Had an amazing time at Joe Nall this year. This was my first Nall and it certainly won't be my last. We were warned that the ground was soft from recent rains and so I showed up sunday morning to set up. I was in the National Balsa booth space which worked out well as we were able to spell each other for booth coverage. Despite the weather warnings prior to the show, the weather during the show couldn't have been better. It was dry and the winds weren't bad the entire week. The only rain was on saturday, the last day which screwed up some people making a weekend day trip but I left saturday morning early having sold out by thursday. Because I was at SEFF just 8 days prior, I had to restock product before going and I spent all my time preparing and painting kits. Since most of my reason and customers at these outdoor shows are for the prebuilt bind and fly planes I offer but cannot ship at reasonable prices (Contact me if you want one with a $60 S&H cost) I decided that I would build the kits AT the show and sell them. I was able to build 2 a day and what I found was that they provided a good "build example" as I went and a great demo of Foam-Tac glue which I also sell. I have converted over at this point to build entirely with Foam-Tac and I have to say it has worked great. no more screwing up the paint job with the CA accelerator doing the wing spars and faster than the UHU I was using so I can build continuously and not have to wait for drying time overnight....Continue Reading

I got home from SEFF yesterday and all I can say is WOW. I can see why so many people make the pilgrimage annually. It was great meeting so many of the people I know online and participating in the after hours fun. Thanks to Don Sims for taking the picture of me in the booth shown below. And thanks to Jim T Graham for the interview in the latest RCG podcast

Now, 8 days to prep for Joe Nall!!

I really enjoyed the Toledo show and it was good to meet some of you and chat with some customers. I never did get to walk upstairs to see the table areas up there and didn't get to walk the floor too much but saw some friends and hopefully made a few new ones. All the orders received during the show have been processed and shipped and now I am busy restocking to go on the pilgrimage known as SEFF (my first time). I will be back from SEFF for a little more than a week and then immediately head back out to Joe Nall (also for the first time). If anyone wants anything specific at the shows, please email me as my time is limited so I'm not sure I will have large quantities of everything at the shows but I am happy to set something aside when asked

RA Cores is pleased to announce our new 34" EPP Spitfire kit is being shipped. We have completed the instructions (available here online) and all the pictures for the build (Thanks rcrich)

We will be in the National Balsa booth at the Weak Signals show in Toledo and will have a few of the Spitfires for sale RTF

I've been invited back to be on The Crash Cast podcast tonight to talk about the WRAM show last weekend and probably about some of the other upcoming shows I'll be at, especially their favorite, SEFF. You can listen live from their page above starting about 8:45pm EST and kibitz in the chat window with the hosts or you can download the recorded version from the same page monday morning

My babbling starts at about the 47 minute mark. Show #200!!

Thank you to everyone for a great WRAM show this year. It was good to meet a lot of people and we had a great show. In continuing the trend I am looking at going to the Toledo show and having some planes in the National Balsa booth there, heading down to SEFF for the first time and then heading to Joe Nall in May and also being in the National Balsa space there. Later in the year there will be Warbirds over Delaware and in the fall the NEAT Fair. Gonna get my travel miles in this year!

I just wanted to give people a heads up that I will be helping out my buddy and manning the National Balsa booth at this year's WRAM Show. I will be bringing kits and BnF Yak55 planes so if there is something specific you want, let me know and I will have it there for you at the booth. I will have some Spitfires as well as 3D Deltas as well as painted and unpainted kits. Let me know what you want and when you will be there and I will put your name on it and set it aside

The 2012 NEAT Fair has passed and what an event it was this year. I took 26 built Yak55s with me as well as kits and a lot of other accessories and the Yaks sold out by 2pm saturday. It was great to see them at the flight line at all times of the day being enjoyed. I would love some of these new owners to add their thoughts and comments to our RCG "Flat Foamie product thread". The feedback we got was that they were handling the wind great as can be seen in the animated GIF above of them flying in formation on the parkflyer flight line in a 10mph wind. Paul "datazman" Osinski got some great in flight pictures of the planes which I got permission to use on my website.

Bob "Teambarger" Barger came to his first NEAT Fair with his patriotic themed RA Cores GremTwin and put on a great demonstration of the ability to do flat spins using the differential thrust capabilities. You would hear the "wooow wooow woow" of him spinning and look over and then start seeing the other pilots with him on the flight line attempting spins as well. Sorry I couldn't get up there with mine Bob so we could do formation spins! For those curious, here is a video of my GremTwin spinning earlier in the year at one of our combat contests.

I just want to thank everyone for making this such a great NEAT Fair this year and look forward to seeing all of you again next year.

I have a booth at the NEAT Fair September 12-16. unfortunately the Bind-n-Fly Yaks aren't easily shipped (they are about $60 S&H) so they are only available at shows and locally. Email me if you want a specific color at the show and I will reserve it if I have one. Each plane includes a 460mah 3S and additional batteries are available (sold fully charged, ready to go). If you prefer 2S I can swap on a 9x5 prop and 2S battery for the same price.

pricing:
Spektrum Bind and fly including 1 battery - $150
Rx Ready (for you Futaba guys) w/1 battery - $140
Extra batteries $8 or 2 for $15 (sold fully charged and ready to go)
painted kits: EPP - $60, 6mm Depron - $65
unpainted kits: EPP - $30, 6mm Depron - $35
Completer (servos, ESC and Motor) $35
UHU glue (for EPP building and repairs - $9
Blenderm tape (depron hinge tape) - $3.50

I will have some limited amounts of EPP and Depron sheets and some CF
Reserve specific colors with a PM stating when you will pick it up and I will hold it for you. Supplies limited. We will arrive wednesday afternoon/evening

For colors see the blog entry below from the Rally of the Giants show.

I've been crazy busy lately building Bind-n-Fly Yaks to take to the Rally of the Giants in Chenego Bridge, NY. National Balsa will have a booth there and will have some of the planes available and then I will be driving out for friday/saturday with more planes. Stop by and say hi if you are out there. It also appears I will be making the drive down to Warbirds over Delaware in July and then I have a booth at the NEAT Fair in September. unfortunately the Bind-n-Fly Yaks aren't easily shipped (they are about $60 S&H) so they are only available at shows and locally. Email me if you want a specific color at the show and I will reserve it if I have one. Each plane includes a 500mah 3S (or 460mah depending on who has them in stock) and additional batteries are available (sold fully charged, ready to go)

Please note that I have changed my "red" paint. I felt the old color was too pink and wanted something a bit more "fire engine". This paint seems to be a better match to what I was expecting

I built some Bind-n-Fly Yak55 kits and sent them with National Balsa to Joe Nall week. They sold out in 24 hours before the show even opened. One of the customers was a father/son team that bought it for Dad to learn 3D. The son is 9yo and they have both been flying a couple of years and from what I was told the son put on quite the show in front of the booth. Here is a video they made after they got home and sent to me showing the kid wringing the Yak out. GREAT JOB!!


Additional pictures and video in the comments

Brought the Spitfire along to our combat contest and got some footage after we were all done. it seems to handle the wind quite well. Even handles my manhandling it around some. just a few tweaks on the tabs and slots and I should be ready to offer kits. here's the quick video

Continuing the Flat Foamie Series (it is a series after all) I have been working on several follow on designs. The one closest to completion is an EPP Spitfire that I have prototyped and flying. Size is very similar to the Yak55 and I expect the cost will be also. Currently just a 9mm EPP version is in the works. I did a short video yesterday indoors that shows it flying slow and low, good rudder authority and stability and had some fun. I did the maiden flight outdoors last weekend and it handled the wind just fine. All in all it flew off the board and so now I just need to finalize all the specs and get them cut out and packaged with the carbon and horns. Still not sure what I will do as far as painting the kits so initially it will be unpainted. Leadfeather used printed tissue paper for markings on his P-51 so I might try doing that to see if I can get something that looks good over a simple camo paint scheme

These are our interpretation of the Leadfeather Yak55s made popular here in RCGroups. We are on Dan's approved vendor list. We have completed the tweaking of our paint masks and are shipping the painted kits. Please allow up to a week for processing in case we don't have your color scheme in stock. Our unpainted kits are still available if you want to do your own paint scheme. Add our motor/ESC/servos completer set and get yourself in the air for cheap money. Check out our online instructions to see what is involved in building the kit.

To go along with our 9mm EPP and 6mm Depron kits, we have also added a lightweight 6mm EPP version which is a lot more floaty (prototypes came in 40g lighter) for indoor 3D maneuvers.

These planes were popular at the Toledo show where we sold several Bind and Fly versions. We cannot ship these assembled kits due to the oversize fees but will try to offer them at Shows we are attending. There will be some at Joe Nall week in May and more at the NEAT Fair in September. Contact us if you want to reserve a specific style/color for delivery at these events.

The masks are done and tested and the paint has been ordered and received. Yesterday I painted several kits as the final paint mask verification. Things are looking good. I should have them available on the website very soon.

Last night I put the last of our product instructions up on the website in HTML format. You can see a table of them all at http://www.racores.com/instructions.html. The original Gremlin is now up there as well. All of them have the same format as our paper instructions with the B&W photos but the photos are hyperlinks to larger color versions of the same pictures to better show the detail of what is being described. We hope this helps our customers.

After the wonderful lead in Crash (Crash-Man on here) did 5 weeks ago in Episode 147 of TheCrashCast (a 20 minute edited version of that segment is here http://www.racores.com/edited_TCC__147.mp3) where he was contacted by one of his listeners and probably the furthest way customer I have, and he confessed to loving the Gremlin, I finally got to connect with him and give him the entire background of me, the evolution of the Gremlin, RA Cores and streamer combat, what we've been doing the last 20 years and what is coming up in the near future. His Podcasts are always a week's worth of great information but I have trimmed it down to just the interview and STILL it runs an hour. You can download the edited version to listen from my website at http://www.racores.com/edited_TCC__152.mp3

I opened up a thread to contain hints and tips on building our flat foamie kits. I've been fielding a lot of tips and can't promise to pass all of them along and don't have time to try every one of them so I figure a central repository would be good. We have had people use white Gorilla glue in construction instead of Welders/UHU and even some spiderwire around the edges which proved very durable in some indoor combat yesterday.

Jessie "The Mouth" Russell flying Scott Anderson's RA Cores Depron Yak55. Scott has been doing a lot of work to get the linkages optimum and even and full fidelity. Tweaks I never thought of, some of which are being folded back into the kits.

From Scott and Jessie this morning:
BTW, the first portion of the vid is with a GWS Slow Fly 10x4.7 on 2 cells (550 Hyperion 2-cell I think). The second portion of the vid is with a GWS 8x4.3 on 3-cells (450 Hyperion 3-cell I think). The difference is seen when he's hovering -the big prop hovers easier.


And This one is a bunch of video put together by one of our local guys, Team Barger on here of all the different stuff flying and the people at our Christmas Week indoor session. Even a visit from Santa!

...Continue Reading