I thought the box was a little small, but my XLT was never assembled at the factory!! Did anyone else receive an unassembled XLT?

It also came with two long rolled up pieces of paper. . . anyone know what to do with these?? Haven't seen this before!!!

It looks like the factory workers were a week or so early with their April fools joke in sending you all those pieces [>:]
As for all that "paper" it almost looks like some sort of instructions...might have to look into the ARF forum for help

Hmmmm. I Wonder what happened.....what you got sure looks nice though.
Pack 'er up and send over here. We'll figure out somethin' for it.....

Be careful. If you pull everything out of the box you will never get it all back in!

Jeff, you beat me to it.

Keith, it is obviously defective and will never become a flying aircraft. If Jeff changes his mind, I will take all that scrap off your hands. I'll even pay shipping costs!

Mark

Mark, Calgary is too far west. It's cheaper to ship to Winnipeg. I've got friends in Texas if that's even cheaper.

Jim

Seriously Keith, hows the kit? Are the plans/ instructions intelligible? Is the wood good quality? How do the cores rate? Value overall?

(I love Blue Jay for keeping these kits in production but those loony instructions they include with the Dirty Birdy kit are worse than not having any at all.[sm=spinnyeyes.gif])

Mike.

Wait till you try that new stuff called glue

Are you saying that you can buy RC aircraft that are already built? What will they think of next? I’d be really ticked off if I bought a kit and someone stole the pleasure of building it from me. Don’t expect that concept will ever catch on with RC flyers.

I'm pretty sure the paper is to cover the plane. Looks like it because the have the profiles drawn on them. Now... Where the heck is the plane???


DM

Funny you should ask, "What will they think of next?" I'm thinking of writing a short sci-fi about modelers who don't fly models. They sit in front of a screen that shows a moving picture of the plane. The story would show themcontrolling their planes with the transmitters that they would normally use to fly the models. All done indoors. I don't think anyone, at least not in our hobby would be able to relate to that concept either. Just no fun.


DM

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I haven't really dug into it since I've been finishing up my 2M Evolution for the 2008 season. The weather is getting right and I need to start practicing for GMA in April. Here is my initial impression. .
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The wood looks very good and the milling is great, I haven't taken the cores apart to look at them yet. However, the design of this kit uses some very seriously thick lumber so I'm going to be doing alot of milling to thin down some of the planks. The wing sheeting is 3/32" that will be replaced with 1/16". There are also alot of balsa blocks for wing tips, engine cowl, wing fillets, and other places - time to buy new X-acto hollowing blades. The fiberglass canopy is very thick as well, so I'll probably be doing some internal grinding to bring down the weight. It appears that Bluejay could easily use half of the epoxy and fiberglass to make the canopy for this plane. . . Hmmmmmm. . .maybe I'll send it to Mike Hester to have him form up a slick-azz CF canopy. I would like to see someone do a serious redesign of this kit and reduce the wood weight by half - create a fiberglass engine cowl, replace the 3/8" thick formers with balsa/CF sandwich, thinner wing sheeting, thinner fuselage sides, ect.
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The instructions are the same typeset of the original. Sorry, no pictures.
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I'm not trying to be negative about this kit, I am really looking forward to building it and putting too much engine up front. The parts of the kit are very well formed and I'm sure will go together perfectly. I would rate the overall value of the kit as very high, it is just the original design that could use some updating.
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When I start it I'll post pictures and keep everyone updated. I am no master builder by a long shot, in fact when I opened this up it struck me that I haven't built a "kit" in almost four years!! Hopefully other XLT builders will begin posting their progress as well. Maybe we'll also need to rename the thread. . .
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I put together the wing sheeting last night. When I weighed the (12) 3/32" sheets provided for the wings, they tipped the scales at 17.5 oz. WOW, over a pound of hard balsa for the sheeting . . . luckily I had 11 sheets of 4" contest balsa from a previous project left over, they weighed in at a total of 6 oz. Knocked 11 oz. of weight off the plane and I haven't even gotten past page 1 of the instructions!!
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Anybody building a deck?
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You're not supposed to build the model from the kit parts. They are heavy duty templates. It took me a decade to figure that out on my own. <G>


Ed Cregger

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OK, after a year of slacking off I have jumped back into the building of my XLT. Here are a couple photos of my progress so far. As I mentioned previously, the finish of the parts in the kit is outstanding but the weight of some pieces is a little heavy. The thickness of the wood in the kit was determined by the original plans, so I'm replacing some of the wood with thinner stock or composites, and milling out where I can. I also bought a box of lightening holes that I am installing in several parts of the airplane. The firewall and bulkhead #2 weigh over 2.5 oz. combined and are made of 5/8" ply - don't drop it on your foot!! Bulkhead #3 is supplied as 1/4" balsa, replacing that with a piece of fiberglass honeycomb cut its weight in half. The canopy that was supplied in the kit weighs 4.7oz., so I'm going to have to learn how to make another or maybe Dremel out this one.
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This is the first airplane that I have kept a "weight budget". I keep my scale out right next to my building board with a notepad and pen. I know that saving a few grams here and a few grams there doesn't sound like its worth it, but when you start putting all of your parts in a spreadsheet and totalling it up you begin looking for other ways to save weight. Just like a household budget you have your fixed weights - engine, servos, battery, then you have your variable weights - everything else. . ..( Hmmmm, maybe I can run the servos thru the planer and shave a little off the casing).. . .
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BTW - I've heard that Bluejay company has dropped off the radar. . . does anybody have updated info?

Hello Keith,

I hope they didn't close up shop, but I just tried to go to their web site and it's no longer there......[&o]

Keep up the great work on your XLT. If you have any question as you go along, this is the place to ask them. The experience and knowledge level of the people in this forum is oustanding ! ! !

David

Here is the web site I ordered this kit from, but that was over a year ago. . .

http://www.bridiairplanes.com/index.htm

I just checked it and it looked fine to me. Said to contact them for a shipping quote. I sent an email.
Chris...

What a great way to start a thread! Got me rolling for a while until post 15 or so!

The more I open up vintage kits, the more I think - what's all this!? A bunch of great templates as Ed puts it!?

I suspect I'll end up doing the same with my Escape when I get around to it. In fact, I'll probably just use the supplied wood to trace over lighter stock and extend/shrink where necessary. Using lite-ply or thinner balsa with CF or FG mat seems like the way to go these days. What I'm not certain of yet is whether using CF "doublers" is actually lighter than using something like a 1/32" ply doubler. If so, is the cost/weight savings considerably higher/lower than using ply? Again, if so, something to start working with otherwise, thin ply is quite nice to work with.

In any event, this will be a great classic/modern hybrid XLT and I'm looking forward to it!

David.

I built the XLT about 25 years ago it was heavy about 10lbs with OS 61 VF rear xhaust, but keep in mind pattern planes back in the day where heavy for just 60 size not uncommon 10 to 11 lbs flying weight

Im almost finished with my Great Escape Rossi powered

Mine came built...LOL
gary

Just got a note back from Lynn at Blue Jay that the XLT kit is in stock.
Chris...

Gary,

Are your wings painted or MonoKoted?