I have a Bobcat xl and a King Cat. I had a bandit and a eurosport. I wanted something different and uncommon so I bought a Talon. I am getting ready to tackle the project. Who's built one of these suckers? Any suggestions? One of the first things I read in the manual was that 1/2 pound of lead was needed in the nose to balance. Any way around this? I will see what I can come up with to avoid doing this. I hate to add non-useful weight to a jet. This one is gonna be heavy enough as it is. I will try to get it done for Superman Jet Rally. I appreciate any advise. Alex.

Put everything you can as far forward as you can get it. Watchout trying to get perfect fillets on the stabs, and don't get carried away like I did with the paint on the stabs, or any where for that matter. No big glue beads. It is a very cool looking bird. I hope yours is one of the newer honeycomb composite planes. If it is not, then try to get a set of the honeycomb wings and stabs from Bruce before you even start. They are good for a five pound weight saving right off the bat. Here is the one I built which is going to the shows with bruce, look close and you can almost see the weight in the fillets and paint. Good Luck!!! Oh I have one of the new honeycomb ones on it's way.
Roger

That is Awesome! Great Job. Mine is the new honeycomb composite. I just received it about a week ago. I will get started on it tomm. Yes! Thanks for the pic. Good inspirtation. Alex.

Alex, I too liked the slick looks and bought one.

BUT, If I were you I would return it to CJM before you start. It is too expensive for what it offers.
It is not worth spending the time and energy on the plane. 1/2 Lbs of weight is not correct, it is more like 1 to 1.25 Lbs if you use the bypass.

It is a lot of work, mine took over 350 hours and it was not worth at all, came in too heavy and is not a good plane to fly. My kit was already 5 lbs too heavy coming out of the mould I was told.

I have over 100 pictures of building etc...if you are interested.

Regards
Peter

Peter, I had decided to start sorting out and maybe starting on the kit this morning. I hadn't opened the box until this morning. I was disappointed with the quality/finish of the kit. The wings are very heavy and still need retracts, flaps, ailerons, links and paint. The mold parting lines are thick on all the composite parts. The fit of the hatch and canopy needs alot of work. This kit needs major sanding, filling and priming. In talking to my brother this morning, we realized that when I finish this kit, the cost and time would be higher than any of the more expensive Arf sport jets in the market. I have never built a CJM kit so I wasn't aware of the quality. I think that the talon should have been re-engineered before being put on the market and their quality control needs to be more stringent. Having said all this, I want to make sure that everyone understands that this is not a kit bash, these are just the facts. I really like the model, I think its way cool. THEREFORE, since I have a couple of jets to fly and I am not in a rush to finish this kit, I have decided to take on this challenge. I will build this jet, I will build it as light as possible AND I will NOT add any dead weight to this jet. I havent the slightest Idea how I will do this yet. I think I will start with full size plans. Peter, I would like to see the build pics you have. Let me know how I can get them. Thanks, Alex.

Alex,
I had lengthy conversations when I was building with the designer of the plane (not CJM, they did not design it, they only manufactured it) and the design is wonderful, providing the plane is properly manufactured, and light. It is too heavy as a kit, and a lot of epoxy was used during lamination.

You are correct, a lot of sanding and priming is needed, the edges are extremely rough, the 1/2 fuse and wing seems are very rough. There is no structure to install the wing inside the fuse, hence you have to assemble, align and glue the wing braces, which is a lengthy tricky technique since you can only do one side at a time as the model has to sit on its side with the wing pointing up-wards when doing this.

The elevators and rudders installation is also tricky since the pieces of wood and metal provided to hold them are a very loose fit inside them, and you have to do your own fixing and alignment. After that, you need a lot of filling and sanding since the edges where the elevators and rudders meet the fuse are not a perfect fit, lots of gaps.

Be careful with the retracts, the bottom is only held by green loctite to prevent them from twisting. Mine twisted on the first outing to the field. When I asked CJM they said use green loctite to fix it in place.

Mine also had the wing skins as received from CJM bubbling up, or pealing off of the epoxy base and there was nothing I could do about that. When I asked about this I was told that is normal.

I could go on. I spoke with CJM regularly and they under-estimated or under-toned every issue or problem I brought to their attention.

I can zip and email you some pictures. Here is a sample.
Also I have a thread on RCUniverse:


Regards
Peter