Where did all the kits go?

We went underground... ARFs, man! They are everywhere, man! You cant hide!

Tower Hobbies still carries a few but the numbers are shrinking daily. Bruce Thorpe Engineering (BTEModels.com) has a few good ones. I have the Venture kit waiting to be built. Myself, I haunt Ebay...

The market sells what the market will bear and what the customer wants.

Guess where you and I and a few of us belong ..... ?

Out of shear frustation, I look at arf's, dl the plans or manuals, the draw the plans myself and kit the bugger. You'd be surprised ho accurate some of those manuals are. Just finished a Giles 20

-- indoruwe

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Did you even look for kits? Virtually every online hobby shop has them. Sig, Balsa USA and Tower all list many kits. What are you looking for? Most likely someone here knows where to get it.

And sometimes marketing folks project their own feelings forward and make erroneous decisions.

Once the kit builders learn that the present ARFs aren't as they seem, they might move back toward kit building again - assuming that ARF quality does not seriously improve.

Ask one of my friends. He was flying his brand new ARF trainer after a lay off when the right wing panel crumpled up in flight. Closer inspection revealed that the wing had been jig assembled and then wrapped with covering. Not enough glue. When the covering sagged a bit, the wing disassembled - in flight.

New OS .46AX and flight pack were trashed. Importer of the POS offers to replace the kit. What about the engine and flight pack? Nope.

Is saving a little time worth trashing all of your flight equipment?

Ed Cregger

Where ? There's lots of kits out there. Top Flite , Goldberg , Sig , Great Planes , Herr Engineering , Hangar Hobby and on and on. Just gotta look.

Ken Day

I won't buy any ARF from that big retailer just for that reason. Had one come apart and found missing pieces, broken pieces, no glue, etc. Retailer had the gall to threaten me when I reported it on here!

I noticed that as well after a 25 year layoff :^). Kits are still being made, what are you interested in building? Sometimes you can find a kit that is no longer produced on ebay or in some of the RC forums like RC Universe.

I used an ARF to relearn my flying skills (Avistar) and I was surprised at how well the plane flew. I still have it too. I have to admit, there are some pretty nice ARF's out there now. I'm actually thinking about buying another :^()

I will always enjoy building. It's nice to have something unique to fly at the club field...you won't ever get it mixed up with another plane in the pattern!

Scott

Giles 202 follow up.

Waiting for parts of engine before I can maiden :( , but after that the drawings will be updated. I usually do some minor modding durin the build-up. ;) Anybody interested in the plans, let me know what format you can us (DWG, DXF, PDF) or I can change to Kinko format and you can have i printed yourself. Actually a lot of work, cutting and sanding all those parts, but if yo like to scratch built, then this is the way to go. Takes me about tw months for one plane. I am not sure of the cost comparison, but I hav a lot of wood and "stuff" laying around. :

-- indoruwe

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On Fri, 21 Oct 2005 08:38:29 -0500, indoruwet wrote in :

I'd love to see a .pdf, not because I want to build the Giles but because I'm interested in seeing your building techniques.

Thanks!

Marty snipped-for-privacy@canisius.edu

We kit and sell the "Nemesis 3D-II" which is a nice laser-cut balsa kit. Check it out at

There is also a review article on it in the latest issue of 3D-Flyer magazine.

Randy Model Airplane Engineering

Those are some pretty neat planes!

I am building one of the last Super Sportster .60 kits. I guess I will have to build from plans from now on. The problem is that an ARF costs less than a kit, when you include covering, glue, etc. I am willing to pay extra to build it myself, but this attitude is bound to be rare.

-- Mike Norton

You've got it. As soon as I have updated the dwg, I will make a PD for you. Give me a few weeks

-- indoruwe

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Hi There

Building a power panel, and I need to know the current drawn by a (typical) glow plug - I couldn't measure it as my set up included long thin leads to my meter which dropped the voltage a lot - plug didn't glow!

Seemed likely to be around 1.5 to 2.0 amps using a single rechargable (Ncd I think), but I would like a better figure if known

BTW I note that some power panels supply a pulsed? drive to the glow plug - I am not sure why, and whether that method has benefits - but I was not planning to get all fancy - just 1.5v dc from a voltage regulator etc

Cheers

David

Based on our ARF vs KIT sales, I can confirm that your attitude is extremely rare :-)

Unfortunately, our government's policies that facilitate the cheap imported ARFs are also exporting our decent jobs. We're trying to compete by manufacturing our own ARFs. If "American Made" means anything to you, come see us on the web...

Randy Model Airplane Engineering

On Fri, 21 Oct 2005 21:45:50 -0500, indoruwet wrote in :

Much appreciated!

I'm designing and building a utility airplane--I guess it's a Stik of sorts, although I'm trying tailfeathers with airfoils made out of foam and balsa based roughly on the GP Wagstaff Extra 300.

I'm only making show progress with it. Maybe I'll get it to fly next spring.

Marty

| Building a power panel, and I need to know the current drawn by a (typical) | glow plug - I couldn't measure it as my set up included long thin leads to | my meter which dropped the voltage a lot - plug didn't glow!

Should be easy enough to work around ...

| Seemed likely to be around 1.5 to 2.0 amps using a single rechargable (Ncd | I think), but I would like a better figure if known

I think that's about right. But I haven't measured it.

| BTW I note that some power panels supply a pulsed? drive to the glow plug - | I am not sure why, and whether that method has benefits - but I was not | planning to get all fancy - just 1.5v dc from a voltage regulator etc

I can explain the pulsed power easily enough.

Ok, you've got a 12v input and need 1.2 volts out at 2 amps. Sure, you can use a voltage regulator, but it'll need to dissapate over 20 watts of power ((12 - 1.2) * 2), which is probably enough to require a big heat sink and a fan, which increases complexitiy and cost. That, and you're draining your battery 10x as fast as you need to.

So instead, you just pulse the power, giving a duty cycle of around

10%, and the plug glows just the same, but you don't waste all that power.

What size is the Giles? Definately interested in getting a DWG file.