Last weekend I bought a Flair Piper Cub off of Ebay. From the photos it looked fine and I intended to take out the Super Tigre GS 45 and use the aircraft to run in a Saito 45 I also bought recently on Ebay.
They say that the camera never lies, but when I collected the Cub it was in a disastrous condition and totally unsuitable for flight.
Some of the main serious faults that are obvious without removing the covering are:
Poor building features were:
Some photos to illustrate why you have to be very carefull buying from a photo can be found here
This shows the pitfalls of buying a model through any method where you buy before seeing the model, not just Ebay which I use a lot to buy and sell and find very useful.
Am I disappointed? Yes in one way as I’d hoped to have the Cub in the air pretty much straight the way. However I have an aircraft that will be fine when it has had a bit of TLC and a recover, an unrun engine, a GWS Receiver, 4 unused Hitec servos, an unused Ripmax Turbex 2 starter, three brand new Graupner props and an unused Ripmax Glow Stick all for £65 which is, I think, a bargain. Apart from the airframe it’s all going on Ebay this weekend so if it was a good price time will tell.
The warning is that if a novice bought it they could conceivable try to fly it in the state it was in, it would surely have been a very short flight but with the potential to due a lot of damage both physical and to the reputation of aeromodelling. So the motto here, in legalese, is “Caveat emptor” or “let the buyer beware”.
They say that the camera never lies, but when I collected the Cub it was in a disastrous condition and totally unsuitable for flight.
Some of the main serious faults that are obvious without removing the covering are:
- Fin not glued in place it just pulled out
- Hinges not pinned, they also just pull out
- Engine mounted under the hardwood bearers thus changing the thrust line and a few degrees of left thrust added to endure a spectacular crash on its first (and likely last) flight
- Tailplane cracked across its width at the join with the fuselage
Poor building features were:
- Engine fixed with brass nuts and bolts – up to 6 nuts per bolt, and one had not been tightened
- The bolts are a bit too large to fit through the holes in the engine mounting lug, so what do you do, get the correct sized bolt – of course not, you drill the holes out to fit the bolt, what else!
- One bolt hole drilled in the wrong place, so what do you do to rectify this – obvious, you file out the offending hole in the engine mounting lug!
- You need to fit a tailskid but how do you do it? Simple, hold it in place with a slack handful of ¼”staples, how else!
Some photos to illustrate why you have to be very carefull buying from a photo can be found here
This shows the pitfalls of buying a model through any method where you buy before seeing the model, not just Ebay which I use a lot to buy and sell and find very useful.
Am I disappointed? Yes in one way as I’d hoped to have the Cub in the air pretty much straight the way. However I have an aircraft that will be fine when it has had a bit of TLC and a recover, an unrun engine, a GWS Receiver, 4 unused Hitec servos, an unused Ripmax Turbex 2 starter, three brand new Graupner props and an unused Ripmax Glow Stick all for £65 which is, I think, a bargain. Apart from the airframe it’s all going on Ebay this weekend so if it was a good price time will tell.
The warning is that if a novice bought it they could conceivable try to fly it in the state it was in, it would surely have been a very short flight but with the potential to due a lot of damage both physical and to the reputation of aeromodelling. So the motto here, in legalese, is “Caveat emptor” or “let the buyer beware”.
Comment