VMAR Aero Subaru

[Ben Mullins]

Hi All,

 

 'VMAR Aero Subaru - True ARTF'. That's what it says on the box lid. I'm sure we'll find out whether that statement is true or not.

So, Here in front of me I have a VMAR Aero Subaru. It retails for around £40, I want to see if it's worth the dosh. Ill give you a few details of the model:

 

 Wingspan: 41"

 Wing area: 300 sq in

 Length: 32"

 Weight: 23 - 25 oz

 Engine: .06 - .12 2st or 100 - 150W Brushless electric motor.

 Radio: 4 channel, 4 micro servos (electric), 5 micro servos (I.C.)

 

Just from that info on the side of the box i'm a little worried. A 100W motor for a 23 oz plane. Not quite at our holy rule of 100W/lb. Its nearer 60W/lb (off the top of my head). Right, what else can I suss out from the top of the box. Laser Cut Precision ARF, in other words, spindly pieces of balsa and liteply full of lightening holes. However, the model does seem reasonably sturdy, I guess we'll have to see when it comes to landing! POLYCOTE ECS, Enhanced covering system. Now, that's new to me! We will have to see how good this stuff is.

 

 

 Upon opening the box we find a surprisingly small fuselage, wing and other components all wrapped up in their own polythene bags. All the different sections are placed in their own 'compartment' of cardboard, making sure all the parts don't get damaged during transit. All of the above is then VERY securely held in place with masses of sellotape. I think some one likes sticky tape! First I pick up the pre painted cowl, it seems quite thin, but is light weight because of it, so should be fine. So out comes the fuselage, so far the True ARF label is ringing true. Cockpit dash board, pilot, canopy (badly spray painted), control rods and a 20 amp fuse with wires on are all already installed. Very nice.

 

 

 So too that Polycote, SHOCK HORROR, its awful! There are very major wrinkles on all parts of the airframe. This is a let down, it was all going so well! I now need to work out whether you can heat shrink it with an iron or not. On to the wings now, they seem pretty sturdy. I can particularly tell if they have been well built or not, again I'm sure we will find out. Yet again, the covering has let the plane down, the whole of the wing has continuous wrinkles in and is very, very slack.

 

 

Holes for servos have been pre cut, and there are tubes for your wires to go down into the middle of the wing. The covering has been very crudely cut away, and looks rather poor. When the wing is put onto the fuselage there is a 4mm gap between the wing and wing seat. Not very good. Not liking to be biased, there are some good points about the wings. There are no warps and it is built quite sturdily. Ailerons are pre hinged and glued very securely. the wings are bolted on, with ply plates around the holes to protect the wings. The tail group is of the same standard to the wings.

 

The hardware supplied is average. Not excellent. Control horns are laser cut ply wood, good enough for a model of this size. Control linkages have metal/plastic (i'm not too sure which it is!), again, good enough for the job. Wheels are already on the thin spray painted metal U/C legs, A little bit towards the statement at the start.

 

  One nifty little thing is the battery hatch. A balsa hatch with ply pegs at one end and a spring loaded 'bolt' mechanism at the other. I like that a lot . The picture below also shows the 20A fuse in the fuselage () and also the pre slotted control rods.

 

A quick flick through the instructions show no Chinglish or Englamiese (VMAR is Vietnamese). There are plenty of pictures to go with the instructions. Over all the booklet looks pretty good.

 

So, that's a quick look over and first impressions of the model are on the worse side of average. Time to go sort out that awful covering. If all goes smoothly I think I might quite like this model!

Edited By David Ashby - RCME moderator on 24/06/2009 20:56:20

[Ben Mullins]

Right, done a quick search on Polycote. Its used by VMAR only and can be tightened using high temperatures. 

 

Guess what im off to do!

[Tim Mackey]

Nice start to the review Ben

[Ben Mullins]

Thanks Timbo.

 

Using an iron gets rid of the wrinkles, but unfortuneatly it makes the covering a little bit transparent. Not very good. Ill live though!

 

As I can see it, there are only 2 postives to using POLYCOTE. 1) You can print more detail, like panel lines. 2) all trim etc is underneath the film (printed on reverse) so if using IC fuel wouldn't lift the trim.

[Tim Mackey]

Many ready covered models arrive with wrinkles i n the covering - even the more expensive variants - its a lot to do with quite extreme temperature chages which they endure on the long journey - a heat gun "wafted" over it should tighten things back up....until you take it down the field on a hot summer day, and then it slackens again

Remeber too in this write up, the model is pretty darn inexpensive, so I dont think anyone is expecting truly great quality at the price charged !

[David Ashby - Moderator]

Nice start Ben, yeh, had a few VMARs over the years and while they're firmly in 'budget' territory, they always fly very well. Be interested to see how she goes.   

[Simon B]

I put a 250w motor in mine and it went really nicely.  I would change the control horns before you fly it though, as the supplied ones are dreadful.  

 

If i were you i'd also mod it so it's a tail dragger.  The nose wheel will be useless after a few soft landings, as the metal rod will bend too much.  

 

Despite all this, for £40 you've got a plane that will fly well and should give you a lot of fun.  Enjoy!

[Ben Mullins]

Teacher training day today and tomorrow = 2 days off for me!

 

You've a very good point there Timbo. After a bit of thinking the model is acctually very good for £40. Looking through the build I can see not too many problems arising.

 

Thanks David. I think I would put this model as 'the balsa version of GWS'. This is because, the model is all square and straight but the finishing is a bit tacky.

 

I was planning on putting a cheapo 150W that I have spare in it, but ill taken into account your comment, ill see how it flies for me first. I was wondering if those ply horns could hold up to the job, that may well be something I change. As for the tail dragger option, I was acctually thinking of leaving the U/C off! I may put them on for the first flight to see what its like. I sure do hope to enjoy!

 

No more photo's yet as the covering is still taking up my time! I've had to put pin holes in the rather large air bubbles so that I can iron the covering flat. Just getting onto the wing this morning as the fuselage and tail section took me all last night!

[Ben Mullins]

No more photos yet. I've just finished getting all those airbubbles and wrinkles out! It took a while but it looks alot better now. I think I must have been unlucky in the quality of my covering. Have other people that have used POLYCOTE had the same problem as me?

 

Anyway, onto the build, ill be sure to post lots of photos.

 

Ben

[Simon B]

If you leave the u/c off you'll be scraping the wing servos on the floor.  Even with the best landing in the world you're heading for trouble down that route.

[Ben Mullins]

Hadn't thought of that Simon . Making it a tail dragger is now on my list of things to do.

[Ben Mullins]

Seen as Im about to start the build, I had a flick through the 2 leaflets that came with the plane. There is one 'Liability Disclaimer' book, its 8 pages long! The fear of sueing gone too far! Anyway, I spotted this funny statement:

 

  "Please remember that our staff are just like everyone else... they are more inclined to help nice reasonable people than someone who comes down on them like a ton of the stuff that comes out of the south end of a north bound cow"

 

Hilarious! Although, they are completly correct.

[Ben Mullins]

Right, A Quick Update:

 

Ill leave photos for when I have all the electronics. The build was very quick indeed. So quick that If I hadn't needed to wait for the Epoxy to dry it would have been complete with in 2 Hours. So it can be said that this model really is a 'True ARTF'. Having said that, it wasn't just a slot into place jobbie. The model isn't very accurate so the builder has to make allowances. By that I mean be prepared to get the knife out! I've completely disregarded the instructions, as all the things that needed doing seemed pretty obvious.

 

 Undercarridge first. The U/C is all pre assembled with what seems to be good foamy wheels. The wheels are held in place with snake inner tubes stuck on with what I assume is CA. Covering has to be cut away from the wing to show the U/C blocks, but that is the norm. The U/C blocks are made from good quality hardwood which seem to be stuck in and supported well in the wing. Unfortuantly, the hole for the end of the U/C leg is too small, which has to be drilled out. Now, BE CAREFUL, I rather stupidly managed to drill through the block and through the sheeting on the top surface of the wing, DOH! Anyway, the leg goes in and is secured by Nyton straps and self tappers. The nose U/C on the Subaru is designed to be steerable. However I didn't want the extra load on the puny 9g servo's I was going to install. So I attached the nose leg on (incidentally the pre drilled holes were well out of line!) and Epoxyed the nose leg still! I may well come to regret that decision!

 

 Vertical and Horizontal stabilisers. No need to CA your hinges, its allready done for you! Although I would advise you check the hinge with a good firm tug. Installation is as you would expect. Having to cut away your covering carefully with out piercing the wood, as stated in the 'Ruggedise your RTF' article in the latest issue. I had to keep the knife out as my stabilisers were too thick for the precut holes in the fuselage. Lining up the stabilisers so that they are at 90 degrees to the fuselage and also the same distance from each tip is bog standard and took no time at all. Having checked that all was good and square I proceded to Epoxy them in place and went to have lunch while waiting for the 30min stuff to cure.

 

 Control linkages. These are pre installed into the fuselage. The Clevises which are of the metal/plastic variety commented on earlier are kept shut with screw, very strange. Just to be safe I will use a bit of fuel tube on them. The clevises are screwed directly into the snake inner tubes. I decided to give them a tug test and suprise suprise, they came straight off. A bit of thin cyano fixed that on all the linkages. The control horns are laser cut ply wood which are epoxied in place. I know Simon said that they were bad but I didn't have anything to replace them with . I then poured CA all over them to stiffen them up a bit. We'll have to see how they last.

 

I also installed a rather neat Motor mount, but that really does deserve some piccies, so that can wait till next time.

 

Photos next time round, Ben.

[Ben Mullins]

Not quite next time round. I've ordered the electronics off Giant Cod, so will be finishing off this model in the near future. 

[Simon B]

Ben, how did you get on with this model?  I'm toying with buying a new one as a cheap hack.  I can't remember, but does it have dihedral?

[TonyS]

Enjoying the review Ben. Looking forward to seeing how £40 flies!

 

I can't help but wonder what time went into making the kit though - taking, packaging, transport and profit out of the equation, what do you think the hourly rate for the workers is...? What do you think an equivalent British kit would be...?

[Simon B]

To be honest we should all think like this a bit more.  The hourly rate must be shocking. Loads of ARTF kits seem to be made in Vietnam and it must be the cheap labour that swings it.  Do we stop buying products that are produced in modelling sweatshops or do we accept it's how we get them so cheap?  It makes me pretty uncomfortable.

[TonyS]

True Simon. That's why I like the foam models. Once the mould ismade the planes can be knocked out for pennies. My Panther from Starmax ( body only) costs £45 from China. The parts probably cost less than a fiver in materials so all in all not unreasonable. The other way of looking at it is by buying it at least somone has some income however small. If we stopped then there would probably be even more deprivation. Anyway, all that said I'm still really liking the thread and looking fwd to seeing it airborne.

[Simon B]

Yeah, i agree that there is the other side of the coin regarding the issue of some money better than nothing.

 

[Ben Mullins]

Hey all!

 

I could have sworn I had put newer pictures up here. Obviously not! My model flying is winding down this year due to exams and the fact that I've just got into full size aviation! So I don't really have the time and money to keep all going and, to be honest, model flying has a lower priority than exams and full size! Im sure thats the way it would work for most people (:

Anyway, here are some more pictures:

 

So, its a nice model and it still hasn't flown! As you can see from the pictures, the steerable nose wheel doesn't look like it would work. The firewall is just too close.

Happy Landings, Ben Mullins (:

 

Edit: Simon, the wing has the smallest amount of dihederal, 5mm or so under each wing.

Edited By Ben Mullins on 09/01/2010 11:42:10

[Stephen Grigg]

Good Luck Ben happy landings

[Simon B]

I didn't think it had much dihedral, but i retired mine ages ago, so couldn't remember.

[Sheldon Holy]

Hmm.... 40 quid eh? I have a 300w motor spare....

 

I'm very tempted.

[Simon B]

I'd recommend it.  The wood's not the best quality and the covering WILL need reironing, but for £40 as a cheap hack you can't go wrong.  Flies like a dream from how i remember it, also it's pretty sturdy.

[Sheldon Holy]

I've just looked EVERYWHERE for it! Where to buy it? I guess Vmar has probably haulted production. I am in two minds about converting it to a taildragger. What battery did you use in it...? 2200 3s? Although i am building a model like this (i've started a thread - alasdair sutherland pipin) that needs finishing. I need some money and motivation. Then it is finished.

 

Sheldon