dljolly

I see the same sort of plane described above. My T2 will probably get some 'glass on the wing center (for my peace of mind) and some touchup with CA anywhere I can reach, same reason. I too had gummed up aileron and elevator hinges, but carefully cleaned them up. The covering is repairable, per the instruction manual, "...with low temperature covering using a heat gun and soft cloth". They caution against irons in tightening. Mine has gotten a bit loose in places since arriving, perhaps the dry climate here. The landing gear may take some work...when installed, the tires aren't vertical to the ground, kinda bowed in and the gear doesn't bend at all. May do some shaving/carving there.
Just wish I could get to that "bug eyed" pilot and fix him and the interior up all snazzy like!
And for you Tomahawk deliverees...who the heck is Velo???!!! Know what I mean?

Dave

hattend

My Feedback: (20)

The makers of the interior pieces? That is kind of annoying.

Cattle_Prod

My Feedback: (1)

Glitch.
Good to hear you enjoy the Vmar Tamahawk.
I've had a couple in my shop @ $285 Oz and have had no complaints. I really do believe that Vmar quality has risen considerably with the Tomahawk, Van RV4 and the Skylane.

Coo-ee
Cp

Glitch

G'Day Cattle Prod,
Sounds as though your shop is out in the Mulga ?
If you handle mail order you've got another customer.
Regards,
Bill

Cattle_Prod

My Feedback: (1)

Hey glitch.
Picky looks good.
I'm way down south, well..... not that far that you've gotta swim.
Latest airborne mag, look for the new ad on Pg 34.
Hint.
It has a Ryan PT 20 coming in for a landing in the back ground.

DocYates

My Feedback: (102)

Got mine in last week as well. I felt for the price, I had to try it. My friend, who is a local distributor got the kit for $108 USD, plus shipping, so I felt I had to try it at least once. I have had a few of the VMAR planes, and also have the .90 size TA-6 kit in the closet now. After a little tweaking, and a little substitution of the hardware, I have never had a problem with one of them. This kit is definitely the better of the ones I have inspected. Looks like it will be a good flier. Plan on putting a .80 four stroke under the hood. One nice feature was the pre-installed servo lead. Be sure and double nut the power module on these planes, I have yet to have one come loose that was double nutted, of course thread lock would work too. By the way my friend was told it would be near December before they had anymore to ship, so despite the bad publicity they get here, they are being bought by some, whether that is good or bad, I cannot say, but their price and the fact that they are manufacturing a different looking ARF, has appeal to a large number of folks.
My $.02,
Tommy

Glitch

Thanks Cattle_Prod,
Nice Ad.
Look forward to getting in touch,
Regards,
Glitch

getme2

Hi Glitch looks great cant wait to get mine. I am putting 80 fs in mine.*********************Getme

Glitch

G'Day Getme2,
Even though my T2 gets by with the T.T. 54 4S, I think you've made a better choice with the 80.
Another plus for the 80 is that you may not need any extra weight up front.
Using the 54 with an on-board glo system I had to use a smaller servo on the elevators to keep the weight up front.
Attached a pic of the set up I used.
They look really nice in flight with the high T tail.
Good luck with yours.
Regards,
Glitch.

getme2

Hi Glitch thats a lot of airplane for a 4s 48 y get away with it because of the size of the wing. i am putting glo driver in to. All so elc. breaks from Hobby Lobby. looks great. Waiting by door for mine************************Getme2

edwarda10pilot

My Feedback: (3)

Just thought I would chime in with my 2c. I travel a lot and in Aug 2002 I found one of the VMAR Texan II in a hobby shop in Boise ID. It looked good and the store owner said that his flew well and he was very satisfied. Well, I bought it. The model looks very nice and went together well. The problem was that it was not very straight. The vertical fin was offset ( they put a notch in the top of the fuse for the fin to sit in) by approximately 5 degrees to the left (ie it would take right rudder to get the model to stay on a heading). When I lined up the ailerons TE with the wing TE at the center section, the wing tip plastic parts we raised at the TE by 4 degrees. When checking the wing for wash in/out I found that one tip had about 6 degrees of wash in and the other had alomost the same amount of wash in. The power module is convenient but the holes in the ply firewall are way too big for the 6/32 screws and the flat washers. When I finished putting all of the stuff in the model, mine weighed 5.5 lbs with an OS 46 FX in the nose and standard JR servos.

Anyway, I fixed and straightened what I could and went out for a test flight. I consider myself a fairly competent flier (flown big birds, jets, warbirds, pattern, etc) but the first flight was nearly the last. On the first flight I ended up putting in about 6-7 clicks of right rudder, 4-5 clicks of down elevator and full left aileron trim and still had to hold aileron stick in. Completed the first flight and adjusted all of the servos and reset the trims. Second flight required retrimming and so did the third flight. After four flights and numerous attempts to get the model to fly reasonably well hands off, I decided that this model just couldn't be taught to "straigthen up and fly right". I took all of my stuff out and have not flown it again. Prior to removing all of my stuff, I had the following amounts of trim in: 1/2" of right rudder, 3/16" left aileron and 1/8" of down elevator. Suffice is to say that I don't think I will be buying another VMAR anytime soon. I hope they correct all of their problems and I wish them well, but until then, I will select another manufacturer. I hate to slam a manufacturer, but the model I bought was not a very good product. If they are having a manufacturing problem, I wish they would have better quality control over their products and pull them if they aren't up to snuff. Unfortunately, what I think happens is that they don't do some of the QC they need to do and people like us end up paying the price for their miscues.

Ed

ramireo

I am also one of those who simply fell in love with the looks of this Tomahawk. I really like civilian airplanes and there are not that many out there. The focus is mainly on war birds and aerobats. Anyhow, instead of criticizing the company, here is a friendly suggestion. They should increase their quality, increase their price accordingly, and then they will have a lot more business!! I would be willing to pay a higher price for the Tomahawk as long as I knew that I would be getting a good product.
Their business model seems to be based in low prices with questionable quality. In other words, high volume with usually low margins, that do not allow for re-investment in quality control. Well, that seems not to be working for them. If one of their core competency is to produce good looking airplanes, that pilots really want (i.e. Tomahawk), then just beefing up the quality along with the price will do magic for them.
My two cents...

Glitch

I guess I've been lucky twice, the Vmar PC-9 needed 2 beeps of down elevator trim and now has over 50 'happy' flights.
The Vmar Tomahawk went together smoothly, looks great, flies very well, even with only a 54 4 stroke (although a bit "squirrely" through a slow roll.
No complaints...........and together both cost less than my one CM Pro FW-190, which is the same span as the T2.

Edd

Hi Blitch,

Does your pc-9 has a inverted mount engine ? The reason I am asking because I have a seagull pc-9 and the engine was mounted inverged, I can start the engine but it will not run more than on minute. I put a os fx46 with ox #8 plug and keep trying but it just would not go. I noticed the fuel tank's position is very high and it just keep flooding the engine. Did you make any modification? Thanks.

Miniair

My Feedback: (1)

.

rcrcrcguy

If you really want a Tomahawk kit, check out Airsail new kit. Product reviews are great.

http://www.airsailmodels.co.nz/

Their US exclusive supplier is Third Coast Hobbies.

www.thirdcoasthobbies.com

Glitch

G'Day Edd,
Sorry for the delay in replying.
I agree the inverted mounting looks nice, but I settled for 45 degrees to reduce the height a little. (Attached pic)
Mine is the Vmar version so I'm not sure of the tank height in the Seagull.
Enya 3 plugs seem the favourites for inverted donks in Brisbane.
Some guys use a foam crate with the ends carved out to accept the model inverted for the start, then pick it up, turn it right side up and and hold it up vertical for 5 seconds to ensure it doesn't fade if a little lean.
Maybe the pressure feed is a little too strong ?
The 46 FX should handle being inverted without hassles.
There are Seagull PC-9's flying at Tingalpa, I'll ask around.
Regards,
Bill

Otto Kudrna

My Feedback: (1)

Hello
I have posted this on another thread with pictures, but I will do an update of my dilemma here. I purchased a V-mar Beaver a couple months ago I had the same problem with severe wash in. After heating up the covering material to put in wash out the covering cracked after about 10 minutes just sitting there. After stripping the covering material off to recover the wing I found many of the ribs totally crushed inside the wing. The ailerons were so warped that I have to build new ones. I have spent another $75 on materials just to get the kit into the air and about 15 extra hours, and still am not finished. I wanted to use this airplane on the RCV flying team and wanted to purchase 12 of them for the team. I have decided that we will go with another manufacturer due to the poor quality control of the V-Mar kits. I had a V-Mar corsair before and the Landing gear tore out of the wing when the wheel blocks split. I told V-Mar about it, and they said that they will replace the wing. This was in September and I have yet to see the wing. I have since totally rebuilt the wing and sold the airplane. It is a shame about V-Mar, because as you guys said, they are beautiful kits in the box two out of two kits for me is enough. so far I spent about $500 on V-Mar and have 3 flights to show for it on the firs airplane and have not been able to get the second one in the air yet. I thought that ARF Meant Almost Ready to Fly. I rely wish this was true for $500 worth of airplanes.

Thank You For Listening
Otto Kudrna, RCV Tech Support Americas, RCV Flying Team Head

Lt. Dan

My Feedback: (21)

I have owned two VMAR Hot Rods. I love this kit, but it has some issues. First, the hardware had to go, there were numerous little things that I had to customize. The ailerons on both kits were warped, making it very hard to center in the ailerons without flying the aircraft to see what it needed. All in all though, I'm pretty happy. My first HotRod made 30 wonderous flights, with my instuctor doing some unreal maneuvers with this 'trainer'. Sadly, after 30 or so incident free flights, I let a friend try it, and he promptly buried it into the ground. The second kit had improvements in many areas, but still needed some custom work. It only took me two days to build regardless and it has 3 flights on it, with only an aileron adjustment needed after the first flight.

I have done a write up on this kit at www.rcairport.com .

Photos of my hotrod can be found at www.kc-10.net/rc and www.kc-10.net/rc/hotrod.html