The State of Play

[RICHARD WILLS]

Ah , I'm glad ive got the Bearcat in my loft ready to go .

But that could mean two things .

There is a new gap in the market

or

There is no market . BTW , what is the hourly rate in China ?

[Paul Johnson 4]

24 yuan = £2.76

[RICHARD WILLS]

Wasn't he in Star Wars ?

[Paul Johnson 4]

Ahhh obi....

Could be the laser guys only hope...

[David Hazell 1]

I'm all in on 2 WR kits as I'm sure they'll be right up my street - perfect size and I'm giddy with excitement about them. However, wading in on the bigger models debate, I wonder if some of the IC guys haven't thought of looking to DB sport and scale. He's got both a Spitfire and a Hurricane 81" and 88" respectively. Is it remiss of me to mention these?

**LINK**

**LINK**

Apologies in advance if this is out of order!

[Chris Walby]

David,

Firstly only one is in stock, secondly we are talking 70 to 120 size (As Richard has pointed out previously there are plenty of plans for the bigger sizes). Thirdly I don't share your optimism for a 70 or 80 or 100 or 120 dragging an 88 inch warbird around the sky. Forth there's no foam in the DB kit!

I think everyone compromised (size to suit 6S electric, 80 to 120 IC and ease of construction), plus good flier, but there are not enough people wanting something that size.

I though the point was to discuss the possibility of getting Richard and the boys to build a kit, not find alternative suppliers.

Still flogging a dead horse, me thinks.

[David Hazell 1]

Soz, I thought people were after 80+ inch wingspans. I'm not trying to cause any trouble, forgive me.

[Chris Walby]

David, No need to be sorry, there are others that keep taking the tread off topic. I'll say no more as IMHO its run it course anyway.

[Jonathan S]

As a new active member of the forum i thought I might add my thoughts.

I am one of the younger members of my club at a spritely 45, I think that could be one of the issues that limited younger people are joining the ranks at the bottom.

Us younger members 😊 have 2 real issues time and space.

• House prices, Space to build and keep models is very limited.
• Limited time, with myself and my wife working and 2 children time is limited, also the share of jobs around the house has equalised somewhat (my wife will disagree with this) again limiting free time.

With the internet research can be completed very quickly and easily as well as searching for information.

[Jonathan S]

I recently built a Vintage Model Company model. I found their website was full of information on models how to build, convert, cover and fly them. With links to numerous tutorials and videos on YouTube. The videos were the main reason I went for their models.

The videos provided:

• Confidence that their models were not difficult
• Helped with the lack of time issue. I could see how long each step was going to take and plan accordingly
• Decreased the learning curve. I had already seen someone actually do that step and knew the best way to approach it. Instead of trial and error of working it out myself.

Though my model is not perfect I am very happy with it and it was fairly painless.

I have read build logs on the kits I am interested in but I think having a video of some one building it would be great.

It would not have to be every step but some of the key parts. I am assuming that the kit manufacturers do test builds and build beta releases. The key steps part of these could be filmed. The videos do not have to be perfect polished presentations. web-cams are cheap and simple video editing software is available for free or at low cost enabling us new modellers to short cut some of the trial and error learning that the previous generation gained before ARTF and foam were the main route to your first and second plane.

[Paul Johnson 4]

Posted by Jonathan Sharland on 17/06/2020 11:49:49:

I have read build logs on the kits I am interested in but I think having a video of some one building it would be great.

It would not have to be every step but some of the key parts. I am assuming that the kit manufacturers do test builds and build beta releases. The key steps part of these could be filmed. The videos do not have to be perfect polished presentations. web-cams are cheap and simple video editing software is available for free or at low cost enabling us new modellers to short cut some of the trial and error learning that the previous generation gained before ARTF and foam were the main route to your first and second plane.

Hi Jonathan,

The Kit manufacturers in the UK tends to be often than not a cottage industry and quiet often a one man band.

The build logs a seen on Richards kits are usually carried out by individuals wanting to share their build for the benefit of others, this takes many, many, many hrs of work in taking all the pictures and producing the write ups.

We too have limited hours for our hobby. To produce and edit a video is a monumental job. In most cases the builds from Richards kits are straight forward and any help needed is usually available via these forums.

If the Kit manufacturer was to do this for the very small number of kits he produces these kits would dry up overnight.

I'm sure you will find what is needed here.

[RICHARD WILLS]

Jonathan , your point about the video is very valid . In fact I did start making one a few years back . In an ideal world , if I thought the current rush for my models was ongoing , I would love to have made more designs with a better website videos and so on . But sadly, the onslaught of AFTFs from China have decimated the type of models I make.and almost all of my fellow manufacturers have long thrown in the towel .

I was about to shut down my aircraft business and move on to something easier . But the lock down has made kit building popular (for now) and conversely it has made the Chinese products less popular . The Chinese have compounded this by relentlessly increasing their prices to the point where a 55" foamie , and a bare wooden airframe which are exactly the same as six years ago, (FMS and KYosho ) have gone from £150 to £320 .

I have no doubt that as the CV19 crises subsides , the interest in traditional building will wane .

The Vintage model company is great and I like their videos . However they have not suffered the same battering from the chinese , who dont seem to think there is enough money in that market .

I like the idea of a build video , so if you fancy doing one on the P51 , then by all means give it a go .

Lets hope the current hunger for traditional kits continues as I would really like to continue and produce some new designs for next year . But there has to justify all of the development time , and if you look at the number of new designs we did in the last three years , it was impressive , but earned very little .

[Graham Davies 3]

My 'real job' involves a huge amount of work with Chinese manufacturers of various products. I know the country to be 'imitators' not innovators. They are getting better and better at this, but will need someone else to provide a new 'standard' to imitate.

What is significant is the huge salary increases over the last 5-10 years. The principal cost saving in China is labour. As it is a communist country, employment is the main driver; an employed population is one unlikely to revolt. As such, western eyes would see hugely inefficient working practices with lots of people, and lots of them doing not a lot. Globalisation and social mobility have meant it is now easy for a worker to simply change companies and deliver themselves big salary increases. As such, salaries have risen 20+% per year for a number of years now, and it is no longer a place of cheap labour.

So, as Richard points out, the days of cheap ARTFs are gone; never to return until a new low cost supply base is unearthed. And that will mean a period of poor quality.

The shape and fabric of this hobby may see further change as models tend towards less labour intensive manufacturing. But that is unlikely to be wood/covering construction.

So, make hay while the sun shines, and let's keep making wooden aircraft. It may be that when wooden ARTFs are priced out of the game and all that is left is foam, we will return to a period where kits and plans are king. So keep supporting your local model shop to buy wood and glue; their time may come if they survive.

In the meantime, keep going Richard because, well, MOSQUITO....

Graham

[Paul Johnson 4]

Hi Graham,

You know just where his weakness lies...... i'll send the boys some repellent to calm him down....

[Graham Davies 3]

He knows what buttons to push also Paul. He was supposed to talk me out of building a spitfire. I'm now building a Tempest and have 'locked on' to a Mossie. I guess he DID talk me out of it, but it's not exactly what I meant...

[Jonathan S]

Richard,

I will be doing a build log on here for sure. As for the video I would love to do one, I just don't have the skills to show how to do it, which is why I would be wanting someone just to help show me how and what to do. But might give it a go anyway

Cannot wait for the kit, but my wife is sick of looking at P51 schemas

Jon

[Andy Gates]

Hi folks,

I have just picked up on this thread which I found very interesting and diverse. I suspect that diversity is the issue here.

Richard knows I love to build and fly light, and I have a Chipmunk, Mosquito, Catalina and a Beaufighter all flying on 3S in the 76-80" wingspans and normally under 4lbs ready to go. I predominantly build from plans as that way I can adapt the design to suit me, the field I fly from and what I want. Storage and portage are also issues which is why all the above bar one are split wings.

Tony N does some interesting plans but to me they are built way too heavy.

I have had very few kits, Galaxy Models Escort trainer, a Stevens Aero RV4 and just recently acquired one of Richards lovely Spitfires which again I will try and build light- should be interesting.

The options Richard has listed in his test group of planes would not really interest me as the subject does not grab or the cost spirals - no offense meant Richard.

Now the Tempest / Sea Fury, Wyvern would grab me as being slightly different to the norm, as would quite a few of the late 40's early 50's designs or test beds.

I can only see people looking into getting their planes (ARTF / BNF / Kits) from a more local source than China once we all recover from the current situation, as their prices are escalating and the available income to be spent is likely to be reduced. I hope this benefits Richard and our local kit providers - I know Balsa Cabin has been incredibly busy during Covid.

It also looks like access to relatively cheep chinese IC engines is becoming an issue so I suspect electric propulsion may well grow.

No conclusions from me as there are too many variables to juggle - best wishes and happy flying to Richard and you all.

Edited By Andy Gates on 21/06/2020 23:02:51

[Ron Gray]

Funnily enough, I was only last night thinking that it might be good to have a thread on here about the way things may have started to change as a result of a) Covid-19 and the lockdown and b) the spiralling costs of ARTF / BNF / Foamies.

I did a very quick and dirty check on latest prices of 'typical' warbirds and was somewhat taken aback with the results. Now don't take this list as a definitive one, I've only done a small amount fo cross referencing and no doubt some prices will vary. The criteria I used were warbirds round about 1700mm WS, and construction either foamies or ARTF / BNF etc.

P51 1700 - Foam - FMS £430 (I paid £300 for mine 2 years ago!)

P51 1500 - ARTF - eFlite £460

P51 1700 - ARTF - Hangar 9 £390 plus retracts £130

P47 1700 - Kit - Seagull £240 plus retracts.

P47 1700 - ARTF - Seagull £300 plus retracts.

In terms of build time, obviously the FMS is out of the box, ready to fly once Rx and batteries have been installed, the other need a bit more time to get them ready. From my own experiences of assembling ARTF I tend to take a couple of weeks to get them ready, assembling the tail surfaces, hinging, fitting servos and control linkages, engine fitting, cowl cutting etc but some do take longer! A friend of mine bought the H9 P47 at the end of Jan and took over 2 months to get it ready, of course he wasn’t working on it all of the time but he did say that there was a lot of fiddly work to do on it.

But in each of the above you end up with a finish that the manufacturer has chosen both in terms of colours and type (glossy!). Now, for my part, this is an area that bugs me, if I have a scale model then I want it to look a bit scale like in terms of its finish, so I don’t want a gloss finish on my hurricane and I don’t want it to look like it just came out of the showroom. Obviously this is q personal choice and if I wanted a Duxford ‘clone’ then fine.

Again, from personal experience with the FMS ‘stang. It is a fantastic bit of foam and out of the box had that ‘wow’ factor. It flies really well and looks convincing in the air, but… It’s now over 2 years old so is looking a bit tatty. I made wing and tail bags for it to protect it from hanger rash but it still gets some. You have to be careful with it in the sun and despite me putting covers over it the dreaded ‘crock skin;’ has appeared on the dark painted areas and the cockpit has suffered from this too. The tail will soon need to be glued in position, I’ve bolted it on but it gets loose. I’ve had to replaced the landing gear as they kept breaking (a very poor design imo) and despite me landing it with extreme care on our tarmac runway, there are cracked appearing in the top surface of the wings where the retracts are flexing. As for the power, I’ve carried out the prop pitch mod but it is still slightly underpowered. And this is a model that now costs £430.

This year has seen a forced change on a lot of things, from a personal perspective it re-kindled my love of building ‘planes, not just assembling them and flying them. What it means, to me, is that I can build something to my standards and finish it the way I want it finished. The result putting it simply is pride on what I’ve achieved but the other benefit is in the cost, IMO the foamy / ARTF / BNF route is no longer the ‘cheap’ way into flying that it was.

Some people rating this may well think, all well and good but I don’t want to spend the time / haven’t got the skills for building. Well let me assure you that, as we are on the thread that Richard started, a Warbirds Replicas kit is dead easy to assemble and they are very quick to assemble too, no previous experience necessary. the other argument is ‘I can’t / don’t like painting’. Again there is a popular misunderstanding that this is difficult, it is not. Of course if you are talking about scale competition then, yes, hours and hours can be spent but I would suggest that, for most of us, something semi scale is what we are after. I’m certainly no expert at either building or finishing but I’ve managed to produce something (Lavochkin LA-7) that looks OK to me, and that is what really matters, not what others think it looks like. I worked out that even with all of the little finishing details that I added it took me about 3 hours for the painting including the fuel proofing. No air guns / air brushes were used, just simple and cheap rattle cans. the cost of the finish worked out at £10!

We now have a fairly unique opportunity of getting a UK manufacturer to develop top quality kits for us at sensible prices that build into excellent models with proven flying characteristics and I, for one am very excited about this prospect. Several of my fellow fliers are now expressing an interest in building one of these models instead of buying another ARTF which has to be good news!

[RICHARD WILLS]

There are some good points there chaps . One thing I would like to throw in the mix is "Horses for Courses"

Here we go , you are all thinking , more mad musing from the small grey dog ,

But no . Andy above , makes the very good point about weight , I have seen his Ivan Pettigrew twin engined models flying around like trainers thanks to their very low wing loading , Now personally , they are a little too semi scale for me but they do fly on 3S batteries at six foot span and anyone could fly one .

Conversely , the much sought after 72" Mosquito has been modelled and sold by many a manufacturer and designer over the years , with demands from the prospective purchasers "that it must be exactly right and look the part " and yet , if you spend 20minutes on you tube , you will see a fair fleet off these beauties savagely mauling the hand that fed them and falling out of the sky like confetti.

Horses for courses . A single engined 55" fighter can be laser cut and be a relatively quick build if jig tabbed and everything fits .

A 72" twin is probably better in foam veneer because you can present large chunks of the model to the customer ready finished , keeping in mind that the wiring and undercarriage is going to be more complicated .

Also a little deviation from scale is a god thing as long as it doesnt notice . As I said , a giant scaled up keil kraft model isnt going to be close enough , but a Brian Taylor design which has to be scale ito win a competition is going too far .

My Ju88 and 110 weigh 10.5lbs at 72" They are both foam veneer models of simple and quick construction . Most 72" mossies weigh over 14 lb . That is like strapping a house brick under my models .

Look at the vidoes again and what do you see? Nervous man with unfriendly aeroplane .

We, who like building, spend less time flying than ARTF flyers . Fact .

Therefore we need to reduce our precious build time and create lighter and easier models to fly .

That means that we shouldnt get too anal about exact dimensions. If that leads to a crash on the first flight , where was the fun bit ? Time /Weight /Believable looks/ Practical /Price

[Ron Gray]

Spot on Richard, as long as it looks like a Tempest / Hurry / Spit then that's good enough for me, my style of finishing will make it look even better (or not depending upon your view!) But the other really important thing is that it flies OK without me having to fight it all the time and that is where I look to the likes of you and if that is a foam veneered wing / panels then great, I don't mind.

[Graham Davies 3]

I think Richard is spot on. There are many ways to skin the cat, and my current Tempest project could hardly be described as 'skill intensive'. It's looking like an aeroplane after just 2 days in the workshop, and it's going to end up looking pretty much like a Tempest. It's looking like being no more challenging than my Mk1 Acrowot to fly, if anything easier. And my total investment ready to fly is going to be around £200 with retracts; somewhat less with my training undercarriage.

I for one would take this route every day of the week over any 'pre made' option, be that foam or ARTF. I admit that I enjoy building, but there's not that much more to do with Richard's kits than there would be to fit out an ARTF. And I'm going to end up with something I am invested in.

Graham

[RICHARD WILLS]

Like a lot of you , I am thinking that the nasty "Croney " , might be up for having another go , perhaps two . This could drag on for a long time , which is in fact what happened with Spanish Flu and Sars , with them both having several waves .

Talking to my friends in the trade , there has been an upward trend in traditional building , both kit and from scratch ,

Lets face it , if the weather is not flying weather , an ARTF that arrives on your doorstep on Monday and is finished by Tuesday night hasnt actually entertained you for long .

As we have said in the past , to develop new designs , there has to be enough potential builders to justify the effort , and as we ( a bunch of "middle aged" gentlemen) are not getting any younger , then we need to recruit more people to our gallant cause .The Holy order of Balsa Bashing (HOBB).

As the self professed Don Quixote of HOBB , I feel I must lead the charge , balsa lance at the ready . The idea maybe simple , but simple is usually best .

If we consider that there are maybe 50 of us here who are singing from the same song sheet , then what we need to keep our future intact is for each of us to mentor one ARTF flyer to make the conversion to HOBB .

[RICHARD WILLS]

A fully qualified member of HOBB , will receive the National Order of Balsa , and would be referred to as a NOB.by other potential members and trainees.

Several NOBs will be chosen to build a Warbirds entry level kit in the Autumn when the club nights re start .

The kit would be likely to be fully built up , but simple enough to be built in three 2-3 hour sessions .

It might be worth doing a subtle assessment of your club to consider if you think there is potential for a HOBB NOBB style operation . It doesnt have to be a large club , as we are only really looking for one or two conversions to the Order . If you do have such a club and fancy being a NOB , let me know .

[Paul Johnson 4]

ALL HAIL THE HOBNOB...

[Ron Gray]

So if we organise others to join would that make us a CHOC HOBB NOBB (Chap Helping Other Chaps)?