well i opened this can of worms with my prior post of,arf quality/safety. thought you might like to know that the hangar 9 arf just wasn't flying right. i brought it home and out of curiosoty i checked the wing incidence and it was off by posotive almost 5 degree's. trimmed out the fuse sides and now it flies fine. what i don't understand is if an arf is made in a factory shouldn't they all be produced to the same tollerences? like i said that was the first and only arf i will ever buy.

Well, I am going to chime in here and really take the high road, and do my best not to laugh and bash the ARF's.

If it was that far off incedence when made in the factory, then I would definitely get in contact with the H-9 company and tell them that it was grossly out of tolerance in order to achieve acceptable flight characteristics. And that they should inspect the assembly line to ensure the same problem doesn't exist with the rest of them.

Now, with that said, I don't want to stab you in the back here, but as we really discussed in the previous thread, safety is in your hands, especially with the wing incedence, since it is easily visible when measured during assembly. It would have been a good idea to have measured this during the assembly process, and when you noticed it out of whack, you should have contacted H-9 about it before going to the field.
Now, granted, I am not making big issue of this, as it really doesn't seem to have been a death defying situation to begin with, so don't take it like that. My point is simply that, with ARF's, you tend (And probably me and everyone else) not to pay as close attention to the integrity of the plane as closely as you would if you had built it from the ground up.

I think with ARF's, one automatically goes into sort of an assumption mode. This mode gives you the assumption that the plane has been constructed right and everything will be fine. All you have to do is bolt it together and sore off into the wild blue yonder. This is unfortunately a real problem with the advertising of these planes. The companies make it seem like you don't have to do anything, which is of course the intention. But, unfortunately, it just isn't like that.
I don't care if it is the most expensive, most popular, most high tech, most divinely inspired ARF company in the world. EVERY plane, including arf's, should be thouroughly inspected. The airframe, and full measurements of all surfaces should be second nature when assembling the wings, tail surfaces, engine mount etc, etc, etc. Measuring tips to tips, measuring incedence of wing and tail, checking the squareness of the wing and tail to fuse, etc,etc,etc.

OK, OK, you don't need a lecture from me, so I'll knock it off.

I just hope everyone gets my point. And hopefully, without being offended. Even I hate constructive criticism.

Patriot

The constructive criticism should be directed at the perpetrator, not the victim.

If we take this logic a few steps further then we had better take apart the next new car we buy. Just to check out the fit and safety of the purchase.

Ed S

Then they shouldn't advertise that it is. The ARF's I've seen wouldn't be airworthy using the hardware they give you or simply putting them together as the instructions say. I've only assembled a couple, but they needed a lot of work to make them safe.

However, when was the last time you read an ad that said:

That is my main gripe with ARFs. You shouldn't have to re-design, re-glue, re-check, strengthen firewalls and gear blocks and stuff like that. Most people buying ARFs are first time builders or low time flyers. They don't know enough about the hobby to know to re-check things like incidence. They market these things to the newer or lower time guys, and then the planes show up with problems, and those same guys don't know how to fix it. Just seems like it will come back and bite them. The market has gotten a lot better over the years though. I have built a couple in the last few years and was overall impressed, other than the obvious weaknesses in design that I changed on them. The Shoestring by Great planes is a blast. I wish they would put that one out in a kit.

Now granted, the ARF doesn't have to be a flying brick ****house, but, I will say this. I think for those who want to fly ARF's, that is fine, go ahead and fly them. Just take every measure you can to make sure they are well constructed and safe to fly.
Personally, this is why I do not fly ARF's. I think some of them are really nice, but I just personally don't like them, ,because of these reasons. I figure since I need to put so much work into them, I might as well just build one from a kit or from scratch. Then, I know it has been done right from the get go.
The funny thing is, someday, I may just come across an ARF I must have, and actually go buy one. OR maybe just scratch build it instead.

To each his own.

Patriot

P.S. Cars are not a very good example to compare with, as they must follow an enormous amount of federal safety guidlines prior to sale, ie. they HAVE TO BE SAFE.

he he he.

So if some production engineer decided that the wing incedence could be =/- 10 degrees it would make it easier to manufacture. It all depends on what the tollerance is said to be.

Well, I thnk tolerances in the wing incidence should generally be in the range of "adequately flyable."

If it was so bad that it wasn't flying correctly, then I think it is safe to say it wasn't quite manufactured to tolerance. If it was, then I think they need to look at there tolerance scale.

Patrriot

Advertising is there to SELL more so than to INFORM. This applies to virtually everything, not just RC products. Anybody here believes Dynaflite's claim that their giant scale kits "builds fast and easy like a .40 size kit"?

Making mods to ARFs is easy to do, but not at all necessary. Look at the thousands of .40 trainer ARFs sold every year. The overwhelming majority of them did their job training RC newbies just fine - safely and without mods. They are a great tool to help the budding RC novice get over the daunting task of first flights with minimum hassle. Once they solo, then they can tackle other challenges of this great hobby.

The handful of nitpicking opinionated ARF haters may try to downplay the quality of ARFs today, but the real evidence is quite the contrary. If ARFs are really as terrible as you all make them out to be, then they would not be loved by the great majority of RCers, sell in record numbers and continue to grow exponentially as they have.

Volfy - Nitpicking? I've seen a handful of ARFs built according to the instruction have their wings fold in flight. One time is was during a high-G pullout, but the others, it was normal banked turns. I've seen several ARF's assembled by beginners that had fuel-soaked noses because the supposed fuel-proofing wasn't fuel proof. I've seen cracked clevises because they were made out of cheap styrene instead of nylon.

The reason I hate ARF's isn't because they're ARF's. In fact, I don't hate all ARF's. What I hate is the below standard quality. Sorry, but I don't agree with what you call evidence.

It's easy to make claims like this, but do you have anything to back it up? Especially the part about love and great majority? I'm not seeing that at all.

I purchased my ARF (Avistar) to get into RC flying quickly. Building takes a substantial amount of time since I do have priorities that must take precedence to any of my hobbies. The Avistar went together quickly, and with the assistance of my "Instructor" was checked at the field,and flew acceptably till a sudden deceleration with the field.

I did not check the build of internals, and I did not verify the CG. In retrospect, I will now always check the ARF's prior to going to the field. Checking the incidence, however, is not even mentioned in any of the manuals I have for either the Avistar or the T-34 (World Models). I will now check the model for correct incidence, IF I have the correct dimensions and tolerances available.

I do think that checking the incidences of the Main wing and the Tail is like checking the alignment on a new car. You expect it to be "right on" out of the dealer (box).

Lew

For those of you who read the previous version of this thread that was started by Hawkman, I believe to really finalize this issue we need to address the most important safety issue with the Nude Female JELL-O Wrestling.

Honestly guys, I think we have just about layed down the sod and placed the gravestone on this one.

Patriot

[quote]ORIGINAL: CafeenMan

Volfy - Nitpicking? I've seen a handful of ARFs built according to the instruction have their wings fold in flight. So CafeenMan out of the handful built according to the instruction you are saying you personally watched the individual(s) throughout the entire building process and can state that every step was followed. For instance the proper glues were used in the proper amounts???

If the answer is NO then your statement is speculation based on assumption

No Crashem, what I'm saying is that the handful that I assembled would not have been flight worthy had I used what they gave me and followed their instructions. I know how a model airplane should be built and those simply weren't up to even a minimum standard.

Hopefully that's clear enough that I won't have to explain it again.

We can argue till we are all blue in the face, and still go nowhere. If a person doesn't like ARFs, then every ARF crash he saw was due to ARF quality problem, and every kit crash was radio problem. I am not going to argue with what your interpretation of what you witnessed.

All I will say that we RCers as a whole must know a good thing when we see one. These ARFs must be good enough for us to buy them by the hundreds of thousands. Are we that stupid as to keep buying ARFs that crash left and right? I don't think so. I'll just let the sales numbers speak for themselves.

I don't see the argument unless you're telling me that I didn't see what I saw which would be as ridiculous as somebody trying to tell me why I think something or giving me an attitude that I don't have, such as you did in your last post.

Again, I don't wish to argue with what you saw because everybody's notion of what is good construction is different. You're certainly entitled to your opinion. You've built a handful and have seen some fail in flight and made up your mind that ARF quality is poor in general. More power to you. Don't buy ARFs. The only thing I'm saying is that the vast majority of RCers, me included, vote with our pocketbooks and we disagree with your assessment.

Out of the more than 40 ARFs that have passed through my hand the past two years or so (of which I built about a dozen, and sold about 20 plus, with the rest still NIB) I have not come across one that I have serious structual concerns. They range from $99 WM Super Stunt 40 on up to $700 Lanier 30% Edge 540.

OK. I'm far from an expert on ARF's and don't claim to be. I enjoy building and I don't have any issue with ARF's for what they are. It's not my place to tell people how to enjoy the hobby. My only concern used to be that kits were hard to find, but now that I know where to look I see that there are plenty of places to find kits as well as plenty of kit cutters with very reasonable prices.

So everyone can have what they enjoy and that's what matters.

STILLLLLLLLL Going!!!!!!


Patriot

I really don't want to get into this whole thing again, and have been fighting the urge, but I lost.

Due to limited time, I have assembled and flown a number of ARF's in the eight years I've been in this, and have yet to have a "failure" caused by the way it was constructed, but I'm not a "yank 'n bank" type of flyer either. I tend to fly my planes in a scale flight envelope. (The way I see it, if it would kill a real pilot the plane shouldn't be doing it. )

My trainer was a Great Planes PT 40 ARF, my second a Super Sportster ARF, I also have had a Hobbico Flight Star (I think it was called) which DID have the fuselage break half way between the wing and stab on a dumb thumb landing. All flew again after semi minor mishaps, and ultimately met their demise after crashes that a "kit" wouldn't have survived either.

I still have a Cermark Bobcat and a Thunder Tiger J-3, the Bobcat has been flown a LOT in its 5 years and has had a couple of pretty decent 'hard landings' which it survived quite well. The Cub cartwheeled once without damage, but then I DID have to rebuild a wingtip, re-mount the stab and landing gear, and re-glue the rudder, after it fell about 50 feet out of a tree. (Don't ask!) It landed on the gear and left wingtip.) Would a kit have sustained damage? I think so.

Just my experinces.
Dennis-