Customer Reviews

Good ARF for the money Review by Rick

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The following is my review of the SLICK 540 ARF:

The fun starts when you go to get the manual and there is no manual in the box. You have to get it online ( www.valuehobby.com ) and when you get it downloaded you will find that it is for three different models on one manual. The manual really is not much help but read what you can. There is no parts list and missing information you may need, so I decided to post this to help those looking for more information.

First you may need to iron all of your covering on the ARF as it is not the greatest covering and wrinkles easily, make sure you are using "LOW" heat as will melt very quickly if you're not watching carefully. In my opinion the covering and missing information in the manual are really the worst part of this ARF. But both are easy to deal with and worth the time.

Wing Assembly: Wing assembly is pretty straight forward, look for the hinge slots and hinge as normal with CA. When you go to mount the wing servos you will find the two doors, but the manual does not tell you how to mount servos. The wood servo mounts included look more like balsa than hard wood. I recommend changing to hard wood mounts as the wood they give you maybe to soft for the torque of the servos. Also check your count of the hinges included before you start hinging as you need 18 and I was only given 15, so you may need to add some hinges if your short.

Elevator/Rudder/Tail Assembly: Next you will need to glue in the Elevator Assembly, not much here to talk about as pretty straight forward. Next go to the Rudder and Tail Wheel assembly and drill tail wheel hole in rudder and when you drill the tail wheel hole you may also need to cut a slot into the bottom of the rudder for the tail wheel mount to fit closer to the bottom of the fuse. Next installing the rudder servo I added some hard wood under the servo because the wood at the front is a little soft and is very easy to move up and down where the rudder servo goes.

Wheel Assembly: Now on the wheel fairings you may need to cut out the opening more for the wheel to fit better and be sure to check your wheel fairings height before drilling your axle hole. Don't want to catch your wheel fairings on landings. Also please be careful with the wheel fairing paint as it is very easy to chip the paint.

Firewall /Engine mount: Now the hard part is the firewall as it doesn’t have the center lines or the holes for the motor so it's up to you for the measuring, so take your time when marking mount points. For the motor throttle servo I added hard wood under the servo to mount it better.

Electric Motor Option: If you are going Electric the motor box isn’t in the manual just a photo. Just making a box shape and attaches on the front firewall.

Note: The Canopy is held on with magnets and they need to be stronger. With my canopy in place it was very easy to move around so I replaced mine with stronger magnets to better secure canopy.

Now for the flying, I'm chose to go electric on mine! OK here we go, on the first flight as most of us do, I got the plane up and trimmed it out. Checked the CG and was tail heavy and I added 6 1/2 ounce of weight to the nose . After another flight it was just a bit nose heavy. So removed 1 1/2 ounce from the nose and put it in the air again. Same thing nose heavy so remove another 1oz. Then I test flew again and the CG was great but I didn’t like the way it handle in the turns. It was dropping the wing tip so I landed and put back on the 1 oz weight and flying much better. If you decide to go electric be sure to give yourself space behind the prop so you can hold motor to tighten prop nut.

In closing it's a great flying plane for the price, plane glides very well on landings. Performs great in the air. Great ARF for $99 you can't go wrong with a little extra care with the covering. I choose to replace covering as not a fan of the china coat product (personal preference). Thanks for reading and hope this helps you out. Ricky
(Posted on 2/15/2013)

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