Erik R

My Feedback: (32)

The 1/6 Skymaster is a good jet. I really like mine. Twin 190’s.

Hobby99

Dear sir, your feedback would be appreciated.

I’m strongly considering building a top RC F4 Phantom.

Can you share your feelings about overall kit quality? I am looking at glass, work, quality, and overall fit and finish.
I have built BVM, pilot, and Aerojet. All seem OK or very good.

I have heard some OK and some negative feedback on this brand.

Additionally, can you share your feedback on flight characteristics, stall, speed, any funny tendencies during flying, etc.

SF

Hi,
My 2cents after 5 flights and numerous issues with landing gear and poor landing gear mounting.
I have had issues with landing gear, with v1 and 2. On take off roll snapped like others but actually did damage to wing. Also have had massive issues with the all landings damaging the gear mounting and pulling the wing skin off as the gear plate came loose. No Glue and poor mounting plate design. There is nothing to hold the plywood mount into the wing, except a 1mm strip of ply over the join into the rib. The plywood separated layer by layer. I have to cutout a huge portion of the wing skin to repair the areas that have broken plus it pulled a huge portion of the wing skin out when the mount moved. The landings have not been hard at all. A little fast but nothing that anyone watching thought was a bad or hard landing, This happened on both wings with the gear mounts. WiIl post some pics so can understand better what I am taking about.
The thrust tube also leaves alot to be desired, Very average, can see pics of multiple different pipes of users and the issues they have with them on the TOPRC FB page.
One on the biggest problems was as was about to taxi for the maiden, notice the leading edge of one of the wings had split at the join and started to separate. Lucky saw that or would have been catastrophic. I had high hopes and wanted to love this plane. with the amount of things that have been ongoing I wish I had never bought it.
Having said that once in the air, flies nice. As I can't get rid of it, I will continue to persevere with it. Hopefully my patience pays off. I think will upgrade the gear to Electron as every flight have had issues with gear going up and down. I think partly because the geometry of the gear doors. To have them flush and the correct toe angle for the wheels I think that the doors are catching in the airflow and putting too much resistance on the gear. If I increase the voltage on my cg15 they make a high pitched squeal at the top and bottom of the travel.
Will attach some pics when I can.
Be interested in other thoughts if they have flown theirs yet.

Hobby99

Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed piece of feedback on the top RC F4 phantom.
I have heard some positive things, but many negative things about top RC in terms of quality control. It seems like you’re dealing with a few design issues, as well as poor quality control. Once again, thank you for sharing your insights.
Hobby 99.

SF

Can see where has snapped. Each portion of ply has separated. It snapped where I had put carbon cloth over the weak point finished. So just broke at the next weak point.


The arrows show gaps in the pipe. At least there is a little overlap so hot air going over the gaps.

The other wing. You can see where the gear plate has lifted the join on the gear plate at the wing rip. There is nothing holding it into the join except a tiny amount of glue that is barely visable. It has also separated each layer of the plywood..
Looking at this pic also reminded me that the V2 gear struts were a different dia then than the retracts. So needed to slowly file the new struts to fit into the retracts. Another massive pain in the butt. How do you stuff these things up?? Anyway, will continue to plug away and get this thing in the air again.

BDK74

My Feedback: (5)

Those screws are completely inadequate for mounting the retracts.

I won’t disagree that the materials and building technique are suspect.

Looks like a typical Chinese “builders” ARF

SF

Yes I agree that I could have or should have used bigger screws etc. But the problem with that is what happened on first landing where it pretty much pulled the bottom portion of the wing skin off when the gear pull back like in the pic of just the gear and and gear mount pulled out.
I wanted a point if failure as opposed to it ripping the bottom of the wing again.
Then on the next landing. The screws held just fine on the repaired wing but the ply just snapped at where the carbon cloth stopped, and then ripped out the wing skin and mount.
Going to get into full repairs tomorrow and will post some pics of the repair work if guys are interested.

causeitflies

Nothing wrong with those screws. They should have failed first. But people don't realize how strong they actually are.