Anybody ever built the Kirn Stinger from the original F&B kit?
Comments on kit quality, etc.
F&B wasn't a huge production concern like Comet, Top Flight and Sterling was. They didn't have big adds in the magazines at the time and I'm pf the opinion that some of these smaller companies were kind of regional in where their products were offered. Remember, in those days it was common to have a salesman on the road, hitting the shops and retail stores individually and taking orders. Then after he got back to his home base he contacted the factory with the orders. If a hobby shop owners ordered some kits, and they took too long to sell, he wouldn't order any more!! Word of mouth was pretty big in those days, even before cell phones and in internet. this kind of plays into why you see lots of green box Noblers and Ringmasters, and not many F&B kits It was a different time back then for sure!! You might find people knowledgeable on model aviation back then who were not familiar with all brands. it's the same today, not everyone is familiar with who F&B was. You might be pretty hard pressed to find a review on when when they were originally marketed, and even harder to find anyone familiar with them today. One thing I am certain of, and that is the importance of the position of "Kit Engineer." I think he was as important to kit sales as the performance of the design. It was his job to work with the designers on the construction of the model, figure out the most economical way to produce the parts using the least amount of materials, have the draftsmen make plans, illustrations, and drawings that the purchaser can navigate easily to build the model. Then he had to figure out how to get all the parts, plans and hardware into the box, and the company owner might insist that they use a standard box already in stock. he has final say on everything!! And several really good designs were altered or their sizes altered just so they could fit into that standard box! This has been discussed here ion the forums before. It doesn't matter how good the model flies if little Johnnie and his Dad can't get the pieces to go together to look like what is on the box art!! And if they fail, it's naturally not their fault, must be a crappy kit, and then word gets around on it. I think the kit engineer could make or break kit sales on how well he did his job. So if you have an original F&B kit, I would just use it as a template to build and exact copy and compare it to the Brodak kit. I had a Stinger built for an original kit that I got with some stuff from an estate. It was a led sled, had enough other stuff wrong with it that it just wasn't worth messing with so I pulled the engine and gave it a "Viking Funeral." Another thing to keep in mind is that not everyone knew what they were doing with these things back then, and no internet or forums to ask for help.
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee
Topic: F&B Stinger Kit (Read 1116 times)