Durafly Retro Series Junior - a quick fix

[ken anderson.]

ah but-will the durafly be knocking around in 60 years time........as with most of these far east offerings they are here today and gone tomorrow......once all concerned have made a bob or two out of the project.......fair enough --- instant gratification and all for the buyer ... but that's it...... suppose its the modern way with aero modelling....

ken Anderson....ne...1.......JNR60/durafly dept.....

[PaulH]

Oh! come on Ken. It's foam and if you look after it ,it should last a lifetime. After all the original was balsa, tissue paper and dope, with one bit of ply in the build and in my case made from a kit by me as a kid, not elegantly turned out by machine in a factory with all the quality that that implies. Assembling mine I'd say the quality of all the parts is excellent and good on Durafly and Hobbyking for bringing me a nostaligic piece of fun. And thanks to Scott for initiating the design.

[scott cuppello]

Ken......it's called progress, much as there are some who feel it is more "noble" to build it from plans in 6 months than assemble it from badly written instructions in an hour, frankly, I fail to see how the latter can possibly have any mileage in a modern world.......sorry but there is a reason that BNF/PNF/RTF/ARF and not KIT are the preferred method of bringing your pride and joy into the world........and anyway, if you prefer to build one.....what is stopping you?

It's about time some realised that those pesky kid's with their PNF/RTF/BNF, blah, blah.......are the only reason they can still afford the hobby!!

[Rob Jones 2]

Posted by scott cuppello on 05/12/2013 16:19:43:

......

It's about time some realised that those pesky kid's with their PNF/RTF/BNF, blah, blah.......are the only reason they can still afford the hobby!!

This is a very good point.Aero modelling is a live issue in the internet age because of the availability of foamies and the ARTF and RTF format. There just would not be the huge interest and availability of all sorts of models if we still had to built from strip wood like we did in the past. But those of us who still want to, can.

[Rob Jones 2]

Paul H- bit of a miraculous outcome with the EasyStar!

[PaulH]

Rob, I went out and bought a lottery ticket, maybe the luck will hold.

I've never lost a model since the free flight fifties, crashed quite a few and had to recover from the odd pesky tree, but not had a fly away. In the fifties those Space Bug thimble tanks meant you never had that far to go after they ran out of fuel.

[Rob Jones 2]

Posted by PaulH on 05/12/2013 22:45:27:

Rob, I went out and bought a lottery ticket, maybe the luck will hold.

I've never lost a model since the free flight fifties, crashed quite a few and had to recover from the odd pesky tree, but not had a fly away. In the fifties those Space Bug thimble tanks meant you never had that far to go after they ran out of fuel.

About 30 years ago I had 2 memorable tree incidents. One was a Veron Classic (36 span free flight glider) which disappeared with a Cox 049,I found it two years later by chance while out fishing about a mile away, stuck in some low branches, the engine was salvageable; another was a Veron Impala with a OS 15 up front, my brother and I sawed a pine tree down to rescue it, by chance there was a snowfall the same night which covered up the traces of our misdeed for a week or so. l am a bit puzzled now as to why I thought putting too large an engine on a glider was a good idea, I think it was just to see what happened.

[Rob Jones 2]

I am very tempted to treat myself to a Retro Junior for Xmas as long as there are first hand reports that it floats like the original balsa and tissue ones did. But I would probably relegate aileron to left stick.

[David Davis]

Scott

I get more satisfaction out of building my own models, dealing with the problems and challenges involved in their construction and choosing my own colour schemes on sports models, than I ever do out of assembling foamy ARTFs of which I have two: a foamy WOT 4 and an HK Hurricane and just for the record, I'm thinking of buying a Calmato 60 ARTF for Christmas because they fly so well, so I'm not an out and out fundamentalist.

However, I must take you up on your assertion that the Junior 60 "has been cloned to death over the years," I dont think that's true, and the Junior is obviously a reduced sized copy of the Junior 60 fitted with entirely unnecessary ailerons.

A marketing triumph I'm sure.

I won't be buying one.

[Rob Jones 2]

Found this by Vintage1 of RCG, a very funny, tongue-in-cheek  read in response to someone who compared traditional kits with the modern stuff:

What you have to realize is that old British kits were truly authentic kits. They evoke the days of plans that were printed in ammonia soaked blotting paper, with a dimensional stability of wet noodles, band sawn rock wood cut by eye by British craftsmen laid off from Morris Motors on account of being unable to fit a left hand wing to the right hand side of a Morris Minor.."Buy British" campaigns by colonel Blimps, and the joy of spending two months trying to build a plane, 6 months running the diesel engine in (on the few occasions that it would start) to finally launch your creation into the Chobham skies, in order to either see it crash within 3 seconds, or fly away forever.

Intimating that any other sort of modelling experience is anything other than crass, "modern" and deeply unmanly, is an insult to the great British tradition.

The world would be a different place without kit makers like these to remind us of the Good Old Days of Cold Boiled Cabbage, Austerity and Corporal Punishment. I suppose you are the sort of person who has 'central heating' and 'takes a shower' as well. Shame on you..This sort of wingeing unmanliness is typical of a modern generation who never had to scrape the ice off the inside of their dormitory windows, and face a teaspoonful of hot water in which to perform their daily ablutions, before donning their 'long johns' and v-necked pullovers and camel coats to face a hostile world, and sustain themselves solely on dreams of Empire, Cricket at Lords, and Warm Beer.

Do you think Nelson's Seamen had laser cut balls? No sir! They did not! Life in his Majesty's Service was just as much about chipping every ball to fit their bores, as much as it was 'Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash' as one 'modern' historian would have it. Disgraceful!

We beat those garlic breathing frog eating surrender monkeys by careful fettling and honing. That's how empires are made!

You should be grateful for the British kit suppliers for providing you with something that is rare and precious in these days of 'borrow and spend' throwaway consumerism. A Challenge, Sir!. If you had been more manly, and joined the Scouts instead of performing unspeakable acts of in the dormitory, you would have had the skill, attitude and training to turn a few sticks, a Bowie knife and a woggle into a fully functional Hawker Hurricane.

Intead what have we? a complaint that not only can you not turn a few simple pieces of balsa wood into a correctly flying aeroplane, but worse, you seek to place the blame elsewhere with an unpatriotic slur on a British Company, and finally, when the Owner - not some petty supernumerary mark you - the Owner! deigns to honour you with his telephone number and invitation to call you complain still further! Of course he doesn't understand your problem. Who would?

I am sure there are companies - companies so called, of lesser stature and certainly not run by Gentlemen of the Old School - who cater for your perversions with accurately cut pieces of balsa wood that fall together when you shake the box, needing only to be soused in Cyanoacrylate in order to create a perfectly balanced structure with which the merest Brownie could hardly fail to commit aviation. No doubt they also include 'radio control' and 'electric motors' Pah!. Personally I blame the Japanese. Having failed to beat us in a fair fight, they have resorted to the most unmanly and unmanning method of warfare: to rot the moral fiber of a nation by gulling them into a false sense of confidence with 'ready to fly' Rice paper Rubbish!

Good heavens man! where will it all end? In my day we kept cans of diesel fuel - avidly sniffed between lessons - in our school desks. Not copies of 'Playboy'. If WE removed the underwear from an innocent young lady, it was in desperation, to cover our latest bamboo and balsa cement creation with!


The Youth of today

[cont p94]

Edited By Rob Jones 2 on 06/12/2013 10:27:59

Edited By Rob Jones 2 on 06/12/2013 10:28:32

[PaulH]

Oh Thank you Rob, the first real chortle I've had all day. I might have even been seen rolling on the floor.

Paul.

[PaulH]

Phil, Rob, Barrie,

Well today the Durafly Junior had her maiden. I’ve been waiting since Sunday for the right day, sunny and calm and although today has been overcast the wind speed has hardly been over 5 kph.

Because of the rain the paddock hasn’t been mown, so initially it was a hand launch and at three quarters throttle she was climbing away rapidly in a gentle right hand circuit. A rapid decrease to half throttle, a few notches of left rudder trim and she was tootling away to the far end of the paddock still climbing gently. A further reduction in throttle had her flying straight and level, hands off, at a very sedate pace. Using the ailerons without rudder initiated a turn, but really she responds best with rudder input, or on rudder alone. I found the unaltered rate set-up, perfect for use in a small space with quite tight banked turns possible and she’ll perform basic loops, a sort of stall turn and a roll, but I didn’t manage to get her inverted, that will have to be next time.

Let go the sticks in almost any situation and she’ll right herself if she has a bit of height. I tried a landing in the longish grass and she just glided in and with a late flare settled gently down to a stop without the wheels catching and tipping her. Emboldened, the next flight was a take off from our dirt road, it’s a bit bumpy, so I eased the throttle forward fairly quickly and she lifted off in a very short distance. I backed off the throttle as soon as I knew she was well clear of the barb wire cattle fencing either side and let her climb steadily to 100 feet or so. Once there, a few clicks of right rudder trim and a tiny speed adjustment and she was flying herself and I could just sit and watch. So pretty, for all the world like my old free flight model of the nineteen fifties. This is the most graceful plane and flies so gently, fantastic for a lazy afternoon with a cool beer beside your folding chair and the occasional pilot interruption. She’s just a bit twitchy at full throttle and full rates with no expo, so before tomorrow I’m going to dial in a bit of expo on ailerons and elevator. For me, the assembly came out with the CG spot on with the Hobbyking recommended lipo and she flies very well with that position. Flying time was twenty one minutes and the battery was at about 10% of its usable charge remaining.

Altogether I’d rate the Junior as excellent. The construction was accurate and the finish excellent. The assembly booklet was not entirely free of errors, but nothing that wasn’t glaringly obvious and the photos of each stage were clearly set out and easy to follow. My one niggle was the aileron Y lead, preinstalled and so short at the receiver end that there was no way it was going to stay plugged in. The shortest extension I could find in my box of bits did the trick, but you may have to make one up, or buy one, so check this when you unpack the model. Above all it flies beautifully, a lazy, graceful, tootling and oh! so pretty a plane. I’d even say it would be suitable for beginners, with perhaps a little reduction in control throws, so they don’t throw themselves out by over twiddling the sticks. Finally I reckon it’s great value for money.

Paul.

[Barrie Dav 2]

That's interesting Paul. My Junior arrived yesterday and overall it looks pretty well made and for the money there can be no complaints. Yes, the manual is excellent. I found that I had to modify the electronics bay (cut away some of the foam and this was not difficult) to get everything stored away and as you said the aileron lead is too short requiring an extension. I don't count these comments as complaints really because space required in the bay depends upon what gear is used. I'm using a 6 channel FrSky FASST just because I have one but a 4 channel is all that is required.

This model would make a splendid entry for any beginner. It looks pretty tough and I reckon will stand up to quite a bit of abuse. As Paul has flight tested the plane we can see that it is very stable and flies well too.

Well, yes, it's bit of a toy for the experienced flyer but to chuck in the back of the car and have a really relaaaaxing hour on a calm summer evening (or a calm winter's day) thumbs up.

[propogandhi]

Hi PaulH/all, Glad you like the Junior and I read with some interest your report.

I wrote the manual for the Junior and know already of one printing error that unfortunately got through into the first production run of manuals (mentioned at the bottom of the product listing on the site), but I'd be keen on hearing back from you on these other smaller ones you mention via PM if you are willing.

All feedback is good feedback when it comes to furthering the strength of the brand, so it would be great to hear back from you (or anybody else for that matter) via pm if you find anything untowards.

Kind regards,

Stuart Warne (Durafly brand manager, Hobbyking)

[Phil Green]

Just had word from one of the Australian single-channel enthusiasts, it seems that not only does the Junior not need its ailerons, it also doesnt need its elevator! Stu has been flying his Durafly Junior very successfully on rudder-only bang-bang single channel "on the button" and he's really pleased with it!

Cheers

Phil www.singlechannel.co.uk

[Mike Etheridge 1]

Not surprising Phil my 52 year old model has no elevator and will free flight or operate on rudder only. However I do have a throttle on the ED Racer.

I must get the plane ready for next year and hope following my hip replacement operation I can still hand launch the Junior 60?

MJE

[Martin 10]

Hi all,

Received my Retro Junior Yesterday and maiden today.

It took of perfect in a gusty wind. I did not get a good response from the ailerons but the rudder worked well.

I am use to flying my planes in for landing and battled to land this one. I then just closed throttle dropped the nose and the Junior landed it self. This plane is a real slow flyer and is going to take a couple of flights to get use to.

Can't wait for tomorro to take it up again

Regards,

Martin

South Africa.

[Rob Jones 2]

Hi Martin, do you think it is a better flyer than the original ones?

[Martin 10]

I started to fly in the arf era, my slowest plane is a Giant U Can Do 3D. Flying this Retro is a new experiance for me.

Martin

[Rob Jones 2]

I as sooo tempted to get one.I would like to hear from a uk flier who has one how much they cost including shipping.The website shows two different prices.

[Bill_B]

Posted by Rob Jones 2 on 25/01/2014 22:48:15:
I as sooo tempted to get one.I would like to hear from a uk flier who has one how much they cost including shipping.The website shows two different prices.

I just tried the Hobbyking UK site and it's quoting me $140 inc. P&P to a UK address. At today's exchange rate that's approximately £85, which seems very good value to me.

[Rob Jones 2]

I agree that is a good price .Could you post a link, the HK site I access quotes $130 and $112 (without showing why the prices are different) plus $29 shipping!

[Bill_B]

Here is a link to the page I used: "Junior"

[PatMc]

The lower price is the "Global" warehouse. This link shows all the warehouse prices.

[Rob Jones 2]

Does any one have experience of the HK Minibreeze?:**LINK**

I am looking a simple park flyer, maybe the Mini breeze would be better than the Retro Junior?