Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

Been looking at these 2 airframes for Merlin 160 power, I've seen a lot of the KC but know nothing of the Hustler other than it has a similar(ish) layout. I'd really like to hear from any of you Hustler flyers and how it compares.

Rob.

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

Any takers on this one gentlemen??

Rob.

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

I saw the Hustler fly at Superman last year, very nice. FWIW - My first thought was 'that's a copy of the KingCat' but it was pointed out to be that the Hustler was on the market well before the KC.

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

Rob

I think your problem will be that there seem to be very few Hustlers flying compared to the Kingcat. Why I don't know as it was available before the Kingcat but I suspect Tom Cook was only producing it in small numbers. It certainly appears to be a very strong airframe and looks as good as (or better!) than the Kingcat.Although not painted it is also quite a bit cheaper.

I have a feeling you will be on your own on this one!

John

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

Well, whoever claims the Kingcat to be original doesn't know the facts. Boulton- Paul proposed almost this exact airframe layout, fullsize , in about 1949.


Regards,

David Gladwin

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

Pretty sure BV himself was demoing a DF plane with the same layout back in the early seventies?

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

Tom Cook is a gentleman, and a very good guy to deal with. I have built many of his planes over the years.
The Hustler looks like a very good plane, although I havent built one, YET!!!
He manufactures all his own stuff, rather than doing it overseas, thus has a lower volume than BVM.
JMP stuff is of awesome quality also, when you compare it to the Composite ARF material that BVM uses.
Both planes are in about the same price range, so it may be a tough decision.

Dan

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

ET

Please!!Let's not get into another who copied who debate!! I am not mentally strong enough to withstand your piercing arrows at the moment as I must gird my loins for the mini Ryder Cup between Scotland and the USA at Kingsbarns Fife tomorrow.

John

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

Well, I don´t know the facts at all , but I know that there is an older (1945) twin boom jet designed by Kurt Tank...

;)

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

Enrique!!

The German Bobcat/Kingcat/Hustler/Jetco/Boomerang is unearthed at last!! Well done that man:D:D

John

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

Rob-
After examining both the JMP Hustler and the KC here was the reasoning I came up with picking the Hustler over the KC.

First the Hustler is built by Jet Model Products at their facility in Belton Missouri and not built over in China or the pacific rim operations.
I felt that the quality control was of a higher caliber and they have NOT had any problems with delamination of flying surfaces
The tail boom area which has been a concern with the KC ( see threads on this forum)and the resulting fix kits that were made available made me nervious. I noticed that the booms on the Hustler are a bigger cross section to evidently prevent failure. I saw Terry Niches go in at the US Scale masters YUK!
The interior of BVM KC has wood in the construction, the Hustler is all Carbon fiber and E glasss.
In talking with a pilot that had both aircraft, they prefered the Hustler. Their KC crashed after boom failure.
The Hustler needs to be painted,but I don't see that as a problem. I tend to keep my aircraft a long time,so I want an airframe that will last. In talking with Tom Cook, his personal plane was number two out of the molds 5 years ago and has hundreds of flights on it.
I have also talked with several commercial contractors that use Hustlers for industrial use and they have more flying than most people will ever see with higher wing loadings than we will ever use.

I think that BVM has a better marketing program , so JMP doesn't get the deserved recognition.

You can have your Hustler on gear in about 2- 3 hours so it does also build fast.
In the end you will have to decide where your money goes. I also think that you get a more complete package with JMP, all I needed was motor and radio, I didn't need to go to the hobby shop to keep getting "stuff" to keep working on the project.
You can have your Hustler on gear in about 2- 3 hours so it does also build fast.

Good Luck
Marty O

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

John. there is a lot of planes to unearth at the appropiate moment, for people´s amusement! ;)


BR , Enrique

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

Marty

I had also heard a few Kingcats were lost due to boom failure. Did you hear if BVM made any restitution for this design defect other than issue a fix kit?

John

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

Hi Marty, thanks for the reply, have you flown your Hustler yet? Would be nice to hear some flight reports.

Rob.

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

I saw one let go in flight. VERY scary!!!!!!
don't want to see that again.

Dan

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

Tom's work is really second to none, his glass work is incredible, and personally I think the hustler looks better. I've known a couple kingcat pilots who've said "If I was going to do it over again, I'd buy a hustler instead"

Not that there is anything really wrong with the kingcat, just that the hustler is better :) well, IMO anyway

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

John-
I did not hear of any compensation over the design defect. I do know that at the Superman event this year a lot of King Cat's were sporting carbon fiber patches in the boom failure area's. Talk was very quiet about the problem. They new that they had to do something and looking at the BVM website they were sending out the fix kit free of charge to make the problem go away.
That's all I know, and this post was for information for Rob's anyway and I don't want to get into any bashing of MFG's.

Rob- There is a growing number of Hustler pilots out there and I' sure several will chim in soon.
My aircraft isn't finished yet .

Happy flying
Marty O

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

Marty

I don't want to involve you in BVM bashing but anytime I happen to say anything negative about BVM I get the triple A from all directions and how, although the composite models are made in Composite ARF'S factory the BVM stuff in vastly superior.

There is a thread on the Skymasters Hawk, one of which suffered loss in debateable circumstances and they took a beating from some parties.
Skymasters offered the guy a new Hawk at a discount which I thought was very fair. Haven't heard of the great one doing that for the Kingcats that went down due to a design fault.

No doubt the BVM gunners will put me right on that one!!

John

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

Hey,

I finally got to see Sung's Hustler in action at BITW. It is, IMO, a sexier-looking airplane. Someone in this thread said Tom's work is "second-to-none." I think this is a true statement, and they guy himself is a real gentleman. I owned a BVM T-33, which was a great kit, but when I saw the JMP version in a box, I saw a superior product.

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

Tom Cook is somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to the way one of his airframes flies. None of his airframes require gyros or strange engine thrustlines!

He continues to improve them until they fly the way he feels they should. This can be seen in the Starfire series. The original Starfire evolved into the Starfire IIA and then finally the Starfire IIB, which is basically what Yellow Aircraft now sells. Actually the only difference between a IIA and a IIB is the size of the flaps. I owned a Starfire IIA and I didn't see any need for improvement, but I'm not a perfectionist. He also came out with a Starfire IIC version which was of all composite construction, which was unheard of at the time but is now common.
His Firebird has gone through some evolution as well, with a larger vertical fin on the newest model.
I don't believe the Hustler has had a single change made to it since its release. If you know Tom, then you know that he feels it is just right. And as mentioned by Mart O, Tom has built some Hustlers with large payloads for a research firm. My understanding is that they have worked out very well.

A guy here in Houston flies a Hustler and he inadvertantly hit a landing light at an airport with his. This usually means total destruction of an airframe. The Hustler airframe only received cosmetic damage! My C-ARF EuroSport would have been destroyed!!!

My $.02

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

Hi Guy's:
Tom's work is impeccable,,, the Hustler is one sweet bird and Tom has spent numerous hours in researching the data on this bird. Guy's missed the boat on the wrong purchase.

Dave

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

So why should we , as customers, not demand, and expect that the manufacturer should replace the whole airframe when there is clearly a manufacturing defect which has caused a loss, and be jolly grateful he is excluded from consequential loss and even more grateful that there has been no injury, or worse, as a consequence of the crash. A jet model suffering structural, failure and crashing into a crowd at a big event like the scale masters could be our model equivalent of Habsheim. (Frecci Tricolori accident in Germany),

It is my firm view BVM should have immediately grounded all Kingcats until either the customer accepted the patch repair AND had incorporated it, OR the booms were replaced. As I am only too aware when I inspect a fullsize fiberglass sailplane and sign it off as fit to fly it is impossible to fully inspect or non destructively test composite structures when the internals are inaccessible. If there is any doubt about a structural component, and clearly there was, there is no doubt, replace the offending item with another which is KNOWN to be of airworthy standard before further flight.

I am absolutely not interested in "knocking" anyone, BVM, Comp ARF or Skymaster, I have aircraft from all three and wish to see all of them prosper, BUT we have got to be realistic about airworthiness and safety standards. Sometimes we have to take a loss in business when things just don't go quite the way we would have wished, thats a risk all businesses have to take.

Regards,

David Gladwin.

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

I'm not sure if you are saying there should or should not be restitution from a manufacturer when a model goes in.

My two cents? NO. Once you put that model in the air, all bets are off. Up until the past five years or so, I had NEVER heard of a manufacturer replacing a crashed airplane, and it was Great Planes that started it, as far as I can see. I think they opened up a can of worms, bigtime, and if it became some sort of standard expectation that planes that suffered some sort of airframe failure would be replaced, it would drive too many people out of business.

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

Think about what you just said, Easytiger...Perhaps if an inferior product that has the potential to harm someone when it fails---That manufacturer SHOULD be put out of business if he doesn't have the capital and intregrity to stand behind his product. Product liability is HUGE in todays business world. Have you ever heard of product recalls?!?!?!? It happens every day and yes, the good manufacturers will "make it right".

Before I get bashed, I'm not directing this post towards BVM in any way!!! A buddy of mine snapped off both booms in a firm landing. The landing was a little firm but not enough to snap a properly designed boom. BV did replace his booms and has issued an A.D. to fix the problem. It's not like he stuck his head in the sand, hoping the problem would go away....BV thoroughly tests everything that he sells. Have you ever seen him fly???? SMOOOOOOOOTH!!!! When the KingCat was designed I don't think that BV envisioned all of the very hard square loops and violent snaps that some modelers are doing that weakens the booms.

The Hustler is a fine aircraft and in my opinion a better made plane than the KingCat, not to mention able to take much more abuse than the KingCat.

Kevin

RE: Kingcat vs Hustler.
 

These planes crashed because of known structural deficiencies. That is different from crashing, or flying beyond structural limits.
Also, some of those people spent all their modeling budget on one plane. You have to admit that a Kingcat Is way overpriced!!!
BVM did the right thing by sending a fix to all the customers currently flying Kingcats, but those who lost theirs already are just unfortunate I guess.
BV also slightly mislead people by saying that this occurred on only two airframes, when it was a wide spread problem.
Obviously, if these people come up with the money to build one of BV's planes, then they must be loyal customers. Without customers BV has no business, so I think that he would gain from being loyal back to the extent that he can.
I bet the next run of planes will have a much better structural design.
I have built two Kingcats, and I'm on my third. I built them for other people, so I don't own them. This past summer I witnessed a full blown
boom failure right at show center. VERY scary.

Dan