Boy, did I ever get me one.

It was a pretty exciting moment last October when I won a raffle at my flying club for a new, mostly assembled Kyosho Phantom 70 biplane complete with a full compliment of servos (including a couple of digital miniservos for the ailerons), a lightly used O.S. 46AX two-stroke, a new Great Planes spinner and a pre-installed, plug-ugly, caricatured pilot figure. This was just the head of what I knew was an expensive, hand painted bust of a madly grinning fool with a bulging eye and a WWII German officer's cap.

Strange choice of a pilot figure for a model of a 2007 Reno Air Show racer.

The whole schmutz, probably 750 bucks worth, had been donated to the club by an older member who'd basically given up on the thing. Only problem I could see was in having to do a small repair to the underside of the lower wing since it had blown off of the display table a few minutes prior to my winning it.

I got it home and got to looking closer at my good fortune.

Woof.

Darn thing was a $300 glue bomb on closer inspection. Streaks of CA smeared the fiberglass fuselage, especially near the tail section. The lower wing and a few other odd places were streaked as well. Even the needle inlet valve on the O.S. was broken. With all the other projects I had going on, not to mention my reviewing tasks here on RCGroups, the Phantom took a back seat. I spent Thanksgiving Day at home with my wife and I took the opportunity to do most of the final...Continue Reading