The cover job was good too. In the late afternoon some wrinkles started to show up. It was pushing 90 plus in the garage and we had wrinkles too so I cannot hold that against the plane. The plane falls together. I give the plane a 90%-95% for fit. It would be higher if the wheel and mounts did not need to be drilled out and the hinge slots matched.

The push rods are metal wire and the tubs they run in are pre installed and in the correct locations. The metal quick links had fuel tubing retainers pre cut. The one thing that has driven me crazy for many years is that the links do not EVER fit the control horns. I have had to drill out servo arms and control horns from the start of my building. Why is it that they make the servo arms with one size of hole, push rods made of thicker material and the control horns do not have the same sized hole as the quick links. The quick links and control horns have not changed much in 30 plus years, yet they hardly ever fit each other? The drill manufactures are be hind it. They want you to buy drills to make every thing fit. Its a conspiracy I tell you.

I had no real trouble with this ARF. My brother had a few issues he asked me about but no real issue to worry about either. Now the new members to building and ARF's looked at the direction and then looked at me with a blank look and said HUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For Mike this is his second ARF. The first one he built had 5 pages on just the wing. This instruction book is made up of (2) pieces of paper stapled in the middle for 4 pages, front cover, inside cover, page 1, 2, 3, 4, back inside cover and back side cover. This is Jim's first ARF and first plane of this type. After I got done with a step I put the part in front of him so he could look at the way I did it. He did a pretty good job. He had a few issues where I had to show him how to do it. This plane falls together pretty well and that helped a lot.

The biggest confusion the new ones had was they thought the opening for the wing was on top and the wing fit in the cock pit area. They have high wing powered gliders and not sure what to think of a low wing plane. They were concerned that the servos where upside down. I know no big deal, but they were worried. I had to explain that the (4) servo screws would not let them fall out.

We are thinking of planning another Saturday together to finish up the rest of what need to be done to the planes. Mine is almost done. I just need to find a way to get a .91FS to go in mine. Not sure when we will get to fly them. They look like a 60 sized Goldberg Jr Tiger. I had (3) of the Jr Tigers they flew so good. It was the plane that was always ready to fly. I hope this planes flies 1/2 as good as that old favorite does.

Are these planes worth what they cost, ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!!! Do they have a few issues, yes. I have not built a plane from kit or and ARF that was perfect. These are a good value for an ARF. If I was by my self and did not have to help two newbies, I could have had this from box to flying in about 2 1/2 to 3 hours. If they change a few things this will be hard to turn down. With the help of this and other boards, even if you have never put something together you could do this one.


Hope you get some good out of this thread.


Thanks.

Dru.