Yesterday I received a replacement for the Smoothie ARC I bought myself for Xmas.  The plane I returned had cuts completely Thur the balsa leading edge of the left wing.  Turns out I should have kept it, the replacement has a broken back wingtip that is going to be impossible to fix.  Is anyone else having this kind of trouble with Brodak Arc's?

Yesterday I received a replacement for the Smoothie ARC I bought myself for Xmas.  The plane I returned had cuts completely Thur the balsa leading edge of the left wing.  Turns out I should have kept it, the replacement has a broken back wingtip that is going to be impossible to fix.  Is anyone else having this kind of trouble with Brodak Arc's?

Ouch.

You need to do what you need to do, but I suggest that you try again, and ask if it's possible to have _them_ check for damage before they ship.

Where does Brodak have their ARCs & ARFs made?  Chances are they're contracting the work overseas; they may never look at a plane before they send it on to you.  If they're awake, chances are that they'll be looking now.

Yesterday I received a replacement for the Smoothie ARC I bought myself for Xmas.  The plane I returned had cuts completely Thur the balsa leading edge of the left wing.  Turns out I should have kept it, the replacement has a broken back wingtip that is going to be impossible to fix.  Is anyone else having this kind of trouble with Brodak Arc's?

Richard,
I too have had no issues like yours with my Super CLown, P40, Vector, BabyClown, BiSlob ARF's, or my Nobler Arf.

Now that isn't to say they were perfect, but all were relatively easy fixes.

So I can't say whether I was really lucky, or you have been really unlucky.

I think ARF's in this price range (less than $130 or so) fit a particular niche in the hobby. They are great if you want to try something out, but are not sure whether you really want to spend all the time building one from a kit. However due to the low cost (not much more than the kit), they often, because of the assembly line method of building, come with some issues.

On the other hand, there are "premium" ARF's--in the ~>$200 range (and I apologize if I am unintentionally insulting anyone. The ranges are pretty approximate  and not hard quality points!) where a lot of care has been put into the engineering and design of the kit. Here I think you have a better chance of finding something similar to what you would have if you built your own kit.

Just my opinions.

edited to fix a homophone problem!

I have had UPS destroy a couple of Brodak ARF's for me and each time Brodak replaced them, no questions asked, except allow UPS to pick them up for return.  Ron.

On the other hand, there are "premium" ARF's--in the ~>$200 range (and I apologize if I am unintentionally insulting anyone. The ranges are pretty approximate  and not hard quality points!) where a lot of care has been put into the engineering and design of the kit. Here I think you have a better chance of finding something similar to what you would have if you built your own kit.

In an ideal world (from an engineer's perspective, at least), the higher the projected production quantities of the plane, the more you can spread out the engineering cost, and therefore the more $$ you have for the engineering.

But I suspect that much of that care goes into making sure that the impoverished and (probably) illiterate folks building the kits don't make any major mistakes, and making sure that once Joe Sixpack gets it in his hands he can put it together and fly it successfully (see Hanger 9).

I doubt production engineering exists in China or wherever this junk is built. It would be nice if the production engineer had control line experience or how else would he know what to look for. Even Brad said he had to make special 3D drawings for them to understand that he wanted the wing leading edge to be round. Yeah as Tim said, "in an ideal world". What I see is they are probably more concerned about getting it done than they are about getting it right, and then I'm not even sure that they know what is right. Most of the RC stuff is way better than the stunt ships I've seen. I think Brads effort is the first decent ship. IMHO

Quality control is, unfortunately, in the hands of the manufacturers.  The steel, balsa, glue, they use is up to them.

There is no doubt our supplier at Brodaks is doing a good job, and they have some darn good engineers on their side too.  The T-Rex was definitely a collaborative effort.  I marveled at some of their solutions to my requests.  Have you looked at the cowl???  I did not do that.  I hated the fiberglass version, and told them to make it from wood.  This is what they sent.  Amazing!!!

I think that many people take for granted how fast the CL stunt designers and manufacturers got up to speed when it came to ARF production.  Remember, these guys knew NOTHING about the 50 years of building and designing we had been doing before we dropped it in their laps.  We have literally gone from 0 to 120 MPH in a matter of a few years.

I do occasionally get calls and emails on anomalies in the kits.  There are lot of product going out the door though, I think the ratio is small.

Also, keep in mind that John could sell his ARF FOR TWICE WHAT PEOPLE ARE CURRENTLY PAYING!!!  Compared to the cottage industry of years past, we are killing them on price.

I have a question, why if the RC ARF/ARC are so good, didn't Brodak ( maybe he did) use the company's who had experience building these types of kits? Would that not have made the process easier? Just asking, not trying to be a smart a__.  Ron.

Like who?  Who was experienced in building top notch CL stunt ARF's before the Brodak offerings?  Top Flite?

We ARE using a major manufacturer....  but there is not enough volume in CL stunt to get some of the manufacturers interested.  They do our stuff as "fills" between big RC orders.

Horizon can use there manufacturer because they have a huge volume in RC.  I talked to Pete Bergstrom from Horizon about calibrating in Toledo, I even gave him plans, but he stopped communicating with me for some reason.  I am curious to see there competitive offering.

the CL control systems have been tough.

Why the T-Rex takes all comers in terms of this one thing...  it has the best bellcrank mounting system out there.  I put all of my best work into that mount.

No way I was going to have one of my bellcranks pull out at a contest.

Of course, I do not make the steel in the wire, the ball links, etc.