Hobby King models thread

[Trevor Crook]

I said on another thread I'd give some feedback on my son's purchase of an EDF Vampire from Hobbyking UK, but that thread was closed as it had descended into a tax avoidance debate, so here it is:

Order placed last Monday, took 2 days to process then arrived via Parcelforce 48 hour delivery on Thursday. The model was well packaged, in perfect condition, and even has reasonable instructions in English.

A positive experience, then. Two days to ship it is a little slow, but no real problem, and anyway they're probably still flat out setting everything up as well as getting stuff out of the door. It's certainly shifting - there were 10 Vampires when ordered, now they are out of stock!

Edited By David Ashby - RCME on 16/07/2012 08:15:06

[Tony Read]

Nice one Trevor!

Good to see a positive experience.

The only down side is that I was too late to order a Vampire!

Be interested to hear how you get on with it.

Edited By David Ashby - RCME on 16/07/2012 08:15:16

[Codename-John]

but what we`re really interested in is did it say about VAT on your delivery note Trevor ?

lol im joking,

Im waiting on an order myself, an "easy fly" glider, ordered weds night, shipped thursday via 48 hour parcel force, so a day of waiting in on monday hopefully will see me with another sedate glider to while away the evening hours after i stuffed my escale one in before, the escale cost me nearly a hundred quid, just needing an RX, this one £53 just needing a 1300mAh lipo and RX for near enough the same model !

Edited By David Ashby - RCME on 16/07/2012 08:15:25

[NigelH]

I'd say that the opening of the Hobby King UK warehouse is the most significant thing to happen to the hobby in many years.

They have already added dozens and dozens of new models, many at very low prices. With the threat of high customs and admin charges now gone, I'd expect that a lot of forum members will be buying these models for the first time.

I'd say that it would be helpful for people to share their experiences, good or bad. It could be, for example, that while someone may see an obvious flaw with a model, there could be a cheap and easy fix that people can make which would turn it into something really good.

I'll share one tip now.

A guy at the club recently took an Alpha Jet EDF 64mm 4s w/Bomb Drop EPO 745mm (PNF). I'd seen it on the Flitetest video and it looked good in the flesh. Someone agrees to maiden it for him. It gets a good shove and off it went, for about thirty seconds. It then broke up mid-air. It turns out that the guy hadn't pulled out the wings and glued them back in. It could be that the instructions were unclear or that the guy didn't read them. Either way, worth bearing in mind.

[gliggsy]

Ok, here we go, got one of these, looked good quality, put together and finished nicely, there were no instructions, which wasn't a great problem but the lack of knowing the ideal CofG was, anyway it turns out that the instructions are on-line on the product page. So off to maiden, not expecting a lot as I hadn't read all the reviews until after purchase, mainly because all the reviews aren't in one place ie some in USA, some in HK etc. Well it lifted off ok and did a fast circuit and rolled ok, The problem was when using the ele', top of a loop and the tail would blow out badly, lowered the rates on ele and tried again, will do a large loop if you use little ele' but tight loops are a no-no. came into land and the thing just fell out of the sky, thought it was me but further reading suggests not. Few minor repairs and re-set C/G and off again, fell out of sky again and destroyed itself, turns out this thing will only fly fast which makes landing a bit of a problem.....One to miss IMO....G

Edited By glyn grist on 15/07/2012 13:40:54

Edited By Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator on 15/07/2012 15:35:45

[NigelH]

Interesting. When you look at it, it's a beauty for next to nothing.

[Olly P]

John, I've had an easy fly for a while. Top tip from me is to look at the canopy catch. If I had a new one I'd trim the front of the canopy hinge it, and replace the rear. I'd also look at the snakes for the rudder and elevator.

Overall a great aircraft for stooging about with.

Edited By David Ashby - RCME on 16/07/2012 08:15:35

[Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator]

Glyn,

please read this to find out how to post links properly on here.

Thanks

BEB

[Trevor Crook]

Glyn, that's useful feedback - looks so good in the picture, too. Can you elaborate on "fell out of the sky"? - Do you think it was a tip-stall problem?

[graeme jones]

I predict that Hobbyking will have one big problem with their UK warehouse - keeping it stocked! As larger numbers of us realise that prices are 30 to 50% of those of Ripmax etc. they will see a huge increase in demand. If my experience of their German and Chinese warehouses is typical, lots of stuff will be on backorder i.e. out of stock, for up to 6 months.

I also wonder how they will cope with UK trading standards enforcement of the Sale of Goods Act, Distance Selling Regulations.

Prospective customers should also bear in mind that you get what you pay for. As an example, I have one of HK's Rainbow EPO electric aero's. One big problem (one wing moulded 3mm thicker than the other so wouldn't fit in the fuselage slot) and several smaller ones were reported to HK and they just were not interested. That won't wash now that they are trading from the UK (as Lucky Stuff Ltd, Unit 18, Ipswich IP7 6LN). All the problems were solved (EPO can be razor-planed!) and it flies well, but ARTF it was not.

Caveat Emptor

Graeme Jones

[Codename-John]

cheers olly, i`ll have a look when it arrives

Edited By David Ashby - RCME on 16/07/2012 08:15:42

[Garbo]

Posted by glyn grist on 15/07/2012 13:38:00:

Ok, here we go, got one of these, looked good quality, put together and finished nicely, there were no instructions, which wasn't a great problem but the lack of knowing the ideal CofG was, anyway it turns out that the instructions are on-line on the product page. So off to maiden, not expecting a lot as I hadn't read all the reviews until after purchase, mainly because all the reviews aren't in one place ie some in USA, some in HK etc. Well it lifted off ok and did a fast circuit and rolled ok, The problem was when using the ele', top of a loop and the tail would blow out badly, lowered the rates on ele and tried again, will do a large loop if you use little ele' but tight loops are a no-no. came into land and the thing just fell out of the sky, thought it was me but further reading suggests not. Few minor repairs and re-set C/G and off again, fell out of sky again and destroyed itself, turns out this thing will only fly fast which makes landing a bit of a problem.....One to miss IMO....G

Edited By glyn grist on 15/07/2012 13:40:54

Edited By Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator on 15/07/2012 15:35:45

Glyn

Click on your link and when the page opens scroll down where you will see four tabs

Discussion Review Video Files

Click on Files and the manual will pop up

Dosnt work for all models and sometimes it is in the HK listing and not the HKUK listing so its worth clicking around the different warehouse listings

[Codename-John]

Ive got one of the Radjet 800`s, the instructions for CoG are wrong, I set it where instructed and first launch just went straight earthwards snapping the front bit of the nose off and snapping the prop, but now ive butchered a bit of the inside and got the battery stuffed as far back as possible inside its a wonderful little thing, flies round slowly well but when you open it up it really comes to life, motors along at a good speed but stays easily controllable.

I also have a stinger 64 edf which flies well at full throttle but lacks a bit of oomph otherwise, im using a 3s 2200 battery, havent tried 4s yet but if the supplied motor and esc would take it should improve it, there are videos on u tube of modified ones and theyre ballistic.

[gliggsy]

Hi TC, TBH I'm pretty new to planes, only been flying about seven or eight months, got most of my airtime flying helis and now can throw the PZ foamies all over the sky, also fly the Nigel hawes Tucano, 39", both of impecable manners. Thought I would give this thing a try for a bit of 'sport' style flying. Now I've heard of tip stall but not sure what it is TBH but this plane just gave no indication it would drop it's nose so drastically when slow flying, had 4/5 flights and did experience it whilst high aloft and took an age to recover, just refused to glide, had been running with c/g too far forward but on it's final run was set to specs' and now it's been despatched to the bin so will never know. Actually broke my heart to bin it, nothing to do with the $, more a personal goal and pride dented. Thanks for the heads up garbo and Chris..........G

[Simon B]

As has been said, being UK based they're now subject to UK regs and will have to up their game. Their returns policy has been pretty hit and miss (more miss) from their HK depot and the quality of some items is a bit suspect. At least when you have a fault with one of the established distributors you tend to get decent back up (look at Horizon for a great example).

[scott cuppello]

We have every intention of running a 1st class warranty department in the UK Warehouse....as for models, I have tested a fair number of them, if you need to know something, you only have to ask.

[Tom Wright 2]

Got this ASW 28 from HK UK last week have not assembled it yet but it appears to be a very good quality model at a more than reasonable price.

Tom.

[Bill_B]

I've got the Stinger 64 EDF, Rare Bear funfighter and 50mm F-16 EDF. All 3 fly extremely well and so far I have no complaints. I'm running the Stinger on 4s with the stock motor and fan (balanced) and because I only use short bursts the hardware seems to be holding up. The Rare Bear on 4s is just mental and gives a huge grin factor, whilst the F-16 is a great aerobatic park flyer. The fan on this needed balancing too as did the prop on the RB, so I would strongly suggest to check any HK EDF unit or props for balance prior to running.

I've had many (12 to date) Nano-Tech LiPo batteries and so far none have been duds, not to mention various motors, ESCs, UBECs and tools. All these have been ordered direct from Hong Kong and I must have saved myself a small fortune on the process.

[NigelH]

Thanks Scott. Will we be seeing more new items in the UK warehouse today ?

[Chris Jones 7]

I bought the ARF 1600mm Zlin z50l from the HK warehouse along with all the Required motor electronics, motor, prop and spinner.

To be quite frank I was very impressed with the quality of the kit and the components. Only minor issue I had was I didn't like the connectors for the pull pull rudder and hense swapped it out for a Dubro setup.

Only a brief maiden with it so far but more than enough power for unlimited vertical, the cliche of it flying on rails is apt, recommended CoG seems a good place to start, a stall sees the left wing and nose dropping but is easy to recover from and, as demonstrated by my overshot landing it floats on well if a little faster than I'm used to.

very, very pleased with it so far but only time will tell as to it's durability. Seeing as how this "expensive" model is so good I thought I'd try the cheapest I could find and have gone for the £18 indoor foamy they have. I'll let you know how that goes!

Chris

[Miroslav]

I've been happy with 90% of my purchases from Hobbyking HK, escs, retracts, batteries etc all aok and working well. I've bought three planes from them, a Stinger edf which I haven't flown yet, and two Kinetics (powered 900mm wingspan gliders).

The first Kinetic (which is a Multiplex Merlin clone btw), I flew on a three cell 850mah battery and it always put a smile on my face. Very fast, very agile and long flight times. The stock esc blew on her while I was doing a pre-flight motor run up (lucky for me it went on the ground and not in the air) and I then put in an eflite 30amp esc and no problems since.

The second Kinetic arrived from HK with two dead servos in the elevator and rudder which I had to replace. I flew this as a two cell 500mah battery configuration for slope flying and for some inexplicable reason, she flew like a dead whale, all over the place and frequent unintended ground interface events (into heather so no damage). I can't figure this out at all as Kinetic 1 flies like a dream but its 2 cell counterpart (which is the way it was designed) flies terribly.

However this wouldn't put me off buying from HK as their Durafly range of planes make their PZ equivalents look positively spartan in comparison. Just make sure the spare parts are available and they'll be a sure fire winner.

[Andy Butler]

I've got a Phoenix 2000 electric glider on order. This is the airframe only as I have the required servo's, motor etc. already. There's a lot of threads around including a massive one on another forum and lots of You tube vids. £38 plus postage - I'll let you know how I get on., and maybe do an assembly thread.

[Ian Holme]

I bought the Ryan from German Warehouse some time ago.It has proved remarkably robust and has so far survived my numerous and concerted efforts to destroy it!

My earlier experiences with foamies had been mixed, with fragile polystyrene making them very fragile (my rafale flew loverly but all too easily reduced to a pile of little white balls! My current jpower f4 is a little tougher but can be a nasty little so and so in flight)

Back to the Ryan It really needs a 2200 3s to balance and give reasonable endurance -1300 suggested would be pretty inadequate

All supplied electrics still operate as intended despite the knocks and it make for nice easy going flyer.

The knocks being the result of my lack of day to day flying in recent months /yrs, (a combination of poor weather and a Benelli Tornado motorcycle being the prime reasons for that!) plus the odd bit of brain fade (ailerons back to front.........not made that mistake since i was 9!)

Only real neg is the undercarriage design means that the spats cannot be removed, and with the small wheels our grass strip needs to be well mown for a comfortable take -off.

Cost was about £75 delivered, and probably a fair bit less now from the uk warhouse.

Just ordered the HK f9f panther , will be with me later this week. Should be fun....

[scott cuppello]

Posted by NigelH on 16/07/2012 07:48:06:

Thanks Scott. Will we be seeing more new items in the UK warehouse today ?

Much more to come but shipping containers is not exactly an exact science!

[Andy Butler]

Scott,

Would it be possible to collect orders from the warehouse? I live fairly close by so it's an option for me if it's possible.

BTW, keep up the good work - been looking forward to HK setting up here.