I can't believe all the posts telling people that the Taylorcraft needs to be cobbled up so badly. The stock wheels and fairings are fine for a grass field. If you are flying out of a cow pasture or have limited ability you have chosen the wrong plane! Standard reinforcement for any ARF is to flow thin CA around the landing gear and motor box area. Slathering in a lot of heavy epoxy just makes the plane heavier than it was designed and can alter its flying characteristics. I have 100 flights on my Taylorcraft and only Only 5 have been from a paved runway. The stock landing gear has held up fine.
Gary

Originally Posted by Gary Hoorn

I can't believe all the posts telling people that the Taylorcraft needs to be cobbled up so badly. The stock wheels and fairings are fine for a grass field. If you are flying out of a cow pasture or have limited ability you have chosen the wrong plane! Standard reinforcement for any ARF is to flow thin CA around the landing gear and motor box area. Slathering in a lot of heavy epoxy just makes the plane heavier than it was designed and can alter its flying characteristics. I have 100 flights on my Taylorcraft and only Only 5 have been from a paved runway. The stock landing gear has held up fine.
Gary

Gary, I'm encouraged by your success with our T-craft, congrats on so many flights. However, I do fly from a cowpasture, and do have limited ability. Our field occasionally gets torn up by wild hogs, so you might stick your gear in a hole. I'm 82 and my reflexes are a bit slow. Would you advise me to not try the T-craft? (Ive flown a real one)

I have as many flights on mine as Gary does. I've hurt it a few times by CRASHING(read: not simply a poor landing). I would say the plane is fairly tough. I have the 1020kv 480, I currently run an 11x7 apc but I've also run a 12x7 Xoar, all off a 25c 2200mah lipo. Point being, I don't think anyone could put the hurt on this plane more than I do.

I started off completely stock. I had the motor box come off of the firewall after two nose-over landings. I put thin CA over the entire firewall area and landing gear area. I then had MANY flights with no problems.

I had some hard landings to the point where I had to replace the aluminum landing gear because it had been rebent several times and was missing most of it's paint.

I had a stall followed by a spin into the ground which smashed up the firewall and battery tray. I rebuilt those and bought a new cowl and it was good as new.

At one point I had an unscheduled landing in a field with 12"+ grass. THAT ripped the landing gear off. I rebuilt it easily and again, the plane was good as new.

I jammed on the power very hard, rolled about 2' and pulled up into a moderate crosswind. Stupid I know but I am a relative newbie. The TC stalled and cartwheeled. cracked the windscreen, broke the skylights(flexing the wing). Damaged the covering on the wingtips. Plane still flys like new, although it doesn't LOOK like new right now. I need to get a set of windows and spend some time fixing the covering.

I fly from a smooth grass field. I use 2 1/2" foam tires.

I really hope this can give you some confidence in this aircraft. It is assembled very light, but it is engineered well as far as I can tell. It is reasonably aerobatic, also predicable(I wouldn't call it docile, but it's not hard to fly or land at all.). AND it's a really pretty plane.

You should absolutely fly it. WORST case is you smack it up and have to spend $90-$150 repairing it, but I doubt that. CA the firewall and the LG area. Put some bigger wheels on if you're flying from rougher grass. That's IT. Good to do!

-Jay

Originally Posted by Gary Hoorn

I can't believe all the posts telling people that the Taylorcraft needs to be cobbled up so badly. The stock wheels and fairings are fine for a grass field. If you are flying out of a cow pasture or have limited ability you have chosen the wrong plane! Standard reinforcement for any ARF is to flow thin CA around the landing gear and motor box area. Slathering in a lot of heavy epoxy just makes the plane heavier than it was designed and can alter its flying characteristics. I have 100 flights on my Taylorcraft and only Only 5 have been from a paved runway. The stock landing gear has held up fine.
Gary

Agree Gary, no-one should have to cobble it up, but unfortuntely the TC, like most of it's ilk is made down to a price, not up to a standard. I for one, find it astonishing the modelling fraternity accept it is reasonable WE have to finish off what should have come out of the factory, i.e. regluing shoddy joints. Would we buy a camera and be expected to resolder the internal contacts? No, of course not. Epoxy although heavier, frankly makes little difference to the overall weight and doesn't detract from the flying abilities.

We can't all take off and land from smooth grass (our patch is also used by sunday footballers (Soccer!) so consequently there are stud marks all over the field. I replaced the stock wheels to give me the chance of not digging into the ruts, I put a bigger tail wheel on for the same reason.

I too, like Steve, fly mine from a football pitch laced with stud marks and divets. It didn't take much to rip my landing gear out, it was a clean break i.e it broke at all the joints therefore was weak in these areas I didn't apply any extra CA to the joints before I flew it, i have added a little epoxy to harden up the joints its now much better, but i am careful now where i fly it...finding the smoothest possible grass and also removing the wheel pants. I had exactly the same issue with my Mini Pulse, both aircraft have a very similar way of attaching the landing gear with a very similar design inside. I don't have access to a paved runway something most rc clubs in the UK lack my nearest club is a 30 - 40 miutes drive, therefore if I find a have a spare 30 mintues i go down to my local soccer field (2 mintue drive) and fly there.

I hope E-Flite will address this issue in any future models as its clearly a weak area, for the sake of a few extra grams i'd much rather take my plane home in one piece.

Hi Gary, Jay, Steve, Simon,
I sent a nice long response to all your helpful replies, but my typing is so slow I got shut off. So I'll just say Thanks for all the help (I was talking about "beefing" adding too much weight) Happy flying

Stan

Hopefully I have not offended too many people. If so I apologize. Reading your posts I harken back to the field I flew on in Germany which was not so smooth. One suggestion I would make is mount your landing gear with nylon bolts if your field is rough. They will snap and not tear out the bottom of the plane. This works great on high wing planes but not so good on low wingers as the wheels usually go through the covering if the gear comes off...
Gary

Gary,

Not offended at all, no need to apologise. I agree with you that on a good surface the gear mount is absolutley fine, however were not all blessed with those . Good call on the nylon bolts too, thats what i ended up doing with my mini pulse and have now done to the taylorcraft. I think that may be the answer from the start and that e-flite should have supplied them.

Cheers

Simon

well i for one dont mind finnishing a nice job of making this taylorcraft and was happy to pay the money as i would never have the staying power to build such a fab plane as this ,if i did build one it would take so long i would be affraid to fly it lol . with all these fab artf planes comeing out im in rc heaven ,takes me ages to build a gws foamy lol. .also these artfs are picture perfect now.

Originally Posted by Magic k2

well i for one dont mind finnishing a nice job of making this taylorcraft and was happy to pay the money as i would never have the staying power to build such a fab plane as this ,if i did build one it would take so long i would be affraid to fly it lol . with all these fab artf planes comeing out im in rc heaven ,takes me ages to build a gws foamy lol. .also these artfs are picture perfect now.

( also these artfs are picture perfect now ) yes they look perfect in the pictures. its just a pity that in real life they are not so perfect.

honestly ,if i had to build one of these it would look and fly like a wheelbarrow ,mine was perfect out of the box and flyz like a dream,im looking for a nice biplane now and wanted the pilot-1 waco 1/8 scale but looks like its just a bit dull in the air,has any of you guys got a 50 inch tiger moth ?

Originally Posted by Magic k2

honestly ,if i had to build one of these it would look and fly like a wheelbarrow ,mine was perfect out of the box and flyz like a dream,im looking for a nice biplane now and wanted the pilot-1 waco 1/8 scale but looks like its just a bit dull in the air,has any of you guys got a 50 inch tiger moth ?

you must have one of the very few that is perfect then. mine fly's ok but both wings are warped and the covering is so tight that it has broken some balsa. and both ailerons are glued to close to the main wing so i don't get much movement. if i lived close to the hobby shop i would of taken it back. but as everyone knows finding a E-flite without a warped wing is a rare thing. i wanted the piper pawnee so i asked the shop to check out the wing before sending. and lets just say i never got one.

Originally Posted by simon737

I too, like Steve, fly mine from a football pitch laced with stud marks and divets. It didn't take much to rip my landing gear out, it was a clean break i.e it broke at all the joints therefore was weak in these areas I didn't apply any extra CA to the joints before I flew it, i have added a little epoxy to harden up the joints its now much better, but i am careful now where i fly it...finding the smoothest possible grass and also removing the wheel pants. I had exactly the same issue with my Mini Pulse, both aircraft have a very similar way of attaching the landing gear with a very similar design inside. I don't have access to a paved runway something most rc clubs in the UK lack my nearest club is a 30 - 40 miutes drive, therefore if I find a have a spare 30 mintues i go down to my local soccer field (2 mintue drive) and fly there.

I hope E-Flite will address this issue in any future models as its clearly a weak area, for the sake of a few extra grams i'd much rather take my plane home in one piece.

Gary, Jay, Steve, Simon,
It's been 65 yrs. since I built rubber band powered balsa models, so I got a Hobby Lobby SC balsa kit and I'm practicing on it before I do the TC. My HS rigged me up a nice CA extension tube so's I won't "dribble" CA all around the "innards" Keep the faith, guys I'll get there yet and you'll be proud of the old man

Stan

Stan,
Just holler up if we can be of any help. I have been subscribed to this thread like almost forever
Gary

Hey Thanks Everyone .

Great advice and very helpfull.

For me personally, I can`t believe how cheap all these modern ARF`s are.
I`ve wanted to fly RC since a child but the thought of the price, not to mention trying to attempt to build one myself .

I`m also keen on the Diamante 25e which seems to suffer from the same not too robust LG mounting. For me half the fun is the little `mods` we all seem to do, which I can cope with .

Surely there must be kits which cost a heck of a lot more, and with a corresponding increase in quality.

An ARF plane kit for under £100, ....... yes Please

Cheers, ants.