ARTF quality

[Nick Burroughs]

We have all seen the terrible glue joints and poor quality materials used in some of the ARTF''s you have reviewed.

 

How about asking the manufacturers for their response.  Let them tell us what they are doing to rectify the problems.

[Bryce Allcorn - BritFlight.co.uk]

Good idea, I used to buy Ride and Bike magazines when I had my motorbike and they always let the manufacturers give a response to the outcome of the tests.  

[GrumpyGnome]

Cool,

 

I'll list a few..........

 

Fliton Rogue:

Woefully inadequate undercarriage legs and undercarriage fitting unless you fly from a bowling green.  I'll admit to some landings that could break eggs but I've had the undercarriage rip out on take off from my local park - it's not exactly a ploughed field !

Nice 'carbon' legs useless after about half a dozen take off and landings.

 

 

GG

[Steve Hargreaves - Moderator]

Its certainly an interesting area....many ARTFs seem averse to glue & I'm convinced that its only the covering holding them together!!!!

 

I recently ploughed my Seagull EP Extra into the ground after an elevator servo failed & a dive ended in an abrupt halt rather than the fast low pass it was meant to achieve......the undercart & front "chin" of the cowl had taken most of the force of the impact but a lot of the forces had popped the tabbed structure apart. It needed a new firewall & some work on the u/c mounting but the rest went back together with cyano & a few bala fillets!!! Paint the cowl...bit of film & the airframe is as good as every (if a little scarred)

 

Difficult one for the manufacturers this though.....aircraft should be made to fly not to survive crashes & "adding lightness" helps this cause enormously.

 

That said nearly every ARTF I have built loses marks for the u/c mounting. I routinely beef this area up & replace any metal screws with (larger) nylon ones.....

 

I think getting feedback from the manufacturers would be difficult though.....Ripmax/Perkins etc are the importers/distributors...its the factories in China who we would need to hear from & given the Oriental culture not not losing face by admitting failure I suspect any enquiries would be met with a stony silence

[Stephen Grigg]

In the main Ive been satisfied by theArtf Iv bought.Mostly because Ive normally crashed them before any fault has manifested itself.Ive been flying a Seagull Boomerang since December,and considering what its been putting up with its lasted well.Ive recently beefed it up in places ,but the breakages its incurred have been due to learning to fly and land especiallyThe U/C generally had to be bent straight from time to time but as weve improved together,the bending straight as become less and less as the landings improve,so Im a happy chappie

[Steve Hargreaves - Moderator]

Yep I would agree with that Stephen. I am still astounded at what ARTFs cost for what you actually get. The last kit I bought was a Chris Foss Wot 4 (which is a fantastic aircraft!!)....the kit was nearly £100...add wheels, hardware, tank etc plus the covering & I reckon it cost me about £140 & I still had to build it!!!

 

No....ARTFs offer amazing vfm...I just wish they used a bit more/better quality glue in highly stressed areas

[DAVID CLIFFORD]

To many at my fields tut tut tut dissaproval i am no good at building from scratch and only fly ARTF's.

I learnt from experience to place extra strength on areas of impact I.E undercart ETC

I put extra glue or dots of epoxy on areas i can access.

Yes perhaps this is one area the manufacturers should look at but it wouldn't come for free!

The prices of these models has gone up recently agreed but you could get a real good model for less that it would cost you to buy the stuff and cover it.

Take the Black Horse Twister, brill plane good and solid but under cart again real weak point. You could get this for £55, now sadly its £80+.

Never having bought covering or wood and hardware to build one i cant compare it but it must be more than that and then all the man (or woman) hours to carefully cut each piece and glue then recheck alignment cover and hope it does not warp when you heat it.

 

[Gaz Elliott]

Defo agree . I did not realise that in some models glue is an optional extra!!!! 

[Old Geezer]

Phoenix Rainbow - no problems with build (or flying) quality but woefully inadequate space designed in for power battery.

[david Osborne]

 

 

I have had some problems with ARTF undercarriage on my P47. I had a perfectly reasonable landing (I have witness) and the undercarriage came out. While I confess this was not the first landing and others were not perfect I do believe that the poor construction in this area contributed to the problem / failure. I repaired the damage and in the process uncovered other areas of concern within the wing structure. Again I cannot be 100% sure about the origins of the damage but suffice to say there was a lack of glue and no external indication of problems. Since the repair and reinforcement I have not had any issues. Work included beefing up the ribs in the u/c area, glueing all joints in the wing, using birch ply instead of the standard light ply u/c mountings ( a common fault on ARFT). I am working on a P-51 ARTF and customising it but I did notice similar construction issues with this model as well, including a rib that is completely cracked through in the u/c well area, and this is straight out of the box. No point  trying to get a warranty replacement as I am ripping it apart for modification anyway and thats how I found it. Still goes to show that even expensive ARTF suffer. other problems include tailplane joiner tubes that need to be bent to allow a flush fit making incidence setting a nightmare. I have mentioned some of this to the retailers but they are not always enthusiastic about such matters, often quoting the value for money thread. however it does not matter how little it cost if it is not fit for purpose but again this is a difficult argument.

 

On the plus side I have had good experience with some makes with no construction or failure issues and the general finish is very good.

 

Are we allowed to name names?

 

Just in case images do not work I have uploaded a load to my photo album.

 

Cheers Dave Osborne 

 

 

 

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Olly Giles]

COVERING! nearly all my artf planes have had the covering peel back. The most recent of which is my Infinity 90 from pro build. A £300 kit but the covering has littery been blown off the tail completely and off the leading edge of the wing and as a consequence i have had to re cover both wing and tail. I hate to rant but one of my club members found the covering so poor on his kyosho osmose he re coverd the whole thing before he built it. I mean these type of pattern ship aircraft are designed for the expiernced pilot and the sort of chap who's models live on a bead of peacock feathers and are fuled by a mixture of saffron, nitromethane and £50 notes. This type of modeling usually goes hand in hand with a full time job so why waste our time with shoddy products? grrrrrrrr I will admit that some manufactures are better than others, Hanger 9 springs to mind. Any one else share my annoyence? 

[Gemma Jane]

I t hink here you have to look at the numbers of these models being produced and also the difficulty of checking quality on covered or hidden items.

I had issues with the lack of glue on the Eflite - Sea Fury. This came partially assembled and to be honest would have been better without the control surface hinges and engine stick pre-glued. At least then I would have glued them properly. In a way I had a 'fortunate' early spill with the model which showed up the weaknesses. Paticularly the engine stick which fell out and had little more than a dab of glue holding it in place. I also checked all the control surfaces after the spill, the ailerons simply pulled out with light pulling.

 

Another was the Green RC Sopwith Camel. The box at the front of the firewall simply wasn't stuck on properly at all. I found this mentioned in an American review fortunately and tested it by pulling, sure enough it came off with ease. Epoxy sorted that out, but surely something somebody should have spotted at some point before the models left the factory?

[david Osborne]

The P-47 u/c and wing ribs was from YT. On the plus side the glass fuselage has worn very well. The tailplane joiner was on the same model.

 

The P-51 cracked rib is on a Topflite giant ARF, not cheap and I am going to reinforce the whole u/c area as it too uses a lighter type ply rather than good Birch ply. No other problems found with this so far although I do believe the wing structure looks a bit light in general in the wheel area for such a large model.

 

Good experience with a Hangar 9 Sopwith Camel. It went together really well and has taken some ground handling abuse with only minor deformation of the u/c to show for it.

 

E-Flite Funtana has been good as well.

 

Other issues in my experience are "custom" retracts not up to the job or than need a great deal of maintenance, extensive mods to fit said undercarriage, tail wheels that fit into the fin but there is no block inside to secure it to.

 

Cheers. Dave osborne

[david Osborne]

Just noticed I should have started a new thread so I have placed the P-47 stuff in said new thread

 

Cheers Dave Osborne

[Andy Harris]

There is a place for well constructed premium ARTFs, I have a PA Addiction and an Extreme Flight 58 Extra that both fly well and went together well.

 

As a consumer its hard to tell with all the advertising telling us that all ARTFs have triple excellent engineering. Fortunately RCME do a good job of reviewing. Many a crucial detail is revealed.

 

Supplied hardware can be an issue.  I've upgraded linkages on every ARTF (bar those mentioned above) we shouldn't have to put up with slop and weight!  These days I have a reasonable stock of parts but I still find it dissapointing to have to break a build sequence to order yet more parts that should have been right in the first place.

 

With a full time job and a family I want to fly not fettle. I understand that fettling is a part of the hobby but why do we have to deal with parts that were never going to fit (specifically horns and clevis - Fliton) I know the manufacturers have to find alternatives from time to time, but they could at least check they fit!

 

I'd like RCME to add an extra column to thier review summary; cost of extra parts! 

 

To me this would be a premier indicator of kit qualiy.

 

Andy

[Clive Moore]

Hi all, I have recently purchased the Seagull Edge 540 46-55 size (DELUXE) ARTF. I decided on this after reading Davids review in RCM&E as I wanted something to fly on windy days.

 

Having put together a number of ARTFs I found that it went together without any real problems. I fitted a Laser 70 which provides bags of power but I did have to relocate the engine mount to accommodate the Laser.

 

I have three gripes with the kit:

 

1) The supplied fuel tank is ridiculously small and would only give about a 7 min flight to empty with the Laser. I resolved this by fitting a larger tank but this should not be neccasary in a kit described as "deluxe".

 

2) The wheel spats lasted three flights before cracking and requiring removal. I fly from a reasonable grass patch.

 

3) My biggest gripe is about the undercarrige mounting block which is made of very poor quality 10mm ply (you could delaminate it just using your fingers) and it was stuck with not much glue to thin balsa in the air frame. Needless to say it failed after just a few not particularly hard landings with the ply plate just shattering.

 

I think (but I'm not sure) that the "Deluxe" in the description refers to the fittings which with the exception of the aformentioned tank were all very good.

 

Having said  the above I do think it flys realy well particulaly on windy days which is what I wanted, and for just over £100 for the airframe I do think its good value for money, however I would be prepared to pay a few pounds more for kits like this if I new that they were put together properly in the first place with decent undercarige mounts / glue etc. That way I could spend more time flying and less time fixing what should have been right from the start.

 

Regards

 

 

Clive

 

[George Worley - 4-Max]

SebArt Sukhoi 29 50E

I have seen 2 of these models crash and be a total write off. Both were being flown by very experienced and very skilled pilots. Only with the second crash was the problem discovered. The first crash happened when the plane was in low knife edge and the canopy came off. There was no response from the plane and it cart wheeled across the patch, totally destroying the plane.

 

The second crash was similar, this time the plane was doing a knife edge loop and at about 3/4 of the way round, the canopy came off and again the plane did not respond.

 

The first and obvious fault was the canopy comes off way too easily. This is an aerobatic/3D aircraft which should be capable of standard knife edge and knife edge loops.

 

The second fault is far more serious. When the canopy comes off it turns the radio off!!!!!!

Both of these models were built as per the instructions and the instructions tell you to install the ON/OFF switch at the front just under the canopy hatch. So when the canopy hatch comes off in flight, it turns the radio off, resulting in total loss of control and in both of these instances total loss of the airframe, motor, ESC and 6S batteries.

If you have one of these and have built it as per the instructions, then I highly recommend that you modify it immediately to put a physical catch so it's impossible for the canopy hatch to come off in flight. Magnets are not good enough for a model of this size.

 

Cheers n beers

George

 

[David Ashby - Moderator]

Guys - don't forget to start a new thread for each model please so others can add their comments on the respective model......thanks.

 

Clive - I've just moved yours across to a new thread

Edited By David Ashby - RCME moderator on 23/06/2009 09:15:40

[FEDERICO GILLI]

Hi,

 

I got a VQ macchi 205 fitted with hobbyking retract and Vq oleos. The plane has only a couple of flight and on the second landing in very windy condition I run out of rinway and finished off on long grass and the plain flipped over. I was sure, afer all the poor report about artf landing gear supports, to have a major failure there. I was wrong, both legs got the 5mm steel joint bent but no visible damage was found on the 1/2" hardwood rail. Only time will tell but I have to say I was very surprised (and happy) to see a 5mm steel part give in while the wood did not suffer. reading trough old treds I know this was not always the case showing that even relatively cheap ARTF manufacturers can improve their product if they care.

Well done VQ!

 

Regards, 

    

[DAVID CLIFFORD]

Hi all, Gemma interesting to hear of your issues with the Sea fury as i had exactly the same issues only i was lucky enough to actually pull the stick mount out while installing the motor and from experience with the eflight p47 "Jug" i reglued all hinges with foam safe.

The business with the undercarrige i think is down to a weak point designed to give the model a chance of survival, if that area was really beefed up do you not think that more damage may be done? perhaps the fus splitting? i had a hard landing with a seagull pc9 and lost a wheel. a friend beefed it up with ply blocks and epoxy. the next time i did the same daft error it tore out the whole of the underside of the wing, not worth repairing it!

 

David, i have just purchased another eflight mini funtana and the u/c is a big weak point. the previous one i had i did a perfect point landing into wind and the next thing the plane was on its belly and the u/c complete with ply mount plate was sat on the grass in an upright position exactly where i had put the plane down 2 feet behind!!!!!!!

Needless to say this has been strengthened but not to much as this plane is very flimsy.

Edited By DAVID CLIFFORD on 24/06/2009 18:40:15

[david Osborne]

A general theme seems to be undercarriage. While we all want things as cheap as possible the terms value for money and fit for purpose come to mind. Is it really value for money if we have to keep repairing, sometimes with almost as much expense and the original model? Is it fit for purpose if typical flying sites are grass and normal landings result in immediate problems or problems after a few landings? Surely some design life expectancy is not too much to ask in the frame of normal wear and tear. I for one would be prepared to pay a bit more for  a model that is built for the real world where some level of abuse is inevitable. After all an extra 20 quid on a 250 quid model is not that much more and would buy plenty of quality ply for the u/c areas, particularly if it saves you 40 quid for a couple of repairs you don''t have to make. After all most people build from kits or scratch build this way don''t they?
 
Cheers Dave Osborne

[David Ashby - Moderator]

I'm going to be devil's advocate here and just throw in this little grenade ..............

 

I flew in the pre-ARTF days when most club flight lines were WOT4 and Acrowot dominated, self-build in other words. I recall undercarriage being knocked off pretty regularly back then and while I agree that many ARTF models could do with beefing up in the u/c dept - I do think that many pilots have only themselves to blame when losing the wheels, a failure to perfect the art of landing a model being the cause.

 

Many pilots fail to understand that models must be flown in for landing - a 'cut and glide' just won't do and the use of throttle is essential especially when it's windy and even after the model has touched down.

 

Common faults -

Turning too soon after the down-wind leg,

Maintaining too steep glide angles,

Not keeping the nose down (yes you do have to push down-elevator when landing sometimes!)

Not using throttle 

 

Don't get me wrong, most of us learn the hard way and I'm no exception but it's easy to blame the model, discuss? 

 

  

Edited By David Ashby - RCME moderator on 25/06/2009 08:13:05

Edited By Timbo - Moderator on 25/06/2009 08:15:52

[Tim Mackey]

Agreed

[Bill Brownlie]

Here's a novel idea. Why don't we use the consumer protection legislation that every one else uses. If the goods are not fit for purpose then return them.

I've been flying now for about 3 years. the first ARTF I bought after my trainer could not go above half throttle without the tail end trying to shake itself to bits. Among the club everyone agreed that I needed to cut out the tail, strip the covering, fit more basla or sheet with single ply etc to sort it out. I suggested I just take it back to the shop and get my money back which seemed to horrify most of my fellow members who were used to dealing with such poor quality themselves.

 

I took it back and after arguing with the shop owner who recognised the tail problem but couldn't follow the logic that it was his responsibility and not mine to sort it out. I suggested to him that he returned it to the distributor but he was very reluctant to "upset them". He did give me a refund and promtly stuck the model in the window as "second hand, needs some work". I often wonder if I should have bought it back at the reduced price and fixed it up. But then lifes two short to consider all decisions again and I think I would have been pushing my luck with the owner who has been really helpful ever since..