Adrian Smith 1

Hi Ultymate,   I can't really agree with you on this. The H9 RV 8 in question that was reviewed cost in excess of £200 and one would expect it to be up to scratch for that money. If a review of any sort is unable to test the item enough to find these things out then any review is a waste of time   I am sure if you spent 200 quid on a Dyson vacuum and it did't pick up dust you'd be the first to whinge about it.   I am not sure what sort of point you are trying to make in the analogy of 2 lego bricks which I find both unhelpful and disingenuous and add nothing to the debate.

  Hi Iain,   I had a similar experience with the Weston Capiche 140 ARTF canopy. You only needed to blow on it and it split in 3 or 4 places and that's even before I built the plane!! Sadly I bought the plane direct from Westom (at full price I may add, but I should have bought it 30 quid cheaper at Inwoods if I had done my research properly) and I had to pay 20 odd quid for another one from them as they wouldn't replace it. The probably broke into another kit for it...ho hum.   Hi YakMad,   would that be the same H9  RV-8 reviewed in the Jan 2010 RCME? The quality of kit was assessed as excellent!! Sometimes I wonder what drives these reviews as time and again we as consumers don't get the full story.     

Best High St Retailer      Galaxy Models   Best Mail Order               Just Engines   Best Distributor    Weston UK   Best Kit                 Capiche 140 ARTF

Sadly Tom It's too late to try Island Models. I have looked at its website and they look good. Have you used them much? Thank you for all your comments guys. I really like these forums so we can find the best route to go when in difficulty.

Well that's what I would have expected David, but sadly it appears not the case hence I was bit miffed. I could have got one from CarbonCopy but that would have been £40+.   Anyway I'd hardly touched the offending item so I didn't really see why I had to pay. Regretably I had no choice.

Just bought an ARTF Capiche 140 from Weston UK and am almost finished with build. By and large the kitting is excellent. However, the canopy.......oh dear! In the simple operation of removing out of the polythene bag the side split half way along the side! Further upon picking is up from the edge it split there too. Very brittle indeed. I phoned Weston to get a replacement. The response I got was less than helpful. The comment which was fair I suppose was they would have take a canopy from another kit to do this. Plus I am being charged the best part of 20 squid for the pleasure! Not good enough I am afraid and rather spoilt my impression of what is generally a very good kit. Anybody had the same problem?

hi Craig, Can't say I noticed anything untoward with wing balance so I must be lucky I guess. All I had to do to get straight and level flight at 3/4 throttle was a couple clicks right aileron. She doesn't  roll out of loops or bunts but given the speed I adopt in entry I wouldn't expect her to.   Regards

Glad I was of some help. Firstly one thing I forgot to mention was that my Quest has between 1-2deg side thrust using washers, but I have no downthrust. In answer to some of your questions - given that the wing loading is very light this makes the glide characteristices of my model excellent. I haven't prop hung but harriers are fine. I still have the original U/C which seems ok but I did reinforce the U/C slots with 1/32 ply just to be safe. I used the original tank but it was a fiddley job I must say. As far as the prop goes it depends what you want to do. For out and out aeros use 11x6 -8 as long as you are on a glass strip that is very flat, otherwise you might need a 12x5 to get you off the ground easier I but lose out a little on the aeros as the prop unwinds in the atmoshere. As far as CofG at 120mm, I haven't tried mine there as I found a happy solution at 110mm. Hope that helps. Adrian    

Hi Craig, sorry to be a bit tardy in answering your Quest 50 problem but have been on me hols. Anyway I have a Quest 50 and it flies beautifully the way it's not set up by trial and error. First, disregard the instruction book. My CG sits at 110mm from the leading edge where the normal measurement is taken. I have 3.5 ounces of lead in the nose and the grunt is powered by an OS 46AX using an 11x6 APC prop. Trust me it will do all you want on that and more! Best of luck, Adrian.

I have had dealings with Moor's Models using the mail order service and found them acceptable to deal with. I agree that somes the kits take a while to arrive but at their low prices (not seen them lower anywhere else eg Cmpro) I don't mind waiting. I suspect that their stock mostly comes from a third party hence the delay, as and when orders come in.   The Watford shop has phoned me in the past when a kit was unobtainable despite still being on the website. Engines can be sourced cheaper elsewhere however.

 Hi Richard, I have flown the Swallow for a good few years now and is quite a nice flyer using an OS 90 FS. My settings are as follows which produce some worry free pattern flying. Elev 16mm-Rudd 35mm-Ail 15mm I also use a 13x9 APC prop. There is abt 8 oz of nose weight in it to balance it at 115mm although I think its a tad nose heavy. Hope thats of use. Adrian    

Righto thanks......so what's the answer? Do I buy some proportional servos with enough power to drive the retract? There isn't much room to alter the servo arms' length on the retract servos, but is that a possibility?

I think I must be thick because of my inability to resolve a servo problem! I am fitting mechanical retracts to my Cmpro Mosquito using two Supertec S136GH retract servos and my Futaba 6EX 2.4GHz set. Servos are connected from a y-lead into the gear channel, in this case channel 5. The End Point Adjustment (EPA) is on it’s default setting of 100% which is too great and the servo arms rotate too far. However, when using the EPA facility of the gear channel to reduce the throw to 50% nothing seems to happen and the servo arms move the same as the original 100% setting. I don’t understand this at all or how to alter this. This is my first attempt at using retracts although I quite happily change the EPA on the other channels without difficulty. Any ideas?

Its good to have to report an instance of great service for once! I have a pair of sunglasses with four interchangeable lenses for differing weather conditions, supplied by Modelglasses.com. I recenting had trouble with the nose rubbers falling off until predictably I lost one rendering the glasses uncomfortable to wear.   A quick phone call to Modelglasses had a duplicate set of rubbers winging their way to me gratis and no postage to pay within 48 hours. Furthermore these came with the advice to use superglue to secure them in place thereby stopping this occurance happening again. Well done guys!

  Thanks guys for your input. I have plumped for the South Herts Models set up and looking at the wiring diagram it seems straightforward for an ignoramous such as me. Given the challenge of flying a twin aircraft the last thing I need to worry about is an engine quitting on me.  

Yes I have bought one and have been flying it this summer when I can. I have been using an OS 120Fs pumper with a 14x10 APC. I must say it flies very well and does all the areos you could wish for, although landing needs care if you slow it up too much.   Which brings me to my next point - the U/C arrangement is pitiful with the legs on it no bigger than on my Cmpro Quest 50 and expected to carry 3x the weight. Also the U/C being so short it's easy to foul the prop on the floor with a bouncy arrival.   Also the ply plate housing the U/C is not up to scratch and gaveway on the second flight. I replaced it with 1/4" birchwood ply sheet and epoxy resin bandage, this has solved the problem. I also bought a better UC from Carboncopy.  Hope this is useful.

As scratch builder and latterly an ARTF constructor I must comment on the poor quality fittings and design of my latest project the Cmpro Mossie which I am using two OS 52FS motors. A recent reviewer warned about the almost impossible fitting of the wing bolts (took him a day). Due to the odd alignment of the bolts and concealed nuts in the fuz moulding, it took me a day and a half plus some Isopon filler to accomplish. The rudder fixing in the fuz attached to a push rod wouldn’t hold a feather and was replaced with my own closed loop system. Both fibre push rods were thrown away (why does Cmpro persist with these things?) as they bent like Quelch’s cane before six of the best! I replaced the elevator pushrod with a decent piece of dowel. Next came the fitting out of the moulded nascelles. The supplied throttle pushrods were barely M2 is size and had to be bent to align the throttle arm with the servo level. These rods were also discarded and replaced with better quality M2 rods due to too much give in the provided items. Fitting them gave rise to lots of swearing as due to the internal wood frame in each nascelle, which houses the servos and retract frame, not being in the same sense. This meant one of the rods was a pig to fit. Furthermore one needs hand the size of a baby to fit the fuel tanks within the moulding as there really isn’t any access. That’s as far as I’ve got. I have lost all enthusiasm for the project and am very disappointed. It’s only the initial cost outlay that’s keeping me going. I hope when I fly the thing it’s worth it.

I am a great believer in spending a few quid on voltspy battery checkers to save a few hundred spondules due to cell failure inflight. There have been a few times where I thought I had picked up the charged nicad/nimh before a flying session only to find at the field, upon installing the battery in the aircraft, the voltspy tells me the battery is not fit to use!   Cell failure is another danger and despite charging a battery, said battery proves to have expired at the field. Another vote of confidence in the voltspy checker. Also don't forget to cycle nicads/nimh occasionally which invariably throws up dodgy cells.

Thanks John. Good to hear of the longevity  of the Limbo Dancer. I wish mine would last that long!

Yes good point. I use 2.4Ghz these days but I do have some nylon covered wire I can use.

Thanks guys appreciate it and it's commonsense - as the meerkat says "it's simples!"

As a builder and flyer for some years now I have what might appear to be a stupid question. I have used the closed loop system for rudders (pull-pull) very successfully and wonder how to do the same with the elevator. Short of mounting the servo sideways I can't for the life of me see how it's done despite looking at the finished article on photos with a magnifying glass! The review of the Capiche 140 ARTF in September's mag has the system which appears to show the rudder and elevator servos on a flat plane. As I say I may be a bit dense but can someone enlighten me?

Thanks Martin - I always like to hear the users' view rather than the advertising hype. Will check them out.

I am on my second project with twin engines and decided to fit on-board glows to both engines and I really welcome some feedback on a reliable piece of kit. I am using two OS 52 four strokes by the way.   

 Hi Nik, Thanks for the input. I must admit I like to keep things simple. I had already decided on an on-board glow system for safety. I do swear by OS engines (which I will use here) hence I don't usually fiddle around with them, never needed to. I have found the four strokes very reliable in particular, using them up to 120 size. I asked the questions after reading a piece in a idle moment but I am fast going off the idea of adding more gadgets. It just there's more to go wrong. However, I am not daunted. I had a brief affair with World Models DH Comet which flew very well but I made the mistake of slowing too much on finals which prompted its spectacular demise ! Ho Hum.......