The Big Question ?

[Graham Davies 3]

24 minutes ago, leccyflyer said:

As regards finding the camo paint,

If you can find it, it's not up to much....

 

"I didn't see you in Camo training today, Bates"

 

"Why thank you sir"...

[DaveB1]

Just the main insignia for me please, I'll have a crack at the rest myself

[Ace]

Yes happy with no manuals, FW190 continuation in BQ with Tempest in a separate topic.

 

Crosses with Red 23 for my FW - Tempest waiting in anticipation 😉

[Eric Robson]

This will be my colour scheme. The grey camouflage is difficult to see up here with the matching clouds 

[Arthur Harris]

On 14/08/2023 at 17:58, Cuban8 said:

A resurgence of a major kit manufacturing industry in the UK and probably the USA  has two chances IMHO - no hope and Bob Hope! I guess the best that we'll see is fewer  operations producing a limited range of popular offerings and very specialist manufacturers addressing the high end and very costly market. 

Sarik seem to be doing OK with their MO and we do have a sprinkling of kit producers like SLEC, DB and a few others who serve a limited audience. No where near the choice of ARTFs now and a considered purchase rather than a cheap impulse buy on a whim. A quick mental sum of say a simple 60" ARTF sport aerobat, a new 60-80ish fourstroke engine along with servos and RX etc nothing particularly exotic - and we're looking at...............£650 - £700+? OK, somewhat less if you've already got much of the kit going spare, but you see my point?

Newer modellers may well be astonished at what we had thirty or forty years ago if they thumbed through back issues of RCM&E, RM, RC Model World and others to see the huge range and types of kits that were available. Large manufacturers and smaller 'cottage industry' types of which there were dozens.

I remember a UK manufacturer of ARTFs (mainly trainers and simple sport types IIRC) having a presence at many of the 1980s model shows - I can't recall their name but their models were expensive for the time and rather flimsy, being built down to a price and very simply covered. Somewhat of a curiosity. They soon  packed it in. Shortly afterwards we had the Far Eastern ARTFs that looked good (!) sold for next to nothing and put western manufacturers under intense pressure...........we are where we are now.

Hobby Drones? very rarely see one at either of my clubs, they seem to have had their crazy time now and are regarded as passe by many, it would appear. BTW, some fantastic professional drone footage of the British Superbike round at Thruxton at the weekend.

There seems to me to be three major strands to model flying today:

1.Drones, which are a separate discipline and have their own skills, when you look at drone racing and photography.

2.Traditional balsa and ply kit building, when you often have IC engines, and depron and foam board builders who chose electric.

3.And ARTF foam electric planes which are ready to fly in an hour or so.

The foamies are incredible value- they cost from about £150 (Phoenix 2000) to £250 (Wot 4, Acrowot, Max Thrust Riot, etc), with everything installed and just needing a battery and your radio gear.

And the icing on the cake is, when they crash, they can often be rebuilt in a few hours instead of a major rebuild. Many people have learnt to fly on models which ended their lives more cocktail sticks and Gorilla glue than the original plane.

 

 

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by Arthur Harris

[Ron Gray]

8 hours ago, Arthur Harris said:

The foamies are incredible value- they cost from about £150 (Phoenix 2000) to £250 (Wot 4, Acrowot, Max Thrust Riot, etc),

Not really what this is about AH. If you look at an ARTF foamy FW190 you are looking at circa £500, sure you can assemble it and get it flying in a couple of hours but with Richard’s offerings you would be able to have the satisfaction of actually building the model and finishing to a much higher standard and ending up with something that will fly a lot better! Sure it will take 2 or 3 weekends to do it (I will time my build to see exactly how long) but it will cost a lot less that the ARTF offerings.

 

But best of all it will be British and you will then be eligible for flying in the Best of British fly in at Buckminster next year alongside ‘hundreds’ (well maybe dozens?) of others.

[GrumpyGnome]

I'm not sure ALL foamies offer 'incredible' value for money.  I see lots costing well in excess of £400, that don't necessarily fly very well, and need some 'fettling' of hardware etc..

[leccyflyer]

As Ron said, for a broadly comparable 55" -60" span FW190 in foam you are really looking at the Eflite one as the pick of the bunch and that weighs in at around £575. However careful you are with that, the surface finish will begin to get damaged as soon as it comes out of the box. The scale detail is lovely and they reportedly fly superbly, but that is still pretty expensive for a foamie. The cost of spares, when you can get them, is eye watering.

 

Personally I love my foamie warbirds, but more often than not I like to pick up little used examples for a fraction of the new price and just live with the dings and dents until the time comes for a repaint. One of the most enjoyable parts of the hobby for me is researching for an appropriate colour scheme for a particular aeroplane, preferably one that I feel an indirect connection with. I'm not well set up for spraying models -in terms of suitable area with the right temperature - and have a long queue of aeroplanes waiting to be painted. I really need to sort that out. The brush-applied emulsion over brown paper is a partial solution to my spray conundrum and I'm looking forward to trying that out for the first time on the WR FW190.

[RICHARD WILLS]

I can see both points of view and have had some fun with ARTFs and still do . But I wouldnt buy a new one now, as many have doubled in price in the last few years .

There is one element also that is not mentioned but stares us in the face . 

As a British designer and manufacturer , nobody engages more than I do with my customer base . Not only that , after years of loyalty there is a trust on both sides that we will look after each other . How many Chinese firms would listen to your requests and desires or could be relied on to fix your kit or supply you with spare parts ?

 

[Ron Gray]

1 hour ago, RICHARD WILLS said:

or supply you with spare parts ?

TBH on that front I have to admit that XFly are pretty darn good. FMS on the other hand whilst producing some of the best foamies you can get have a very poor spares presence here in the UK so when I needed some replacements for my brilliant Viper 90mm edf (one of the best foam ARTFs I've had) I went to Aliexpress. For help on the models it is true that you have to go to YouTube to get it rather than straight from the horse's mouth.

 

But, hey, I'm not knocking foamy ARTFs and but  me the purchase of them is now limited to EDFs, the aforementioned FMS Viper 90mm and the most recent addition the manic XFly Eagle. For scale / semi scale warbirds having Richard 'come back into the fold' with his KISS approach is truly excellent.

[Don Fry]

Satan, I have renounced the path to heaven. I have even convinced myself it’s a training  exercise in new covering techniques. Put me down for a Tempest, and full set of appropriate decals.

[John Timmis]

Richard, red23 for me please.

 It’s good to see the numbers growing. I think you are onto a winner here.

[Wihtgar]

Hi Richard, a while back, you were talking about inexpensive motors (about £20) to power these models. Have you one in mind as I have no spare ones to use. This will be an interesting build for me as the last model I built was a glider called La Mouette around the early 1960's although I have become quite proficient at repairing foamies in the last few years!

[Bucksboy]

Can I be a late joiner to the party please?  A FW 190 with red 23 markings please.  It can be my Christmas present!

[RICHARD WILLS]

Ah , another serial offender . I dont want to be named in divorce proceedings though ....😐

[Ron Gray]

He says he’s been sent by the boys to supervise my FW190 build 😲

[RICHARD WILLS]

Ah , Green Graham's cousin Gary . He's only a lad , but he's keen, Ron . 

Don't let him drink too much of that though , they find it strangely addictive . 

Leads to terrible wind. 😬

 

Edited November 23, 2023 by RICHARD WILLS

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

Book on FW 190 here. 😉

https://www.mortonsbooks.co.uk/product/view/productCode/15006/book-eagles-of-the-luftwaffe-focke-wulf-fw-190-a-f-and-g

 

[Ron Gray]

Well I took Gary on a guided tour of the workshops, big mistake! He said he knows all about IT and AI and promptly fired up the laptop and started altering some of my designs:

 

 

Having cut some of his modified parts on the laser he decided that it wasn't powerful enough and before I could stop him he was altering the light beam from the laser, seemingly he's upped the output from 20W to 569W!

 

 

Anyway I dragged him out and then found him experimenting with my latest design, he reckons that 2 x 3s is the same as 6s so this one should do nicely!

 

 

I just hope the kits come soon Richard, I don't think I can stand much more of this (and this is only the first day of his 'flying' visit).

[Arthur Harris]

14 hours ago, Ron Gray said:

Not really what this is about AH. If you look at an ARTF foamy FW190 you are looking at circa £500, sure you can assemble it and get it flying in a couple of hours but with Richard’s offerings you would be able to have the satisfaction of actually building the model and finishing to a much higher standard and ending up with something that will fly a lot better! Sure it will take 2 or 3 weekends to do it (I will time my build to see exactly how long) but it will cost a lot less that the ARTF offerings.

 

But best of all it will be British and you will then be eligible for flying in the Best of British fly in at Buckminster next year alongside ‘hundreds’ (well maybe dozens?) of others.

You are quite right; I wasn't addressing the issues in this thread. I was just thinking about the use of foamies to learn on, which is a separate issue (I think they are great for that).

From my personal observation (recently, someone flying a large foam Mustang), scale foamies are poor. They look good, but even with gyros can be difficult to fly (tip-stalling, generally). Retracts often collapse (the hardware attachment to foam is always a weak spot). They don't keep their good looks. And they are expensive (4 to 6 hundred pounds). 

Building yourself from a plan or kit is more pleasurable, you actually get more value as your money is spent on weeks or months of building, rather than a few hours opening a box and assembling, and you get the pleasure of fettling and problem solving.

I also 100% agree with supporting small and home-grown industries, rather than subsidising large anonymous Eastern companies.

I am old enough to remember when every small town had a model shop- I used to frequent one in Sutton, one in Carshalton, Avicraft I think is still in Bromley, and I remember buying a Nemesis 100-inch sailplane in Bridgend.

I believe the Cambria fun fighters are also still available- 42-inch span, belly landing, converted to electric might be my nest model.

 

[Graham Davies 3]

22 minutes ago, Arthur Harris said:

I believe the Cambria fun fighters are also still available- 42-inch span, belly landing, converted to electric might be my nest model.

If you're thinking of doing one of those, I strongly suggest you join this particular party. I've experience of both, and can say with total confidence that these kits from Richard will do all the Cambrian ones can, but are easier to build and fly better...

[Arthur Harris]

11 minutes ago, Graham Davies 3 said:

If you're thinking of doing one of those, I strongly suggest you join this particular party. I've experience of both, and can say with total confidence that these kits from Richard will do all the Cambrian ones can, but are easier to build and fly better...

Do you have a link?

[Graham Bowers]

9 hours ago, john stones 1 - Moderator said:

Book on FW 190 here. 😉

https://www.mortonsbooks.co.uk/product/view/productCode/15006/book-eagles-of-the-luftwaffe-focke-wulf-fw-190-a-f-and-g

 

Thanks for that. Copy ordered.

[GrumpyGnome]

@Arthur Harristhis whole thread is a link 🙂

[Ron Gray]

8 hours ago, Arthur Harris said:

Do you have a link?

Just let Richard know by saying, on here, that you would like a kit (FW190 and/or Tempest) then Richard will add your name to the ever expanding list. You will not regret the purchase!