Hisham

Guys
I have just bought this very old ARF Piper Tomahawk.
It is from Pilot, the 'OK Model Co. '
Need opinions about this plane, or any kind of old review.
Thanks
Hisham [8D]

Props4ever

Hisham,

Good taste you have for model airplanes, i always liked this aircraft but havent bought one yet, i would also appreciater revies on it too, actually V-Mar also have AFR model of Piper Tomahawk, but from what i heard its very flimsy model, modeller would have reinforse some of the critial area of airframe quite a bit before actually flying or wings would just fold on you...I am sure Pilot ARF would be alot better the V-mar in quality and scale representation....

Cheers,
Sammy

Lake Flyer

My Feedback: (13)

Pilot made super kits, you have a gem there. Some of their kits tended to be a little heavy because they had a lot of plywood in them. Pay attention to keeping it light and you should have a winner.

KC5EZZ

My Feedback: (104)

Built one of these many years ago and still have it. See my photo archive for a photo of the model. I actually took the Pilot plans and scratch built the model from those plans. I installed a ST 29 inverted. The plane flew faily well. I added flaps also. I had learned to fly the real thing so at the time Pilot was the only company kitting this aircraft. Interestingly I just saw a model of this plane this past weekend at a swapmeet. Up until now I have never seen another model of this. The actual Tomahawk is a great trainer. Some pilots will say it is not as stable as the old Cherokee 140 or Cessna 150 but Piper designed this plane with the intent that the instructor could teach spins in this aircraft. The actual plane does spin quite well as does the model. One other thing I noticed the model does that the real plane does as well is "fishtail" or fly with a slight wig-wag of the tail. Flaps are not really necessary but at the time I built and flew the model I was trying to imitate my full scale training that required a flap landing. When I built the kit from the plans I noticed that Pilot used a lot of lite ply particularly in the fuselage . I do recall substituting this for some light sheet balsa that made the fuse look a little more realistic as well as being somewhat lighter. This was one of my earlier scale attempts so I spent some time fixing up the cockpit and did not get into rivets or panel lines. I did paint the Fuselage and Monokote the wings. Overall I think the plane came out pretty light. As I mentioned before I still have the model so if you have questions... Oh yeah one more thing I did was to make the grooving in the flying surfaces. This I used a small router to do. Of course this is not necessary but does add to the wow factor. For a good description of how to do this type of crimp detail see the manuals put out by TopFite on their Beech and Piper Arrow.

Enjoy building the model and good luck flying the plane. Post some pics of your progress and feel free to ask questions maybe I can remember what I did some 24 years ago when I built this model.

Regards,

Charlie Campbell
AMA 19153

Jim Messer

My Feedback: (2)

I designed a 1/4 scale Piper Tomahawk back in 1978 and had my model flying before Piper had any production planes manufactured. I got the three views from Piper engineers doing their prototype model. My model had a definite fishtail at high speed, and when I confronted the Piper engineers about this, they told me that the real plane did the same thing. They blamed it on not having a fillet between the fuselage and the wing.

Interesting that your model, completely different than mine, did the same thing.

Attached are a couple of photos of my plane.

CliffordH

My Feedback: (9)

Mr. Messer,

The 1/4 scale Tomahawk sounds interesting. Would you happen to remember the wingspan and if the plans are available anywhere?

Thanks!
Cliff

Jim Messer

My Feedback: (2)

The wingspan is 100 inches, and power is a Q35. Dave Reid, of Reid's Quality Model Products still has plans, I believe.

halflight

My Feedback: (5)

I had a Tomahawk from Airsail Int. Pretty plane but flew like a rock on maiden right into the ground.

VeeAte

Here is a Piper Tomahawk 2 I was given on the weekend by the club president. The plane had a hard landing on the nosewheel and left wheel on the wing (looking at the front of the plane). I have fixed up the landing gear block where it was pushed up into the wing and just have to cut out and recover the top of the wing where the servo's and servo extensions were cut out years ago. The tail section on this kit was reinforced with carbon fibre in places to stiffen up the tail.
I am not sure if this was the VMAR or Airsail version. Having a look around the forums it is still hard to say. One version I noticed has what looks like a small length of dowel in the rudder up the top pointing backwards. My model doesnt have this.
The wingspan is roughly 72". Cant remember what the old owner used to power it with. I shall have to find out this weekend when I go out to the field.

Oh and the teddy bears aren't mine [:'(]

Hisham

My Small Piper is still in the box....
Currently Have lots of projects ........ and little time.
[>:][]

fyredog

I had a wood kit version of this tomahawk. I built it when I was a kid. I had a radio hit, and poof, all that was left was a tail section. I had a OS .25RC and that was plenty of power. I ended up buying an airsail, because the pilot kits are very hard to find. One thing I would suggest is put the time into the kit and get rid of the rubber bands by putting in wing bolts.

Good luck with it she's a beauty!

VeeAte

Thanks for the encouragement FyreDog.
This version is much too big to take a .25 and was told it will fly with a .45 sized engine, but not very well. So I am going to purchase a .60 sized engine for it based on the previous owners suggestions as he had two of these and flew them for quite a number of years.

I have repaired the landing gear block that was damaged in the "hard landing" and have cut out the sections for the new skins. Just have to wait until I can get some servo extension leads before I reskin and paint the wing. There were a couple of small cracks around the landing gear which I have wicked CA into and put small strips of balsa on top of to strengthen the area. I have also braced up the damaged landing gear block inside the wing with small sections of ply glued to the ribs on either side of it.

I am waiting for Mike to find the original plans so I can remake the nose wheel mount as per the instructions. Also have to wait for him to dig up the nose wheel and gear.

Once the nose gear is re-attached and the wing skinned it shall be ready for its first flight with me as owner.
Can't wait to fly it, but that will be a while as I am still learning on my trainer. Hopefully the Tomahawk will make a good second plane.

I also scored a VMAR Arrow Tiger with a damaged nose for free off another club member who was helping me with suggestions on how to repair the Tomahawk. I have the Arrow stripped and the wing is ready for recovering. Just need to get the measurements off his other Arrow Tiger to rebuild the nose.

Looks like I have my work cut out for me. Shall be interesting to see the results of these two repair jobs.

JimO

My Feedback: (7)

I built this kit when it first came out and flew it with a Saito 45. Flew great wiht out any problems. Like the realone wiht the T tail you need speed to take off and land.