Looking for someone that has purchased a F/18-E from Skymasters. Would like your thoughts on the kit. Quality, fit of parts, design of wing hold down and what servos will fit in the aileron bays. And anything else that you could think of.
Thanks, Dave.

Hi Dave,

These are pictures of my second Skymaster F-18....I think it is an excellent kit !...This is not the newer version of the plane, yet the quality is still very good...As far as the flight characteristics go, the plane handles really, really well. High G turns are no problem, inverted flight is great...All in all....Its just a great flying Jet !!


Tommy

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Hi Tommy, looks great, you did a very nice job with her. If I may ask, did the parts fit well? The intake to ducting joint. Do the wings attach with blade spars or tubes? What servos did you use? What was your choice of powerplant?
Thanks much, Dave.

Hi Dave,

Everything on my kit fit together nicely. The nose attached to the rear of the the fuse without any shimming, sanding, etc...
The wings on my kit attached with wing spars. I m not sure if the new kits are the same. I am using all JR servos [8611 ele, 168 rudd, 3301 ail, 8231 flap]. Im using all jetronics valves for retracts, doors brakes, and air brake...For power I went with Jetcats...TITAN...Perfect combo...I had the P-120 in my first one, which was good, but it flies with much more authority with the TITAN.


Tommy

Sounds great Tommy. Thanks, Dave.

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Tommy, I agree with you about the engine. I have been flying mine on a P120 but think the plane would really benefit from the Titan. How many minutes of flight time do you get with the Titan? Did you use the P120 pipe? Are you using the stock SM tanks? Thks.

Hi,

I saw the ARF at Best in the West. I got a pretty close look, and it looked extremely well made to me. Lots of carbon, very stout and the bulkheads looked very nicely made and fitted. The paint job on the gray ARF I saw was stunning for an ARF. Not as good as ours, but very, very nice.

Hi Dave

Well I didn't exactly buy my F-18E but I have / am putting together 2 of them. Of course being involved with Airpac im not exactly neutral but here go's anyway.

I put together 1 Pre-production F-18E and a production sample F-18E.

Quality: good the fit and finish has improved from the Pre to the production and the models they are selling with the rivets are very nice. I wanted one of the painted ones but Eric sold them at BITW before I could get my hands on it lol.

Fit: good, flight surfaces all fit well. When you take it out of the box and put it together things fit well and line up, as they should. I had to clean up some of the boltholes that aligned the front and rear. But all the airplanes for sale that I have seen were right on.

Wing mount: Pretty STD Skymaster, Two Aluminum channel with Two blade spars per wing. Skymaster has upgraded to a thicker spar with all their airplanes. With some of the bigger releases coming out soon Mr. Lin decided to up size the spars. The 5-40 screw that hold the wing in are tightened from the top. ( Makes it much easier )

Servos: Stabs 8611 JR, Rudder Multiplex Super fl, Flap 8611 JR, Aileron 3421 JR.

Fuel tanks: I put in some extra tanks to bring my total up to 140 oz. With a Simjet 3000 we can fly for around 9 min and have 35 oz left.

Strength: Very strong and light. Our first F-18E weighed around 30 lbs dry. On my second flight (we had the cg to far aft) I ran out of fuel on a go around and spun it in from 100 ft' totaly my fault; Not good doh! Anyway I was able to fix it and get it flying in a week. There was some seam splitting in the nose area and quite a few cracks in the bottom filled up with ca and Hysol and went to town. The F-18E we took to Fl jets and BITW is this same airplane. You can see it fly on the sks video of Fl jets 2005. Thats me by the way the very tan big guy, and of course Scotty decides to take video when I decide to fly and it's the first flight I have had a FL Jets 2005 all weekend ( I was support crew that weekend ) Anyway that’s my excuse for the wild take off lol.

Flying: Best part! This plane is solid, very fun to fly, can fly fast, and slow. Easy to land once you get used to how it bleeds energy on final.

Video of it flying http://www.hawaiijets.com/aircraft/f-18/F-18E-fun.wmv

The new one has the scale speed brakes on the lex. Our new one has it installed using Hitec 5245's have not flown it yet.

Pictures by Jill C. some recent flying Me and my friend Tim flying some F-15 F-18e formation.

Thanks guys, I ordered one last night. I have spoken to Eric and am very much looking forward to getting her in my hands.
Dave.