A look at the higher-priced Pattern offerings
[[email protected]]
Radio Control Aerobatics Eric Henderson
The Icepoint is a full-size Pattern ARF featuring all-built-up construction.
The inexpensive built-up Ultra-RC Quest ARF typically uses a YS 110 engine.
TO ENCOURAGE people to try precision
Aerobatics, or Pattern, there has been a
continuing focus in this column on Pattern
airplanes that will get you into competition
without having to take on a second
mortgage or sell your firstborn. Of course,
this approach was making an assumption
about what qualifies as expensive!
The “traditional” modeler is still out
there and will hopefully always exist. This
breed of modeler is famous for making the
most unusual and unexpected items into
low-cost but highly functional items for
airplanes. An item such as a sister’s empty
hairspray can will magically disappear and
next be seen transformed into an effective
muffler.
However, we must recognize that
hobbyists not only come in all shapes and
sizes, but they have different hobby
budgets and available building time. These
people have often been called the “buy and
fly” type; they want to spend as little time
in the workshop as is practical and
possible.
The most often asked question at the
field is “How much does that airplane
cost?” The answer, especially when it
comes to the high-end ARFs, will get many
More “exotic” materials are used in the
ES Designs Abbra. Most of the more
difficult tasks are already completed.
March 2006 97
different reactions. It is common for a
precision or Scale Aerobatics model to
cost thousands of dollars.
To the “traditional” modelers this price
may come as quite a shock, and it often
motivates them to rush to their workshops
and build models at a fraction of the stated
cost. The hours and hours spent building
this “labor of love” never have a dollar
value to a person with this level of skill
and ability.
The “buy and fly” brigade has an
entirely different reaction. You will hear
such comments as, “Heck! I spend more
than that on a new set of golf clubs!” It is,
of course, a question of relativity and what
sort of personal budget a person sets for
his or her sport or hobby.
So for those of you who want to buy a
great-flying model with a painted or
molded finish that requires minimal
building, let’s take a peek at what is
beyond the $600 ARF. What else is out
there waiting for your money to come its
way?
To get a Pattern airplane that is totally
ready to fly, you will probably have to buy
a kit and then pay a professional builder a
couple thousand dollars to complete it. For
this outlay you can get something that is
built and painted with the engine and radio
installed. Times are changing, and it is not
that unusual for a professional builder to
be asked to assemble and trim an ARF!
There did not used to be any highend/
expensive ARFs, but today we can
examine quite a few. These airplanes are
typically made from fiberglass or carbon
98 MODEL AVIATION
No composite construction would be complete without this
great high-tech YS engine mount from Performance Specialties.
Possibly the best-finished and easiest-to-complete high-end ARF available today is the
Oxai Models Pinnacle, which is now available in electric.
Giiche Naruke’s latest design is the Astral from Oxai Models. Does this indicate the
return of the anhedral stabilizer?
fiber, with polyurethane-lined and molded
fuselages. We call these “exotic” materials,
and they are usually associated with some
high-tech construction techniques.
Another point to consider is that you
could find yourself paying not just for a lot
of epoxy and carbon fiber, but also for the
design that won or placed high in the Nats
or the World Championships.
What do we get in an ARF, and if we
pay more money do we get more for what
we pay? I’ll draw an arbitrary line in the
sand and look at Pattern ARFs costing less
and more than $500. An ARF costing less
than $500 can be an excellent flier.
Most of the time you have to perform
quite a bit of actual “building” to make
sure the lower-cost airplanes fly well. That
would be tasks such as lining up the wings
or gluing and aligning the stabilizers.
ARFs in this price range include the Ultra-
RC Quest 2 and the Icepoint, which have
been featured in past columns.
These models are built primarily from
wood and covered with iron-on plastic
film. They fly well and fit well into many
modelers’ budgets. In the air they will do
what their pilots ask of them. We can use
these as a benchmark for a casual
comparison with higher-priced ARFs.
With these airplanes you need to fit the
wings, the wing bolts, and hinge the
ailerons. The stabilizer needs to be glued
in place and aligned on the Quest 2. The
Icepoint has plug-on stabilizers.
Both ARFs need a bit of work on the
engine mounting area. All surfaces require
you to fit the hinges. The iron-on covering
usually needs to be reheated and shrunk
back into place. Other things that are still
not done are the control horns and
pushrods, etc.
The degree of completeness is a factor
when you are looking at all ARFs, and
even more so when you could be spending
$600-$3,000 before you even put in a
servo. Some are finished to a high level of completeness and have
wonderful paint jobs.
How complete is complete? Surprisingly enough, the higherpriced
ARFs often contain much less hardware than those costing
one-third or one-quarter the price. That is because there is a
syndrome among precision pilots that you don’t normally see in
“sport” pilots.
As do hot-rod car tuners, the precision pilots like to add their
expensive and personal-taste items. These could be their owndesign
control linkages, aftermarket engine mounts, fuel tanks,
wheels, carbon-fiber spinners, etc.
In many cases there may be little or no real benefit to this. A
ball-race connector gives a more precise connection to the servo.
An anodized ball-race horn would function just as well in a plain
aluminum finish but would simply not look as cool. If you don’t
think cool counts, check out the hot rods and choppers on cable
TV!
Many of these items are seldom included in a high-end ARF;
this is in contrast to sport-type ARFs that tend to be complete down
to and including a spinner. Some expensive Pattern ARFs may
include a great deal of “hardware,” but it is often discarded and
replaced with items such as aluminum horns, carbon-fiber
pushrods, ball-bearing clevises, isolation engine mounts, and
special bubble-free fuel tanks.
The Genesis is a new ARF from the
ever-fertile mind of Chip Hyde. It is highly
finished internally and externally. You
need to do some assembly, but you will
enjoy the electric and glow-power options.
Notable pilots Chip Hyde and Todd
Blose flew Genesis ARFs in the 2005 Nats
FAI finals. In the same contest the design
placed high in the Masters finals, flown by
young Michael Hill.
This airplane is much more of an
assembly than a build, but you still have to
fit the engine and engine mount. The
“outside” is complete. It lives up to its
pedigree in the air and in competitiveness.
The Abbra is a similar ARF that is
imported by Ed Skorepa of ES Designs. It
has been flown with gas, glow, and electric
power plants. Gerry Budd piloted the
Abbra to second place in the 2005 Nats
Masters class, and Tony Frackowiak
placed high with it in FAI.
The Impact is a popular Pattern ARF
that comes with the outside surface
completely molded and finished. The
hinges are part of the structure’s flyingsurface
composition, except for the rudder.
Impacts have been flown to first place in
the AMA Nats for the past two years;
Jason Shulman won FAI in 2004 and
David Snow won Masters in 2005.
An Impact holds its own special
position in the Pattern ARF collective. It
needs a great deal of internal construction,
such as the firewall, wing tubes, and
stabilizer tubes. It has prehinged ailerons
and elevators, with no iron-on covering,
hence no painting is required. You still fit
the control-surface horn and have to hook
it all up. This design is a proven winner,
and that is mainly what puts it in this
group.
The Pinnacle ARF is all-painted to a
high finish. The wings are foam covered
with balsa. A big difference is that the
wood is covered with 0.6-ounce fiberglass
cloth and epoxy finishing resin, and that is
sanded and painted to a high-gloss finish
that could easily have come out of an autobody
shop!
The Pinnacle’s firewall is already
installed, but you have to line up and
install the motor and motor mount. It is
preconfigured to accept a Hyde mount, but
you are required to line it up with the
spinner.
You have to fit your own control horns
and rods. The undercarriage is prefitted.
The wing tubes and stabilizer tubes are
prealigned at the factory. The stabilizers
are adjustable with a unique central wormscrew
adjuster.
The Pinnacle takes only a few evenings
to get ready for flight because it is fully
painted, which has benefited competitionmore time to practice. This short building
time allowed Troy Newman to get two
airplanes completely ready before the 2005
Nats. They are competitive and were
successfully flown into the FAI finals.
This design is imported by Oxai Models,
which recently added an electric version of
the Pinnacle to its product line. Hot off the
presses is the news that Oxai has also added
the Astral XX, which is another prefinished,
all-painted model.
All of these high-end offerings are now
aimed at the glow engines and growing
electric movement in Pattern. No glowpowered
Pattern model would be complete
without the sophisticated YS engine mount.
This rotationally dampened mount even
comes with an oil-filled shock absorber.
The higher-priced ARFs are not necessarily
more complete, but they are externally
“finished” to a higher degree. You may not
get more in the box, but you do get to fly
what the top pilots fly. These airplanes just
fly better. To find out for yourself, you need
to borrow one or maybe buy one.
All the opinions about those of us who
“build and fly” or “buy and fly” really count
for naught. What counts the most is that you
get out there and fly. More than that, the hope
is that we can get you to compete.
I hope you all got the airplanes you wanted
for the holidays.
Edition: Model Aviation - 2006/03
Page Numbers: 97,98,100,101
Edition: Model Aviation - 2006/03
Page Numbers: 97,98,100,101
A look at the higher-priced Pattern offerings
[[email protected]]
Radio Control Aerobatics Eric Henderson
The Icepoint is a full-size Pattern ARF featuring all-built-up construction.
The inexpensive built-up Ultra-RC Quest ARF typically uses a YS 110 engine.
TO ENCOURAGE people to try precision
Aerobatics, or Pattern, there has been a
continuing focus in this column on Pattern
airplanes that will get you into competition
without having to take on a second
mortgage or sell your firstborn. Of course,
this approach was making an assumption
about what qualifies as expensive!
The “traditional” modeler is still out
there and will hopefully always exist. This
breed of modeler is famous for making the
most unusual and unexpected items into
low-cost but highly functional items for
airplanes. An item such as a sister’s empty
hairspray can will magically disappear and
next be seen transformed into an effective
muffler.
However, we must recognize that
hobbyists not only come in all shapes and
sizes, but they have different hobby
budgets and available building time. These
people have often been called the “buy and
fly” type; they want to spend as little time
in the workshop as is practical and
possible.
The most often asked question at the
field is “How much does that airplane
cost?” The answer, especially when it
comes to the high-end ARFs, will get many
More “exotic” materials are used in the
ES Designs Abbra. Most of the more
difficult tasks are already completed.
March 2006 97
different reactions. It is common for a
precision or Scale Aerobatics model to
cost thousands of dollars.
To the “traditional” modelers this price
may come as quite a shock, and it often
motivates them to rush to their workshops
and build models at a fraction of the stated
cost. The hours and hours spent building
this “labor of love” never have a dollar
value to a person with this level of skill
and ability.
The “buy and fly” brigade has an
entirely different reaction. You will hear
such comments as, “Heck! I spend more
than that on a new set of golf clubs!” It is,
of course, a question of relativity and what
sort of personal budget a person sets for
his or her sport or hobby.
So for those of you who want to buy a
great-flying model with a painted or
molded finish that requires minimal
building, let’s take a peek at what is
beyond the $600 ARF. What else is out
there waiting for your money to come its
way?
To get a Pattern airplane that is totally
ready to fly, you will probably have to buy
a kit and then pay a professional builder a
couple thousand dollars to complete it. For
this outlay you can get something that is
built and painted with the engine and radio
installed. Times are changing, and it is not
that unusual for a professional builder to
be asked to assemble and trim an ARF!
There did not used to be any highend/
expensive ARFs, but today we can
examine quite a few. These airplanes are
typically made from fiberglass or carbon
98 MODEL AVIATION
No composite construction would be complete without this
great high-tech YS engine mount from Performance Specialties.
Possibly the best-finished and easiest-to-complete high-end ARF available today is the
Oxai Models Pinnacle, which is now available in electric.
Giiche Naruke’s latest design is the Astral from Oxai Models. Does this indicate the
return of the anhedral stabilizer?
fiber, with polyurethane-lined and molded
fuselages. We call these “exotic” materials,
and they are usually associated with some
high-tech construction techniques.
Another point to consider is that you
could find yourself paying not just for a lot
of epoxy and carbon fiber, but also for the
design that won or placed high in the Nats
or the World Championships.
What do we get in an ARF, and if we
pay more money do we get more for what
we pay? I’ll draw an arbitrary line in the
sand and look at Pattern ARFs costing less
and more than $500. An ARF costing less
than $500 can be an excellent flier.
Most of the time you have to perform
quite a bit of actual “building” to make
sure the lower-cost airplanes fly well. That
would be tasks such as lining up the wings
or gluing and aligning the stabilizers.
ARFs in this price range include the Ultra-
RC Quest 2 and the Icepoint, which have
been featured in past columns.
These models are built primarily from
wood and covered with iron-on plastic
film. They fly well and fit well into many
modelers’ budgets. In the air they will do
what their pilots ask of them. We can use
these as a benchmark for a casual
comparison with higher-priced ARFs.
With these airplanes you need to fit the
wings, the wing bolts, and hinge the
ailerons. The stabilizer needs to be glued
in place and aligned on the Quest 2. The
Icepoint has plug-on stabilizers.
Both ARFs need a bit of work on the
engine mounting area. All surfaces require
you to fit the hinges. The iron-on covering
usually needs to be reheated and shrunk
back into place. Other things that are still
not done are the control horns and
pushrods, etc.
The degree of completeness is a factor
when you are looking at all ARFs, and
even more so when you could be spending
$600-$3,000 before you even put in a
servo. Some are finished to a high level of completeness and have
wonderful paint jobs.
How complete is complete? Surprisingly enough, the higherpriced
ARFs often contain much less hardware than those costing
one-third or one-quarter the price. That is because there is a
syndrome among precision pilots that you don’t normally see in
“sport” pilots.
As do hot-rod car tuners, the precision pilots like to add their
expensive and personal-taste items. These could be their owndesign
control linkages, aftermarket engine mounts, fuel tanks,
wheels, carbon-fiber spinners, etc.
In many cases there may be little or no real benefit to this. A
ball-race connector gives a more precise connection to the servo.
An anodized ball-race horn would function just as well in a plain
aluminum finish but would simply not look as cool. If you don’t
think cool counts, check out the hot rods and choppers on cable
TV!
Many of these items are seldom included in a high-end ARF;
this is in contrast to sport-type ARFs that tend to be complete down
to and including a spinner. Some expensive Pattern ARFs may
include a great deal of “hardware,” but it is often discarded and
replaced with items such as aluminum horns, carbon-fiber
pushrods, ball-bearing clevises, isolation engine mounts, and
special bubble-free fuel tanks.
The Genesis is a new ARF from the
ever-fertile mind of Chip Hyde. It is highly
finished internally and externally. You
need to do some assembly, but you will
enjoy the electric and glow-power options.
Notable pilots Chip Hyde and Todd
Blose flew Genesis ARFs in the 2005 Nats
FAI finals. In the same contest the design
placed high in the Masters finals, flown by
young Michael Hill.
This airplane is much more of an
assembly than a build, but you still have to
fit the engine and engine mount. The
“outside” is complete. It lives up to its
pedigree in the air and in competitiveness.
The Abbra is a similar ARF that is
imported by Ed Skorepa of ES Designs. It
has been flown with gas, glow, and electric
power plants. Gerry Budd piloted the
Abbra to second place in the 2005 Nats
Masters class, and Tony Frackowiak
placed high with it in FAI.
The Impact is a popular Pattern ARF
that comes with the outside surface
completely molded and finished. The
hinges are part of the structure’s flyingsurface
composition, except for the rudder.
Impacts have been flown to first place in
the AMA Nats for the past two years;
Jason Shulman won FAI in 2004 and
David Snow won Masters in 2005.
An Impact holds its own special
position in the Pattern ARF collective. It
needs a great deal of internal construction,
such as the firewall, wing tubes, and
stabilizer tubes. It has prehinged ailerons
and elevators, with no iron-on covering,
hence no painting is required. You still fit
the control-surface horn and have to hook
it all up. This design is a proven winner,
and that is mainly what puts it in this
group.
The Pinnacle ARF is all-painted to a
high finish. The wings are foam covered
with balsa. A big difference is that the
wood is covered with 0.6-ounce fiberglass
cloth and epoxy finishing resin, and that is
sanded and painted to a high-gloss finish
that could easily have come out of an autobody
shop!
The Pinnacle’s firewall is already
installed, but you have to line up and
install the motor and motor mount. It is
preconfigured to accept a Hyde mount, but
you are required to line it up with the
spinner.
You have to fit your own control horns
and rods. The undercarriage is prefitted.
The wing tubes and stabilizer tubes are
prealigned at the factory. The stabilizers
are adjustable with a unique central wormscrew
adjuster.
The Pinnacle takes only a few evenings
to get ready for flight because it is fully
painted, which has benefited competitionmore time to practice. This short building
time allowed Troy Newman to get two
airplanes completely ready before the 2005
Nats. They are competitive and were
successfully flown into the FAI finals.
This design is imported by Oxai Models,
which recently added an electric version of
the Pinnacle to its product line. Hot off the
presses is the news that Oxai has also added
the Astral XX, which is another prefinished,
all-painted model.
All of these high-end offerings are now
aimed at the glow engines and growing
electric movement in Pattern. No glowpowered
Pattern model would be complete
without the sophisticated YS engine mount.
This rotationally dampened mount even
comes with an oil-filled shock absorber.
The higher-priced ARFs are not necessarily
more complete, but they are externally
“finished” to a higher degree. You may not
get more in the box, but you do get to fly
what the top pilots fly. These airplanes just
fly better. To find out for yourself, you need
to borrow one or maybe buy one.
All the opinions about those of us who
“build and fly” or “buy and fly” really count
for naught. What counts the most is that you
get out there and fly. More than that, the hope
is that we can get you to compete.
I hope you all got the airplanes you wanted
for the holidays.
Edition: Model Aviation - 2006/03
Page Numbers: 97,98,100,101
A look at the higher-priced Pattern offerings
[[email protected]]
Radio Control Aerobatics Eric Henderson
The Icepoint is a full-size Pattern ARF featuring all-built-up construction.
The inexpensive built-up Ultra-RC Quest ARF typically uses a YS 110 engine.
TO ENCOURAGE people to try precision
Aerobatics, or Pattern, there has been a
continuing focus in this column on Pattern
airplanes that will get you into competition
without having to take on a second
mortgage or sell your firstborn. Of course,
this approach was making an assumption
about what qualifies as expensive!
The “traditional” modeler is still out
there and will hopefully always exist. This
breed of modeler is famous for making the
most unusual and unexpected items into
low-cost but highly functional items for
airplanes. An item such as a sister’s empty
hairspray can will magically disappear and
next be seen transformed into an effective
muffler.
However, we must recognize that
hobbyists not only come in all shapes and
sizes, but they have different hobby
budgets and available building time. These
people have often been called the “buy and
fly” type; they want to spend as little time
in the workshop as is practical and
possible.
The most often asked question at the
field is “How much does that airplane
cost?” The answer, especially when it
comes to the high-end ARFs, will get many
More “exotic” materials are used in the
ES Designs Abbra. Most of the more
difficult tasks are already completed.
March 2006 97
different reactions. It is common for a
precision or Scale Aerobatics model to
cost thousands of dollars.
To the “traditional” modelers this price
may come as quite a shock, and it often
motivates them to rush to their workshops
and build models at a fraction of the stated
cost. The hours and hours spent building
this “labor of love” never have a dollar
value to a person with this level of skill
and ability.
The “buy and fly” brigade has an
entirely different reaction. You will hear
such comments as, “Heck! I spend more
than that on a new set of golf clubs!” It is,
of course, a question of relativity and what
sort of personal budget a person sets for
his or her sport or hobby.
So for those of you who want to buy a
great-flying model with a painted or
molded finish that requires minimal
building, let’s take a peek at what is
beyond the $600 ARF. What else is out
there waiting for your money to come its
way?
To get a Pattern airplane that is totally
ready to fly, you will probably have to buy
a kit and then pay a professional builder a
couple thousand dollars to complete it. For
this outlay you can get something that is
built and painted with the engine and radio
installed. Times are changing, and it is not
that unusual for a professional builder to
be asked to assemble and trim an ARF!
There did not used to be any highend/
expensive ARFs, but today we can
examine quite a few. These airplanes are
typically made from fiberglass or carbon
98 MODEL AVIATION
No composite construction would be complete without this
great high-tech YS engine mount from Performance Specialties.
Possibly the best-finished and easiest-to-complete high-end ARF available today is the
Oxai Models Pinnacle, which is now available in electric.
Giiche Naruke’s latest design is the Astral from Oxai Models. Does this indicate the
return of the anhedral stabilizer?
fiber, with polyurethane-lined and molded
fuselages. We call these “exotic” materials,
and they are usually associated with some
high-tech construction techniques.
Another point to consider is that you
could find yourself paying not just for a lot
of epoxy and carbon fiber, but also for the
design that won or placed high in the Nats
or the World Championships.
What do we get in an ARF, and if we
pay more money do we get more for what
we pay? I’ll draw an arbitrary line in the
sand and look at Pattern ARFs costing less
and more than $500. An ARF costing less
than $500 can be an excellent flier.
Most of the time you have to perform
quite a bit of actual “building” to make
sure the lower-cost airplanes fly well. That
would be tasks such as lining up the wings
or gluing and aligning the stabilizers.
ARFs in this price range include the Ultra-
RC Quest 2 and the Icepoint, which have
been featured in past columns.
These models are built primarily from
wood and covered with iron-on plastic
film. They fly well and fit well into many
modelers’ budgets. In the air they will do
what their pilots ask of them. We can use
these as a benchmark for a casual
comparison with higher-priced ARFs.
With these airplanes you need to fit the
wings, the wing bolts, and hinge the
ailerons. The stabilizer needs to be glued
in place and aligned on the Quest 2. The
Icepoint has plug-on stabilizers.
Both ARFs need a bit of work on the
engine mounting area. All surfaces require
you to fit the hinges. The iron-on covering
usually needs to be reheated and shrunk
back into place. Other things that are still
not done are the control horns and
pushrods, etc.
The degree of completeness is a factor
when you are looking at all ARFs, and
even more so when you could be spending
$600-$3,000 before you even put in a
servo. Some are finished to a high level of completeness and have
wonderful paint jobs.
How complete is complete? Surprisingly enough, the higherpriced
ARFs often contain much less hardware than those costing
one-third or one-quarter the price. That is because there is a
syndrome among precision pilots that you don’t normally see in
“sport” pilots.
As do hot-rod car tuners, the precision pilots like to add their
expensive and personal-taste items. These could be their owndesign
control linkages, aftermarket engine mounts, fuel tanks,
wheels, carbon-fiber spinners, etc.
In many cases there may be little or no real benefit to this. A
ball-race connector gives a more precise connection to the servo.
An anodized ball-race horn would function just as well in a plain
aluminum finish but would simply not look as cool. If you don’t
think cool counts, check out the hot rods and choppers on cable
TV!
Many of these items are seldom included in a high-end ARF;
this is in contrast to sport-type ARFs that tend to be complete down
to and including a spinner. Some expensive Pattern ARFs may
include a great deal of “hardware,” but it is often discarded and
replaced with items such as aluminum horns, carbon-fiber
pushrods, ball-bearing clevises, isolation engine mounts, and
special bubble-free fuel tanks.
The Genesis is a new ARF from the
ever-fertile mind of Chip Hyde. It is highly
finished internally and externally. You
need to do some assembly, but you will
enjoy the electric and glow-power options.
Notable pilots Chip Hyde and Todd
Blose flew Genesis ARFs in the 2005 Nats
FAI finals. In the same contest the design
placed high in the Masters finals, flown by
young Michael Hill.
This airplane is much more of an
assembly than a build, but you still have to
fit the engine and engine mount. The
“outside” is complete. It lives up to its
pedigree in the air and in competitiveness.
The Abbra is a similar ARF that is
imported by Ed Skorepa of ES Designs. It
has been flown with gas, glow, and electric
power plants. Gerry Budd piloted the
Abbra to second place in the 2005 Nats
Masters class, and Tony Frackowiak
placed high with it in FAI.
The Impact is a popular Pattern ARF
that comes with the outside surface
completely molded and finished. The
hinges are part of the structure’s flyingsurface
composition, except for the rudder.
Impacts have been flown to first place in
the AMA Nats for the past two years;
Jason Shulman won FAI in 2004 and
David Snow won Masters in 2005.
An Impact holds its own special
position in the Pattern ARF collective. It
needs a great deal of internal construction,
such as the firewall, wing tubes, and
stabilizer tubes. It has prehinged ailerons
and elevators, with no iron-on covering,
hence no painting is required. You still fit
the control-surface horn and have to hook
it all up. This design is a proven winner,
and that is mainly what puts it in this
group.
The Pinnacle ARF is all-painted to a
high finish. The wings are foam covered
with balsa. A big difference is that the
wood is covered with 0.6-ounce fiberglass
cloth and epoxy finishing resin, and that is
sanded and painted to a high-gloss finish
that could easily have come out of an autobody
shop!
The Pinnacle’s firewall is already
installed, but you have to line up and
install the motor and motor mount. It is
preconfigured to accept a Hyde mount, but
you are required to line it up with the
spinner.
You have to fit your own control horns
and rods. The undercarriage is prefitted.
The wing tubes and stabilizer tubes are
prealigned at the factory. The stabilizers
are adjustable with a unique central wormscrew
adjuster.
The Pinnacle takes only a few evenings
to get ready for flight because it is fully
painted, which has benefited competitionmore time to practice. This short building
time allowed Troy Newman to get two
airplanes completely ready before the 2005
Nats. They are competitive and were
successfully flown into the FAI finals.
This design is imported by Oxai Models,
which recently added an electric version of
the Pinnacle to its product line. Hot off the
presses is the news that Oxai has also added
the Astral XX, which is another prefinished,
all-painted model.
All of these high-end offerings are now
aimed at the glow engines and growing
electric movement in Pattern. No glowpowered
Pattern model would be complete
without the sophisticated YS engine mount.
This rotationally dampened mount even
comes with an oil-filled shock absorber.
The higher-priced ARFs are not necessarily
more complete, but they are externally
“finished” to a higher degree. You may not
get more in the box, but you do get to fly
what the top pilots fly. These airplanes just
fly better. To find out for yourself, you need
to borrow one or maybe buy one.
All the opinions about those of us who
“build and fly” or “buy and fly” really count
for naught. What counts the most is that you
get out there and fly. More than that, the hope
is that we can get you to compete.
I hope you all got the airplanes you wanted
for the holidays.
Edition: Model Aviation - 2006/03
Page Numbers: 97,98,100,101
A look at the higher-priced Pattern offerings
[[email protected]]
Radio Control Aerobatics Eric Henderson
The Icepoint is a full-size Pattern ARF featuring all-built-up construction.
The inexpensive built-up Ultra-RC Quest ARF typically uses a YS 110 engine.
TO ENCOURAGE people to try precision
Aerobatics, or Pattern, there has been a
continuing focus in this column on Pattern
airplanes that will get you into competition
without having to take on a second
mortgage or sell your firstborn. Of course,
this approach was making an assumption
about what qualifies as expensive!
The “traditional” modeler is still out
there and will hopefully always exist. This
breed of modeler is famous for making the
most unusual and unexpected items into
low-cost but highly functional items for
airplanes. An item such as a sister’s empty
hairspray can will magically disappear and
next be seen transformed into an effective
muffler.
However, we must recognize that
hobbyists not only come in all shapes and
sizes, but they have different hobby
budgets and available building time. These
people have often been called the “buy and
fly” type; they want to spend as little time
in the workshop as is practical and
possible.
The most often asked question at the
field is “How much does that airplane
cost?” The answer, especially when it
comes to the high-end ARFs, will get many
More “exotic” materials are used in the
ES Designs Abbra. Most of the more
difficult tasks are already completed.
March 2006 97
different reactions. It is common for a
precision or Scale Aerobatics model to
cost thousands of dollars.
To the “traditional” modelers this price
may come as quite a shock, and it often
motivates them to rush to their workshops
and build models at a fraction of the stated
cost. The hours and hours spent building
this “labor of love” never have a dollar
value to a person with this level of skill
and ability.
The “buy and fly” brigade has an
entirely different reaction. You will hear
such comments as, “Heck! I spend more
than that on a new set of golf clubs!” It is,
of course, a question of relativity and what
sort of personal budget a person sets for
his or her sport or hobby.
So for those of you who want to buy a
great-flying model with a painted or
molded finish that requires minimal
building, let’s take a peek at what is
beyond the $600 ARF. What else is out
there waiting for your money to come its
way?
To get a Pattern airplane that is totally
ready to fly, you will probably have to buy
a kit and then pay a professional builder a
couple thousand dollars to complete it. For
this outlay you can get something that is
built and painted with the engine and radio
installed. Times are changing, and it is not
that unusual for a professional builder to
be asked to assemble and trim an ARF!
There did not used to be any highend/
expensive ARFs, but today we can
examine quite a few. These airplanes are
typically made from fiberglass or carbon
98 MODEL AVIATION
No composite construction would be complete without this
great high-tech YS engine mount from Performance Specialties.
Possibly the best-finished and easiest-to-complete high-end ARF available today is the
Oxai Models Pinnacle, which is now available in electric.
Giiche Naruke’s latest design is the Astral from Oxai Models. Does this indicate the
return of the anhedral stabilizer?
fiber, with polyurethane-lined and molded
fuselages. We call these “exotic” materials,
and they are usually associated with some
high-tech construction techniques.
Another point to consider is that you
could find yourself paying not just for a lot
of epoxy and carbon fiber, but also for the
design that won or placed high in the Nats
or the World Championships.
What do we get in an ARF, and if we
pay more money do we get more for what
we pay? I’ll draw an arbitrary line in the
sand and look at Pattern ARFs costing less
and more than $500. An ARF costing less
than $500 can be an excellent flier.
Most of the time you have to perform
quite a bit of actual “building” to make
sure the lower-cost airplanes fly well. That
would be tasks such as lining up the wings
or gluing and aligning the stabilizers.
ARFs in this price range include the Ultra-
RC Quest 2 and the Icepoint, which have
been featured in past columns.
These models are built primarily from
wood and covered with iron-on plastic
film. They fly well and fit well into many
modelers’ budgets. In the air they will do
what their pilots ask of them. We can use
these as a benchmark for a casual
comparison with higher-priced ARFs.
With these airplanes you need to fit the
wings, the wing bolts, and hinge the
ailerons. The stabilizer needs to be glued
in place and aligned on the Quest 2. The
Icepoint has plug-on stabilizers.
Both ARFs need a bit of work on the
engine mounting area. All surfaces require
you to fit the hinges. The iron-on covering
usually needs to be reheated and shrunk
back into place. Other things that are still
not done are the control horns and
pushrods, etc.
The degree of completeness is a factor
when you are looking at all ARFs, and
even more so when you could be spending
$600-$3,000 before you even put in a
servo. Some are finished to a high level of completeness and have
wonderful paint jobs.
How complete is complete? Surprisingly enough, the higherpriced
ARFs often contain much less hardware than those costing
one-third or one-quarter the price. That is because there is a
syndrome among precision pilots that you don’t normally see in
“sport” pilots.
As do hot-rod car tuners, the precision pilots like to add their
expensive and personal-taste items. These could be their owndesign
control linkages, aftermarket engine mounts, fuel tanks,
wheels, carbon-fiber spinners, etc.
In many cases there may be little or no real benefit to this. A
ball-race connector gives a more precise connection to the servo.
An anodized ball-race horn would function just as well in a plain
aluminum finish but would simply not look as cool. If you don’t
think cool counts, check out the hot rods and choppers on cable
TV!
Many of these items are seldom included in a high-end ARF;
this is in contrast to sport-type ARFs that tend to be complete down
to and including a spinner. Some expensive Pattern ARFs may
include a great deal of “hardware,” but it is often discarded and
replaced with items such as aluminum horns, carbon-fiber
pushrods, ball-bearing clevises, isolation engine mounts, and
special bubble-free fuel tanks.
The Genesis is a new ARF from the
ever-fertile mind of Chip Hyde. It is highly
finished internally and externally. You
need to do some assembly, but you will
enjoy the electric and glow-power options.
Notable pilots Chip Hyde and Todd
Blose flew Genesis ARFs in the 2005 Nats
FAI finals. In the same contest the design
placed high in the Masters finals, flown by
young Michael Hill.
This airplane is much more of an
assembly than a build, but you still have to
fit the engine and engine mount. The
“outside” is complete. It lives up to its
pedigree in the air and in competitiveness.
The Abbra is a similar ARF that is
imported by Ed Skorepa of ES Designs. It
has been flown with gas, glow, and electric
power plants. Gerry Budd piloted the
Abbra to second place in the 2005 Nats
Masters class, and Tony Frackowiak
placed high with it in FAI.
The Impact is a popular Pattern ARF
that comes with the outside surface
completely molded and finished. The
hinges are part of the structure’s flyingsurface
composition, except for the rudder.
Impacts have been flown to first place in
the AMA Nats for the past two years;
Jason Shulman won FAI in 2004 and
David Snow won Masters in 2005.
An Impact holds its own special
position in the Pattern ARF collective. It
needs a great deal of internal construction,
such as the firewall, wing tubes, and
stabilizer tubes. It has prehinged ailerons
and elevators, with no iron-on covering,
hence no painting is required. You still fit
the control-surface horn and have to hook
it all up. This design is a proven winner,
and that is mainly what puts it in this
group.
The Pinnacle ARF is all-painted to a
high finish. The wings are foam covered
with balsa. A big difference is that the
wood is covered with 0.6-ounce fiberglass
cloth and epoxy finishing resin, and that is
sanded and painted to a high-gloss finish
that could easily have come out of an autobody
shop!
The Pinnacle’s firewall is already
installed, but you have to line up and
install the motor and motor mount. It is
preconfigured to accept a Hyde mount, but
you are required to line it up with the
spinner.
You have to fit your own control horns
and rods. The undercarriage is prefitted.
The wing tubes and stabilizer tubes are
prealigned at the factory. The stabilizers
are adjustable with a unique central wormscrew
adjuster.
The Pinnacle takes only a few evenings
to get ready for flight because it is fully
painted, which has benefited competitionmore time to practice. This short building
time allowed Troy Newman to get two
airplanes completely ready before the 2005
Nats. They are competitive and were
successfully flown into the FAI finals.
This design is imported by Oxai Models,
which recently added an electric version of
the Pinnacle to its product line. Hot off the
presses is the news that Oxai has also added
the Astral XX, which is another prefinished,
all-painted model.
All of these high-end offerings are now
aimed at the glow engines and growing
electric movement in Pattern. No glowpowered
Pattern model would be complete
without the sophisticated YS engine mount.
This rotationally dampened mount even
comes with an oil-filled shock absorber.
The higher-priced ARFs are not necessarily
more complete, but they are externally
“finished” to a higher degree. You may not
get more in the box, but you do get to fly
what the top pilots fly. These airplanes just
fly better. To find out for yourself, you need
to borrow one or maybe buy one.
All the opinions about those of us who
“build and fly” or “buy and fly” really count
for naught. What counts the most is that you
get out there and fly. More than that, the hope
is that we can get you to compete.
I hope you all got the airplanes you wanted
for the holidays.