Figured I may as well share my build experience etc with you guys...

I ordered a Sepecat Jaguar kit from Didier at http://christen.diffusion.online.fr/jaguar.htm as soon as the kit was announced, and pid my deposit to secure the first kit produced.

Didier indicated that the first kit would be available sometime in May this year. Based on the usual significant difference between promissed delivery and actual delivery, I figured the kit might be available by the end of the year, so it was a pleasant surprise to be notified by Didier in April that my kit would ship within a couple of weeks. Sure enough, a couple of weeks later he sent me two tracking numbers.... and that 's where some of the problems started. The "Colliposte" website is completely in French, so I had to enlist the help of a French-speaking co-worker to figure out what was going on. One of the tracking #s showed the parcel "in progress" with no useful info ; the second tracking # showed a "no such parcel" error. I asked Didier to double-check the #s, but he said they were correct, so that's when I first started feeling a tad uneasy.

Two weeks later, the first parcel arrived - this contained the wings. Unfortnately the packing of the kit was inadequate - a little brown paper wrapped around the wings, then the wings were simply dropped into a big cardboard box full of polystyrene "peanuts" / shredded paper etc. Not much good, as the heavy wings predictably gravitated to the bottom of the box during transit, pushing the looe packing aside. The result was that both wings had the TE of the wingtip broken off, as well as the opposing corner of the wing centre-section, as shown in the pics below.

I notified Didier of this, and suggested that a couple of layers of bubble-wrap be placed around the whole wing, or at a minimum, around the corners that the wing would rest on in transit. His response indicated that he thought his packing was adequate and that customs must have damaged the wings during some or other en-route inspection. Oh well - at least I tried to get an improvement made for the next customer, even if it may not have had any effect.

Anyway, fixing the damage to the wings took only an hour or so of work, so no big deal. I was more concerned about the fact that the 2nd parcel had not arrived, and the tracking still showed a "no such package" error.

In retrospect it would have been better if they lost a package altogether... instead, it transpired that the tracking # was incorrect (despite my request for it to be verified having yielded a "yes, that's correct" response) and the parcel was about to be received.

The next week, USPS left a "parcel too big to be delivered - pick up in person required" note on my door, so I rushed off to pick up the goodies. At the counter, the lady says "We need to verify that you are who you say you are, so sign here and show me your driver's licenese so that I can check the signature. I duly did so, and then waited for the parcel. 10 minutes later a guy comes out and throws this totally mangled cardboard box on the floor and says "it's all yours". My response of "I can't accept that - it's destroyed" was met with indifference ; when I asked for the supervisor, she said "Well, you can't leave it here - you already signed for it, so take it home. Just call this tel # and all will be fine". I tried to get something in writing from them admitting the damage, but they refused, and just brushed me off with "We deal with claims like this all the time - it won't be a problem". The best I could do was take some pics of the broken box next to the post-office signs to try to show that the damage existed already at that point.

The pics below show SOME of the damage:

That is a flippin' joke. I would have gone postal on that SOB.
After all they are being paid to transport these items not DESTROY them.

What's next?

Mate that is outrageous!! You did well keeping your cool in there.[X(]

I notified Didier of the damage, and he replied with a typical gallic dramatic flair : "Is a Disaster !!" ... I could almost hear Peter Sellers saying the words in his Inspector Clouseau accent

At this point I was not looking forward to trying to deal with the insurance claim, since I speak no French and Didier has passable but not wonderful English ... and obviously there would be both French and English postal people involved.

Fortunately for me, Didier has teamed up with Peter from Altecare ( [link=http://www.altecare.com/radiocontrol.htm]http://www.altecare.com/radiocontrol.htm[/link]) ; even though I didn't buy my kit through Peter (since I didn't know at the time that he would be a distributor / dealer), Peter has been phenomenally helpful in getting the claim sorted out.

I would expect that kind of help from a dealer who was getting money from me, but since he's someone who gets nothing out of the process (other than satisfaction) I simply can't over-state how impressed I've been with this help. He will certainly get some of my future business.

Since Didier builds these kits one at a time by hand, getting the replacement fuselage kit involved a bit of a wait. About 5 months after my broken kit arrived, I now have a replacement fuselage shell and MOST of the parts needed for progressing with the build.

A chap called Kilroy from Texas had received kit #2 from Didier, then changed his mind and wanted an ARF instead of a kit, so Peter kindly arranged for Kilroy to ship his fuselage to me. This time it came via UPS instead of USPS, and came in a box that was pretty much gauranteed to make it through. Thank you Kilroy, for your extra effort in the shipping:

Hi Gordon,

Unbelievable stuff but am glad that it seems to have worked out in the end..

Now hurry up and get some pictures up with your impressions. I have been waiting for this for a while. Would it be inappropriate to ask the cost of the complete kit and what is included? Some specs on the planes would be appreciated as well. Looks like a very interesting project. I'm looking for a winter project...

Thanks - Adil

So - how does the kit look ?

The glasswork from Didier is some of the nicest that I have seen anywhere. It's truly a work of art, and you can see why it takes him a while to make up each kit.

The woodwork is largely high quality too, with just a slight change or two here and there that I would like to see (more on that later).

The instructions ... well, as expected from the smaller manufacturers, there's no detailed BVM-style manual here at all. One printed page lists the CG and some of the throws, and that's it as far as the words go. There is a CD containing a number of build-progress photos that helps guide you through the various assembly steps. This is almost enough information for a reasonable experienced builder to complete the model, but a few areas remain uncovered. Fortunately I once again have Peter helping me to get the necessary information from Didier so that the build can progress.

The retract units are very nice, and are the first that I have seen that have "festo style" push-to-fit connectors on the cylinders instead of the usual brass nipples.

The nose gear strut is somewhat basic, but OK. The main gear struts are VERY nice. Not completely scale (would need to add a few items such as a dummy arm to get it truly scale if wanted), but they are still WAAAY nicer than the average kit parts. Some minor tweaking will be needed as the tires rub against a bolt in the strut assembly, but Didier has already indicated that this is fixed for the newer kits (don't forget, mine is kit #1, so some stuff like this is expected)

Didier includes a couple of plasma-bag type wing-tanks, as shown below.

Since these do not meet AMA reg's, I will be ditching these. I will either use du-bro tanks as applicable if they fit the layout well enough, or will custom-make some conformal cells just as I did for the Hunter. I'll also probably make up some extra stiffener ribs to insert into the wing where the tanks would have been.

One thing that I had not originally expected in the kit, was that it would have leading edge flaps in addition to the trailing edge flaps.

These can be seen in the pic below. I have never used leading edge flaps (or even slats / slots) on a model before, but from the responses I got to a question about these flaps (which I posted on here a while ago) it seems will be an interesting exercise to figure out just how much of what to use.

The underside of that same wing shows the pre-cut servo-access panels for the two flap types and the aileron.

I used a junior hacksaw blade (minus the pins of course) to complete the cutouts for the servo hatches.

Unfortunately the hatches for the LE flap servos have been position such that one corner of the hatch is actually epoxied to a wing spar. Since I didn't really want to saw through the spar, I simply checked the layout of the intended servo and linkage, and determined that the hatch need not be the full size of the square that Didier cut. So, I basically removed a small triangle (about 1" on each side) from the removable hatch area, and reglued the pre-cut skin in the area to be left attached.

I'm sure a pic makes the above gobbledeygook clearer:

Yes more pictures Gordo, your sophisticated European language is way too much for us simple Americans.[:@]

Other than the pre-installed stab linkages, the kit comes with none of the basic hardware that most kits come with.

As a result, it's necessary to figure on your own what type of hinges, horns, air cylinders, etc will best suit the kit.

For the horns, I purchased a few sets of control horns from BVM and used these for all 3 control surfaces on each wing. Appologies for the lack of focus on one of the pics, but I'm sure you get the general idea - just file a slot in the control surface for the horn to fit into, and a corresponding wider slot in the mating surface for the horn and clevis to be able to fit through.

To ensure that the horns are instaled equally on both wings, I made up simple jigs using a wire to locate the horn hole in the desired location, and plywood jigs on either side to hold the wire in the correct location. This is a variation of the technique used in most of the BVM kits that I've built, but with a plywood part on BOTH sides instead of just on ONE side. This arrangement allows me to still get the desired location even with the plywood parts spaced far enough from the horn to allow me to get in between and apply / tidy-up a glue fillet

I also bought a load of Tamjets servo mounts, to ease installation of the wing servos:

Some 1/8" hard-ply parts were made up to act as rails for the servo hatches to be screwed to, and epoxied inside the skin. There isn't a whole lot of structure keeping the upper & lower wing skins apart, so I intend to make up some balsa spacers to glue between the skins in the area of the servo hatches. That way, when I press down slightly with a screwdriver on the hatch screws, I'm not distorting the whole skin.

BTW, I've found over the years that when I cut the slot in a servo hatch, I often get it wrong - typically making a wider or longer slot in the hatch than is necessary. To deal with those mistakes, I now always use a simple balsa hatch substitute initially, and throw these away and make new ones as necessary until I get hte hole correct for the desired travel. Once that's done, I use the balsa cover as a template to cut the slot in the [i]real[i] hatch.

Here are all 3 hatches now completed.

There are a number of parts used to joing the wing halves together.

The first pic here shows some detail of the two wing spars.

The rear spar has a slot in the middle, and to join the wing in that area, an "I-beam" joiner piece is made up from 3 parts as shown

There are also thin ply parts on either side of the fwd spar, and beefier parts that go right at the LE and TE of the wing centre section. For the TE, the part is cut to match the profile of the wing TE, but that causes it to not fit due to the fact that there are large balsa blocks glued into the wing TE (for the wing bolts to go through).

As a result, some quick trimming is necessary to get the patrs to the correct size.

For the wing skins, these just butt-join initially, and then you add a bandage to the inside of the upper forward section.

You have no access to the rear section after the wings are joined, in order to apply a bandage there. I therefore chose to glue some poly-ply strips to one wing half to create a "lip", which would aid in a better join. This can be seen between the rear spare and the TE in the pic below.

I still need to do some tidy-up work in the area of the LE FLAP hinges, add the wing mounting mechanism, and perhaps add some stiffeners where the wing plasma tanks will not be installed. I will also add some hard-points later for whatever I decide to hang under the wing - but other than that the wing is basically complete at this point, so it's time to move on to the fuselage.

Cost:

The airframe, gear + brakes, and bifurcated pipe are around $3500. See http://www.altecare.com/jaguar.htm for details. If you want to order from Peter, I suggest hat you double-check with him just what the retract kit he is quoting includes. I ordered direct from Didier, and purchased his complete set of retracts, wheels and brakes, but when I received the goods, the parts included did not match the "instruction pics" ... several components from the brake side were missing. When I queried this, I was advised that the parts I had paid for from CD was a "partial" brake set, whereas the pics showed the complete set. I felt that this was a tad disingenuous, but will write it off as a learning experience such that in future I will demand a full list of components in English.

I don't know whether the parts that Peter is quoting on his website is the new "REALLY complete" set that CD apparently is offering now, or the "Cut-down" set that only I was sold, so please check that with him just to be sure that there is no misunderstanding that could create bad feelings. Note that I'm not in any way suggesting Peter would play shell games with what's in the box you'd receive from him - he's a stand up guy - buy he may or may not have adjusted his web page based on things like this change in contents, and he's possibly also stil learning what exactly Didier includes and what he does not.

The pipe is a single-wall affair, which I may choose to replace with a double-walled unit from Tam. I'm not sure I like the way the pipe sticks out eihter, so I may also see if Tam can do some metal tailcones just like he's done for e.g. the Super Bandit etc - but that has yet to be determined.

Impressions:
Obviously this could still change as the build progresses, but so far my impressions are pretty favorable. As mentioned, the glass quality is very good. A much sturdier shipping container would be nice, to help protect that lovely glasswork, but in my experience the smaller European manufacturers do seem to have overly optimistic opinions of what happens when you write "fragile" on the outside of a box. e.g. my Hunter kit from Mick Reeves was in an equally thin and floppy box when it was sent to me, and it too got shipping damage (though not nearly this bad). I think most of us would be happy to pay a few bucks more for a good quality box that prevents all the heartache.

The quality of the landing gear has impressed me. This is an area where the smaller manufacturers often suffer IMO - since they don't expect to sell that many kits, they sometimes won't invest in high quality gear. The gear (retracts, struts, brakes) in this kit are certainly not cheap, but so far they seem well worth the money.

Issues like the servo hatch placement causing it to be glued to the spar, some issues with the gear mounts and placement etc. that I have come across so far are IMO quite typical of the problems that you find in a very early kit. I found those in my Hunter kit (Again, I supposedly had kit #1), and even in my BVM Super Bandit kit (which was one of the very first customer kits released, with only a few rep-built kits preceding it). If you want to avoid these kind of issues, wait until the kit has been out a whlie and the manufacturer has had a chance to fix the gotchas. For me, it's not a big problem and I accept these kind of things as part of the price of getting the kit at an early stage.

Gordon

On to the fuselage, and the gear mounting plates.

The plates that came with the kit are made up of two laminations of 1/4" ply. Nice & sturdy, but the problem that I found was that the slot in these plates (that the retract unit mounts into) was a good 1/8" wider than it needed to be - not sure how clearly that can be seen in the pic below.

If you look at the position of the mounting screw-holes in the retract unit, you will see that they aren't all that far out form the frames. This means that once that extra 1/8" gap is taken into account, the screw holes are going to be so close to te edges of the cut-out slot that there really isn't a huge amount of meat left. Now, anyone who knows me understands that my landings are always such perfect greasers that I don't need to worry about whether the gear screws will get pulled out of an unnecessarily compromised mounting plate. However, I will probably have Dave "Strawboss" Presta do the maiden flight on this bird,so I need to make sure that the mounts are up to HIS standard too, not just mine !

So, I simply used the provided mounts as a template, and made up new mounts that have a much tighter fit and more meat for the mounting screws.

Love the horn alignment jig, I am stealing that one for sure!

Hey I got some pics too, maybe I should start posting!

The mounts fit inbetween two main formers, to form a cradle as shown. At first I though Didier had done some sloppy cutting work, given how the holes in the formers were so much larger than the width or thickness of the gear mount plates. Only after I fitted the parts together did I realise that the oversize holes are necessary due to the significant angle that the mounts pass through the formers at.

Go for it !!

Gordon