Put the maiden flight on a composite Bobcat yesterday and had to keep cranking in left aileron trim. After landing, to get straight and level flight the left aileron is 1/8 inch up and the right aileron was 1/8 inch down for a quarter inch of aileron deflection from center required to get straight and level flight.
Anybody else ever have any problems with a BV built aircraft being so far outta trim?

Stand in front of your airplane and look at the wing leading edge both sides and see where the trailing edge is.

Your right wing is tweaked about that far from front to back.

I saw this on another bobcat, please confirm if your's is this way too. I don't know if they have a fix for it, but saw one like that at MS AB.

Hmm,
I don't think BVM's quality control would let that happen! First statically balance the model 'laterally'. Take two wood blocks about 4"x4" by 6" tall. Glue two dowels laying sideways on them. Now fuel the model... and place on the 'stand' with the help of a friend. Make sure the airplane will just about teeter on the stand without tilting one way or another. If it does..move the interior components i.e.. battery left or right to help balance.
If that checks out. ...Then I would check the wing incidence with a wing incidence meter. BTW are you sure the fuel is feeding out of both tanks correctly? Hope this helps. Good luck.

-A.L.

I'm building a Kingcat, and the holes for the left boom are drilled in the wrong place. I had to enlarge the holes, fixture it up and fill the gaps around the phenolic tubes to get the boom into the proper orientation. These are made by composite arf so the quality control is most likely out of Bob's control. Also had the same problems on the holes for the stabs on that same boom. Most likely they use a fixture to create both sets of holes.

Dan

What do you mean by quality control is out of BV's control? He is the one charging 4+K for this kit and should be aware of the quality of models that he puts his name on. It is his model with his name on it, his responsibility to make sure that they are correct. Yes, initial QC should be CompArf's but the final QC check should be done here to ensure that the model leaves his possession correct.


Just my opinion.

Patrick.

It's just one of those little problems that need to be fixed. They use a fixture to rout out the holes, and it was probably misaligned.
If you sell that many kits, it is impossible to check them all to perfection. I had a Kingcat that had the two wing tubes not parallel to each other. It was more difficult to fix, but It was fixed. These planes are really critical about alignment, and most of the time they are fine. I should also mention that I built two others that where perfect.

Dan

I thought that was EXACTLY what you were paying double or triple the price of a C-Arf kit for? For it to be inspected by the BVM people and have no-bs quality control? I had thought each one was inspected by BVM before it was shipped out?
Things fall through, but wing tubes not paralell on a $4000 kit? Send me a new one!

so aside from the goofed up wings (probably incidence from the factory) how'd you like it?

can't wait to get some jet refresher stick time until mine arrives.

which day are you guys taking it out over the holiday? would like to get a close look at her.

hasta

John Redman maidened his today, his wings looked straight to me looked like he had 100 flights on the plane, full flight profile on the first flight, flew awesome with P-60.

Many people were impressed, i think it is a GREAT addition to their line

Well, unless you got a "Friday Job."
I think, though, at that price, no excuses, the plane should be perfect, and the wings should have been put on and checked before it left the BVM florida facility. I would swear I read that each one was checked, when the Kingcat came out.
I don't think the price is outrageous, but I do think there should be NO EXCUSES at that price.

Well as for the excuses, I would like to know who is giving them. My bet is a call to BVM would straighten everything out. My Bobcat flew great off the board.

As for the KingCat boom holes being miss drilled, that blows me away as I have built over 12 of these things and have never seen one out eyt. There are more than 200 of these out there and no one has ever mentioned this before. I am guessing you have something missaligned.

Anyways, for those who do have one you are gonna love this little jewel.

Well, point taken. If a call straightens everything out, then it's really no harm done, and it's not like you hear of lots of problems with these planes, and it IS possible something was misassembled by the user, so it WOULD be unfair to jump to any conclusions.

In the rare and few cases where parts were off, misalligned, etc, i don't understand why people go through hell and jump through hoops fixing these issues themselves. If my booms were miss drilled, or wings were out of incidence (on an ARF) , i'd send it back and EXPECT a replacement ... i don't see any manufacturer having reason not to take care of such an issue ... If the manufacturer would not take care of the problem, my CC company would .... ( not refering to BVM or any other specific manufacturers here, ..... )


Wojtek

Buck,

Once I got it trimmed, it flew GREAT! Took me 4 minutes to get it in trim (wasn't expecting to have to keep adding ail trim). P-60 is a superb little engine and a 22 lb Bobkitty is still a 200 mph airplane even with the little engine. Put 9 minutes on it and after landing the 16 oz header and the UAT were both still full, gotta love that!

All, Thanks for all the ideas, tanks were sucking evenly and they're pretty much on centerline anyway, so can't see fuel causing a quarter inch trim requirement. Weighed the wings on my postal scale and they're within an oz of each other and the rest of the equipment is pretty much on centerline. I'm off to Wallops Island, Va tomorrow to do 3 weeks of Reagan Combat Systems testing, so won't have a chance to check the incidence until I get back but will probably give BV a call while I'm in Va and see what they have to say.

The wing tubes were not misaligned by the USER (ME), The user does not install them. In this case the user had to fix them.
I find it unbelievable that when there is a problem with a BVM kit, it is automatically the users fault!!!

Dan

I see no reason why BVM would not. For a $199 ARF from Giantscaleplanes.com, I don't expect much, for $4000 from BVM, I would expect perfection, and I'd hazard a guess that if the OP made a call to BVM with his problem, BVM would set him straight. I would not want to be screwing around with trying to make things fit on a premium kit like that. I spent days screwing with ill-fitting wing rods on a chinese turbine ARF, but, hey, it was really cheap, I got what I paid for. But also, I have to concede, bigtime, that John Redman may be right, it could be operator error.

When you say ANY manufacturer, I beg to differ...the cheaper stuff, well, it's a heck of a lot of plane for the money, most of these ARFs, I don't expect much, but BVM, it's full price and then some, expectations should be different.

You might be right...but you are going to find yourself up against a wall of public opinon on that!

A couple of the earlier kits got out with misaligned phenolics tubes. Just send them to BVM and they will fix it. I understand they have a new jig for this. The airplane is awesome. Probably one of my favorites. Good size, wide range of power, light weight, super strong, looks good, lands very easy, aerobatic, unbelievable roll rate, fast and slow, easy to build, lots of room, less complicated install(i used only Y harness and no gyro, thank god), no twin elevator bs, unbelieveble instructions and worth every penny. I liked it soo much I bought another.
Scott

I see no reason why BVM would not. For a $199 ARF from Giantscaleplanes.com, I don't expect much, for $4000 from BVM, I would expect perfection, and I'd hazard a guess that if the OP made a call to BVM with his problem, BVM would set him straight. I would not want to be screwing around with trying to make things fit on a premium kit like that. I spent days screwing with ill-fitting wing rods on a chinese turbine ARF, but, hey, it was really cheap, I got what I paid for. But also, I have to concede, bigtime, that John Redman may be right, it could be operator error.

I give up!!!

Is that on the BVM website? Evidently, they did not inform ALL their reps of this, from some of the posts above...

If you've been around RCU as long as I have, you'd know that if you question or criticize anything about any BVM product, the BVM guys circle the wagons and-fights on! Here on RCU, it's ALWAYS the modelers fault, never BVM's.
Your best bet is NOT to post any BVM problems here but just call him and explain your problems. I've never heard of him not resolving customers problems, after all his success is based on keeping his customers happy.
As for me, I'm heading for the bunker; I hear incoming.
BRG,
Jon

I own one of the first 25 or so KingCats delivered......it is well known that some of the early and even some of the later models had a bad boom to wing fit.....mine were particularly bad......1/4" gap at leading edge root on one side and 5/16" gap on the trailing edge root on the other side.....

Within 5 days of mentioning this to BV, I received 2 new wings and wing tubes that were slightly modified at BVM(bent)....perfect fit now.....

I think the wings are coming thru much better now, but if you have an older kit with bad fit, just call BVM for a fix....i.e. new tubes......

One of our club members just finished a new yellow/blue scheme KC and the fits were near perfect......if you want an absolutely perfect fit, then go for the unpainted, and smear some putty, like in the old non-ARF days...

I have visited Pro Builder, Barry West's shop in Orlando area recently where there were 4 early production ARF Bobcats under construction and the fits were all very good....I also saw Scott Marr's, Tim Redelman's and Paul Lott's ARF Bobcats at MAB, and the fits were all very tight....as was the fit as reported by John Redman.....except for Tim and John, no BVM reps in that group.....

So, if there is a problem, give BVM a call, shoot them some photos, etc......seems to work for me....


Tom

I fixed the problem it was REALLY NO BIG DEAL.
A little grind and fill.
I remember the days when you had to actually build airplanes. Most of that talent is still out there.

Dan

You guys are really blowing this crap outta proportion. Noone said it was the owners fault. One single phone call to BVM and its resolved and this post wouldnt even be here. I bought a second kit because I liked the Composite Bobcat that much. The plane is awesome. I had a minor wing alignment. Big F'n deal. BV stand behind everything he sells.