Seagull Models at heavily discounted prices

[JulianJ]

Dear All,

 

I discovered this website, looks too good to be true but wondered of anyone here has used it?

 

https://www.rcseagull.com

 

Thanks in advance,

Julian

[Denis Watkins]

38 minutes ago, JulianJ said:

Dear All,

 

I discovered this website, looks too good to be true but wondered of anyone here has used it?

 

https://www.rcseagull.com

 

Thanks in advance,

Julian

 B31 2JU is

Costa Coffees address in Birmingham 

[Jon H]

Models that normally sell for £500 or more listed for £92? I dont think that passes the sniff test unfortunately 

[David Ovenden]

Why would any business sell a whole range of branded and desirable items at prices that would result in a massive loss for the company on every sale? 

Edited April 6, 2023 by David Ovenden

[leccyflyer]

It's a common theme used by scammers. Have seen it previously with EFlite models, with their top of the line models, typically retailing at £500-£700, shown as being available on clearance at £70-ish. The site domain name also included the EFlite name, to make it look legit and genuine videos from the Horizon Hobby website. Completely fake of course, you would either receive nothing or a small chuck glider toy.

 

A friend of mine ordered a Spitfire from one such site - all of the illustrative materials were of Flightline's 1600mm Spitfire IX - a £400 model at the time, but the cost was £59.99 - a few people had reported back that what they had received was a small toy foamie which looked a little bit like a Spitfire, to a blind horse on a galloping man. I put him in the picture, that there is no way anyone is going to sell you an FL Spitfire for sixty quid and he was able to cancel his payment. The ironic thing is that for eighty quid he could now get one of the marvellous Volantex Spitfires which work perfectly and could easily be flown by someone with no experience of flying a radio controlled model.

[Paul De Tourtoulon]

I also saw FB publicity for new Lathes, around £1000 sold for a couple of hundred pounds,,,

 

I did get caught out once around 30 years ago on a furniture sale, they were giving away on arrival with your invitation a tea set,

it was a miniature one the size of a matchbox,,,

[EvilC57]

Not sure I’d bother with anything else made by Seagull, bought legitimately or not. I have one of their Sea Eagle F3A type models. It looks nice, but it’s incredibly heavy as they’ve used a lot of birch type ply in the construction where I would have used light ply or even balsa. The instructions said the take off weight was supposed to be 5lb, it weighed over 5lb before I fitted the engine & tank. The overall weight is nearer 6.5 to 7lb which is a heck of a lot for a model of its size, so it flies like a brick - and that’s only after I uprated the engine to an OS 55AX, as the original 46 fitted would barely haul it off the ground.

 

To add insult to injury I think the pilot supplied was made of concrete, or at least plaster of Paris! It was replaced by something more suitable.

 

It’s specially reserved for windy days, so I can slow down it’s otherwise ballistic landing approach. 

[Lipo Man]

I’ve reported it to NCSC. No idea if they will actually do anything, but worth a try. If you look at the “about us” section, it bears no relation to the site. Seems cut and paste, and poorly translated at that. Avoid. 

[Eric Robson]

1 hour ago, EvilC57 said:

Not sure I’d bother with anything else made by Seagull, bought legitimately or not. I have one of their Sea Eagle F3A type models. It looks nice, but it’s incredibly heavy as they’ve used a lot of birch type ply in the construction where I would have used light ply or even balsa. The instructions said the take off weight was supposed to be 5lb, it weighed over 5lb before I fitted the engine & tank. The overall weight is nearer 6.5 to 7lb which is a heck of a lot for a model of its size, so it flies like a brick - and that’s only after I uprated the engine to an OS 55AX, as the original 46 fitted would barely haul it off the ground.

 

To add insult to injury I think the pilot supplied was made of concrete, or at least plaster of Paris! It was replaced by something more suitable.

 

It’s specially reserved for windy days, so I can slow down it’s otherwise ballistic landing approach. 

I have a Seagull Chipmunk which is a nice model on one occasion I had an engine cut and was unable to get it back to the strip. It landed on the rough part of the field and nosed over. When I reached it the fuselage had snapped behind the cockpit, very weak structure which I repaired and reinforced, the 2 pilots had thier heads decapitated and went through the windscreen,picking them up I could not believe the weight of the heads which were moulded onto a flimsy plastic upper body.

[FlyinFlynn]

11 hours ago, Denis Watkins said:

 B31 2JU is

Costa Coffees address in Birmingham 

There will be quite a few businesses with that post code. B31 2JU is around the Northfield shopping centre on Bristol Road South in Birmingham but without a road number it would be difficult to check on the existence of the business even if you lived close by. The mere fact that the road number is missing from their web site should illuminate a huge warning light!

 

The other side of that coin though is it wouldn't be the first time a container of aircraft kits has been sold by a clearance warehouse as the manufacturer went out of business....... anybody know of a clearance warehouse on Bristol Road South around the Northfield shopping centre?

Edited April 6, 2023 by FlyinFlynn

[Colin Low 2]

This is the normal Seagull site............ Seagull Models Manufacturing and Trading Company Co.,Ltd

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2023 by Colin Low 2

[Engine Doctor]

If it looks too good to be true it usually is .

[Cuban8]

3 hours ago, EvilC57 said:

Not sure I’d bother with anything else made by Seagull, bought legitimately or not. I have one of their Sea Eagle F3A type models. It looks nice, but it’s incredibly heavy as they’ve used a lot of birch type ply in the construction where I would have used light ply or even balsa. The instructions said the take off weight was supposed to be 5lb, it weighed over 5lb before I fitted the engine & tank. The overall weight is nearer 6.5 to 7lb which is a heck of a lot for a model of its size, so it flies like a brick - and that’s only after I uprated the engine to an OS 55AX, as the original 46 fitted would barely haul it off the ground.

 

To add insult to injury I think the pilot supplied was made of concrete, or at least plaster of Paris! It was replaced by something more suitable.

 

It’s specially reserved for windy days, so I can slow down it’s otherwise ballistic landing approach. 

I suppose all companies produce the occasional Lemon, but in Seagull's defence I have to say that the models I've had from them have been fine and quite fit for purpose. I've had one of their Sea Eagles for ages now, .61 fourstroke, performs very well indeed in a wide range of conditions.  My go to model as it fits in the car in one piece, hence ideal when I only have a couple of hours to fly and don't need all the faff of assembly/dismantling etc.

[Cuban8]

4 minutes ago, Engine Doctor said:

If it looks too good to be true it usually is .

Get loads of ads on Facebook saying for instance "new three piece suites being virtually given away in your home town"

total rubbish. And then there's the 'secret device that the energy companies that don't want the public to know about' 'send ten pounds to cash in' .................I've never bothered to enquire, but I suspect it might be an on/off switch.

[EvilC57]

28 minutes ago, Cuban8 said:

I suppose all companies produce the occasional Lemon, but in Seagull's defence I have to say that the models I've had from them have been fine and quite fit for purpose. I've had one of their Sea Eagles for ages now, .61 fourstroke, performs very well indeed in a wide range of conditions.  My go to model as it fits in the car in one piece, hence ideal when I only have a couple of hours to fly and don't need all the faff of assembly/dismantling etc.

You may be right Cuban8. Before the Sea Eagle I had one of Seagull’s Harmon Rockets, and I have to say I don’t remember it being as overweight as the Sea Eagle is.

[Cuban8]

2 hours ago, EvilC57 said:

You may be right Cuban8. Before the Sea Eagle I had one of Seagull’s Harmon Rockets, and I have to say I don’t remember it being as overweight as the Sea Eagle is.

Agree, the Sea Eagle is not a light weight and with its not over generous wing area it looks as though it'd be quite a handful. Actually, that is far from the case I find. Far from being a beginner's or even second model though.

[EvilC57]

17 minutes ago, Cuban8 said:

Agree, the Sea Eagle is not a light weight and with its not over generous wing area it looks as though it'd be quite a handful. Actually, that is far from the case I find. Far from being a beginner's or even second model though.

Absolutely, it’s definitely not one for beginners or the faint hearted. Once in the air mine flies well, but I find I do have to keep the speed up, otherwise it always feels like it’s going to head for the ground, it’s obviously not at all floaty. Not having flaps, I find it comes in to land very fast and has to be ‘flown’ all the way in, although when I get it right, I’ve done some real greasers with it. I’ve managed to increase the rate of descent on landing approach by setting two levels of UP aileron on the Tx flap switch. It’s not one for a small field though.

Edited April 6, 2023 by EvilC57

[Cuban8]

21 minutes ago, EvilC57 said:

Absolutely, it’s definitely not one for beginners or the faint hearted. Once in the air mine flies well, but I find I do have to keep the speed up, otherwise it always feels like it’s going to head for the ground, it’s obviously not at all floaty. Not having flaps, I find it comes in to land very fast and has to be ‘flown’ all the way in, although when I get it right, I’ve done some real greasers with it. I’ve managed to increase the rate of descent on landing approach by setting two levels of UP aileron on the Tx flap switch. It’s not one for a small field though.

Judt remembered that the quoted CG position in the Sea Eagle manual is incorrect. It's too far forward by 10 - 20 mm. Moving it back as suggested in several forums and IIRC in a magazine review transformed the model. Unusual to have to move the cg back with ARTFs.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Cuban8

[Cuban8]

Article on the Sea Eagle by Brian Cooper is in the April 2014 Quiet and Electric flight. 

 

[Paul De Tourtoulon]

Did someone say that they were good and strong ? My Zero fuselage split behind the cockpit within a year as did my Me 109 amongst other bits, I just re-engined my P 47 to find that the fire wall isn't connected to the fuselage, I have also seen the Edge 540 lose their UC on grass take-offs and landings, say no more,,,

[Engine Doctor]

I had a segull Flying Brick , sorry meant to say Ultimate Bipe but i was correct the first time.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Engine Doctor

[EvilC57]

48 minutes ago, Cuban8 said:

Judt remembered that the quoted CG position in the Sea Eagle manual is incorrect. It's too far forward by 10 - 20 mm. Moving it back as suggested in several forums and IIRC in a magazine review transformed the model. Unusual to have to move the cg back with ARTFs.

Really? I’ll investigate that on mine.

[toto]

That nearly depressed the life out of me. I just paid £371.00 for a seagull fasten skybolt.

 

As much as I would love these pieces to have been true for the sake of other modellers, if true ...... the words " depth of despair " ring a bell.

 

Toto

[J D 8]

            The Seagull SNJ [ Navy AT6] in my avatar has given long service. Yes a bit of a lump and a type not to do low and slow maneuvers. Type was a WW2 advanced trainer and needs to flown as such. Seagull do tend to underestimate engine size needed. They probably test models on hard surface where as many of us fly from grass where extra power is handy to get off.

[leccyflyer]

1 hour ago, toto said:

That nearly depressed the life out of me. I just paid £371.00 for a seagull fasten skybolt.

 

As much as I would love these pieces to have been true for the sake of other modellers, if true ...... the words " depth of despair " ring a bell.

 

Toto

Whoaaaaaaah - didn't you only have your second flying session last weekend?  That's an 9lb ARTF aerobatic biplane which is well down the line. 😮