Have had this plane before and it is a great flying plane. Very easy to fly with good aerobatics. But for as many complaints as has been posted about the weak landing gear falling off or folding under, for the life of me I don't understand why this company can't see to it that this problem is corrected. We have 4 of these in our club and the first thing all of us had to do was fix the landing gear. Come on Value Hobby wake up and fix this problem. (Posted on 3/31/2015)
Please note this review applies to the aerosport 46 as well. both planes are extremely similar in terms of construction flaws and results. These planes have a glaring error in the instruction manual. On page one is should say:" Cut out the current landing gear plate from the wing forward to the firewall and replace it with something at least double the thickness and place triangle stock in all four corners of the lg plate. Failure to do so will result in immediate failure of the landing gear on or before the first flight!" The LG on these planes is guaranteed to fail on or before the first flight if you build it as is. You will be lucky if no serious damage occurs. Mine actually failed while the plane was sitting at idle after its first landing. It rolled to a stop sat that there for a moment and then as I approached it collapsed to the ground. There is no other possible outcome no matter how soft your landing is and mine was a total greaser. Gentle and perfect!!! In addition the hardware is just plain dangerous for an aerobatic plane even an electric one. Replace it with at least 2-56 solid rod hardware. The rest of what's wrong with this plane was "my fault'
I refuse to risk crappy performance from inverted 2 cycle engines so I side mounted mine at a bit of an angle. The result was major hogging out of the cowl. I should also mention the firewall to prop washer distance was 10mm too short necessitating a major change after much of the plane was completed grrrrr frustrating. Bottom line: don't trust the measurements in this manual. When finally completed and upgraded with adequate hardware and landing gear reinforcement I was at the end of the flying season here. Another annoyance because this plane and instruction manual were inadequate out of the box. The finalized version flew very nicely and with a JBA 56 ABC had unlimited performance and did all the moves patter 3D etc without any stress. So the end result came out very nice and flies great. I am looking forward to flying it next season since it needed so much work this season I couldn't enjoy it! The phrase "Hey it was only $85 kept popping into my mind. What can you expect? How about this- a safe adequately thought out and designed model that is not a particular challenge for someone with 25 years building and flying experience like me. Woe unto the beginner. For all of the above reasons these arf's are not really a good value. Your better off spending 20 bucks more and getting a great arf. After these I finished of an hobbyking katana 46 that I got for under $100 on special. It is so much nicer to assemble, so much better off and flies easily as well as either of these that the 10bucks or so more I spent seems like a great investment. I may grow to love the aerosport 46 as I fly it but frankly its so lightly framed and fragile I will be lucky if it lasts more than a year. Double check EVERYTHING on this arf after every session or you will be in pieces before you know it! Oh and yeah- it will actually fly well on a strong 40 glo but I suspect given the absolute lightness of the structure the "GP" was wishful thinking. Fix the above and stick in a 40 sized electric motor. (Posted on 12/27/2014)
I installed an Emax 32 motor GT3520/05. I'm getting 750 Watts @ 50 Amps static with an APC 11x8.5E prop on a 4 cell 3300 Mah 30C Lipo. 60 Amp ESC. the plane weighs 4.9 pounds. It balanced perfect with the Lipo about 1 1/2" behind the firewall. There are no bad traits even at low speeds, it flys great and floats in for landings. The instructions are a bit vague but all in all it was a simple build. I bring this plane with me every time I fly now, it is a very fun plane to fly. (Posted on 11/28/2014)
Let start out by saying that if this is your first ARF build then look somewhere else. The instructions on this plane are all but useless. The book manual jumps around and shows various states of the build, but not in the order they are instructed. The tail wheel photo is completely wrong and shows the bend you have to put in it facing the wrong way. There is no mention of where to place an ESC if you are doing electric. I had to drill and mod the plane for the ESC to fit in and run to the motor. The manual suggests the Gforce G32 motor but fails to mention that you have to buy an additional motor mount to fit it to the motor box. I drilled new holes and mine fit but come on! The instructions say not to drill all the way through the elevators or rudder to affix the horns but the screws they provide are too long, not to mention they give you base plates for the horns. I screwed mine through and used the horn base plates.
Now for the quality. Probably the worst monocote job I have ever seen. Mine was more wrinkled than a Shar pei but the manual states that wrinkles do not affect flight performance. How about wanting to have a nice looking model? Most of the pre-installed anchor nuts were rusted. There is no carbon fiber or fiberglass rod support for the wings. Just a piece of 1/4" plywood for support. The CA hinges they provide are way too stiff and require quite a bit of flexing to get them to bend freely without stressing the servos too much. The plastic push rod tubes running from the center servo placement to the tail are very constricting and cause way too much friction. I just yanked mine out and fed the push rod directly. That seemed to help.
In summation, I am glad I had a few ARF builds under my belt prior to this one. The price is great but then you get what you pay for. (Posted on 8/18/2014)
ordered plane and received it in just a few days. Upon opening and looking it over was disappointed in the covering, very poor. Looked at the landing gear and decided it needed some reinforcing. Used a lot of epoxy. After looking at the instructions I threw them away as they leave out a lot of the steps as if every other page was not included. No instructions for nitro installation. Had to build own mounts for receiver and battery after installing fuel tank. Rest of build went well except throttle rod was not long enough. Used my own. Finally got it built and went flying. There was no surprises. This plane flew like a champ. Very stable and easy to handle. Does a lot of stuff easily. Used an OS 46 with an 11x5 prop. I really like it and ordered another just in case. Would recommend to anyone. Just pay attention when you assemble it. The surprises will sneak up on you. (Posted on 4/19/2014)
This is my follow up review of the tweety. I love this plane I installed a Magnum 52 4 cycle and man do they work together well this plane is so nimble and responsive and will glide like you will not believe. It will do many aerobatic manuvers including Knife edge flying!! The only thing I did to it was to beef up the landing gear by adding metal supports to keep the landing gear from flipping under on grass fields and used larger wheels. It is a great plane and looks so good in the sky. Thanks Value Hobby!!!! (Posted on 10/15/2013)
Model came quickly, Looks great, As I said not for a first time builder. No instructions for Nitro installation. Overall Value is good, Value hobby is great. Good prices, Great service. (Posted on 8/27/2013)
