World's Cheapest ARF

All this talk has me thinking about mine... I just put it on the charger. MAYBE I'll brave the upstate NY winter weather and maiden it tomorrow.

Good flying, desmobob

I just got back from the field. I must say the plane is undoubtedly the finest-flying $38 trainer I have ever had the privilege of guiding around the wild blue.

Maiden flight was a charm... long roll-out to a smooth rotation, a little trimming here and there, and I was all smiles. The Magnum .52 four-stroke dead-sticked when I throttled way back, so I brought it down early. :-) The trainer is heavy, but flies fine. It seems very smooth and stable. The Magnum .52 RFS and APC 12x6 was a good power option.

After a quick bit of tuning I was back up, just flying the pattern and getting a feel for the model. I pulled up into a big, tall loop and zoomed out of the bottom, headed back up a bit for an aileron roll. Then, the exhaust note suddenly got very loud. I aborted any further fun and landed immediately. The rear half the muffler was MIA. Darn it! I wanted to fly the thing! I walked a grid in the area where I figured it fell. No luck.

So I broke out the trusty SPAD Dominator. I got in six back-to-back flights, shutting down long enough to refuel then heading back up. On post-flight clean up, I noticed the exhaust residue from the SPAD's TT .40 Pro was very dark; almost black. :-( The exhaust was nice and tight and the engine felt smooth, but I fear the bearings are going south. The little engine has been running hard for four or five years, sporting a Tower Hobbies muffler and getting plenty of flying time. Time for some TLC....

Good flying, desmobob

And what was the weather like today? FINALLY rained in central Texas today. mk

It was a pretty nice 32 degrees F, which is above average for normal temps here in northern NY, but much cooler than the ridiculously warm weather we had all week (in the 50's a couple of days!). Today was the first calm day in a while, as far as wind goes, and a stark contrast to yesterdays high wind warning weather alerts.

I just talked to my sister in the Bremerton, WA area... I think they have some rain they wouldn't mind sending down to central Texas. :-)

Good flying, desmobob

My "cheapest ARF" flys great and I consider it well worth the $38.95. It is also quite tough and has sustained one cartwheel with only minor damage which took only a few minutes to fix. Why would anyone want to pay more?

Depends on whether you want to build or fly!

Well now that I'm a bit over the yesterday incident, I will try to share it here. I took the trainer out again yesterday and got to great flights out of it, towards the end of the day some friends showed up at the field and wanted to see how it flies so I took her up again and started to show off the acrobatic abilities and crashed the darn plane :( I did an outloop, roll and steep dive and expected to pull out and level around 20' well dumb thumb fed throtle instead of elevator and you can imagine the rest. I am so pissed with my self, such a nice flying bird. One thing I'm gonna tell you is that indeed it is a sturdy box, props spinner and tank are all dust but only the nose and part of the flooring got damage. It is repairable but not worth the time for US$30.00+ that I paid for it. Manged a total of 4 great flights and can't blame no one but my self for its short life. I'm gonna try to get a hold of Raidentech and see if the have a fuse some where in their warehouse that they are willing to part with otherwise I will just have to go back to my other plane. The weather is rainy here today so I will put some building time into my SIG Kavalier.

I may even end up taking Ed up on his US$48.95 offer for his plane :D

PS - I will post pictures later

My trainer is now item #6031534296 on eBay.

Ed Cregger

Remember, you can contact the distributor at

They may have a line on an extra fuselage for you if Raidentech can't (or won't) help you.

I have a Magnum .52A XLS that I bought for mine, and keeping it screwed together is an amazing amount of work! Mine only has five tanks of fuel through it, and it's breaking in nicely, but it's already on its second set of muffler screws. You can order extra muffler screws from

Just search for part number S40120.

If I can actually keep the muffler on, I think this will be a great engine. I am beginning to wonder if I'm simply going to have to weld the muffler to the crank case to hold it together.

The muffler on my Magnum .52 RFS four-stroke came apart at a "non user-serviceable" joint; a threaded joint that I imagine is supposed to be permanently bonded. I e-mailed their support folks and they told me the rear portion of the muffler isn't available seperately, but they'd look for a used muffler for me. They're very helpful.

Good flying, desmobob

Have you NO pride? Lyman

Good to hear, excellent customer service can buy a company a surprisingly large amount of forgiveness! :-)

Are you dealing with Global (distributor) in particular?

Yes, I'm dealing with service at Global Hobby. I'm afraid the amount of customer service may falling behind the amount of forgiveness necessary to keep me as a customer.

This particular Magnum XL 52RFS was my first Magnum engine. It was crap and was returned. They quickly replaced it. The replacement was returned very shortly after that and was sent back to me with a new cylinder head/valves/etc.. It ran very well after a piece of fuel tubing was jammed over the leaky high-speed needle valve. Now, I took it out on the one day I got to fly so far all winter, and it let me down on the second flight because of a muffler assembly or design error. Very discouraging.

Whenever I tell my Magnum tales of woe, I hear a whole lot of positive things about Magnums; the four-strokes in particular. I have an open mind (and a tight wallet!) so I forgave and forgot and recently bought an XL 1.20 RFS. It's breaking in nicely on the test stand and seems to be a good engine. Time will tell if it changes my opinion on Magnums!

Good flying, desmobob

I had problems with air bubbles from my remote needle valve assembly on my .52A XLS two-stroke. I moved the needle valve to the front again, so I don't know for sure if it was the remote needle valve assembly or just a cheap piece of fuel line from Magnum that caused the trouble.

I had considered buying a .52 XL 4-stroke because of the strong reviews of it at RC Universe. You should write up a quick review there to balance out the user comments a bit.

I am glad to hear that your 1.20 4-stroke experience is working out better.

Thanks for the info on selectiverc.com, Raidentech told me I will hav to wait a month and a half (unacceptable). I will call selective an see how it goes

-- habutt

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Just an update on the above...

Today I received a very nice muffler for my Magnum XL 52FRS via Priority Mail from Global Hobby customer service. They really stand behind their product and their fast and friendly service has convinced me to continue being a customer of theirs. :-)

Good flying, desmobob

Would some loc-tite help keep that muffler secure?

desmobob Wrote:

-- wpifarme

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The part of his muffler that came apart wouldn't be a joint that one would regularly secure with thread lock adhesive.