Chipmunk Review 1

Flair Chipmunk Review

Introduction

I’ve been a very good boy this spring and summer. I’ve worked very hard in the garden of our new house, and this has earned me lots of brownie points. It has also brought plane building activities to a complete halt. In order to have something on the go, I thought I would buy my first ever ARTF plane. The idea was that this would be quick and simple to build, so that I’d be able to fly it before the end of the summer. With this in mind, my eye was drawn repeatedly to the Flair ads, and in particular the very sexy looking Art Scholl Super Chipmunk. An 8 hour pass to the Cosford show afforded the opportunity to buy the kit and an engine, and what follows is an account of my experiences. I approached this build with the naīve idea that assembly would be along the lines of an Airfix kit, with all the thinking done for me. This got me into trouble a couple of times, where a bit more checking could have forestalled problems. At the same time, there were some problems with the kit as manufactured, which required a solution to be engineered. So read on, and enjoy my adventures in arfdom!

The completed plane on the runway at Llandow

*Description of the Kit*
Upon opening the box, you are presented with a pre-coloured epoxy/glass fuselage, a pair of well covered wings, and built up tail surfaces. Also included is a glassfibre cowl, a tinted canopy, and a pair of glassfibre wheel spats. The far eastern hardware set has been supplemented by a set of Flair hardware, providing metal clevises to replace the plastic ones (hurrah), replacement horns and threaded rods for the control linkages, as well as engine mounting bolts and captive nuts. This is obviously in response to numerous criticisms regarding the hardware packages supplied in ARTFs. An engine mount is supplied along with wheels, chromed gear legs and a superb self-adhesive decal sheet, but a pilot and spinner were sadly missing. A photo illustrated instruction manual is supplemented by three A4 sheets from Flair, covering the stages of construction where the Flair supplied hardware should be substituted. The manual is quite good, although there are the odd phrases which raise the eyebrows – “Securely glue together. If coming off during flights, you lose control of your airplane which leads to accidents!” is the stern warning printed beside the photo showing the wing halves being glued together.
The contents of the kit. Note decal sheet	The epoxy/glass fuselage is made in 2 halves, with a conspicuous joint line right down the centre, which detracts somewhat from the overall appearance. However, once the fin strake and cowl are fitted, much of the visible line disappears. The fuselage had sustained damage at the tail end and one of the balsa strips epoxied to the sides to provide a gluing surface for the tailplane had disintegrated into 3 pieces which I found in the bottom of the box. The firewall has a circular hole above the engine centre line for the tank connections, and an inverted ‘U’ cut out at the bottom where the silencer for a 2 stroke engine would fit. This is curious as the box label says “Engine – 4C 52”, and I had a brand spanking new OS 52FS to provide the horses. This doesn’t leave much of the firewall left if these cut outs don’t suit, and as it turned out, I would have preferred an uncut firewall to be provided.

Closer inspection of the wings revealed that they were balsa veneered white foam, and had been superbly covered. A very small amount of wrinkling at the leading edge was all I could find, and when offered up, the wing panels matched perfectly. In fact the wing joint is so good that a strip of covering isn’t supplied to apply once the wing halves have been glued, as it isn’t necessary. The only real problem was the black covering applied to the upper surfaces at the centre which was starting to delaminate. The tail components were all built up to provide light but strong components, and again the covering was extremely well executed.

The cowl is glassfibre, and closer inspection showed that it had been made in two pieces; one in white gelcoat, and the other in red. The only downside to this was that the joint had not been trimmed flush before the black trim line was applied, and this was already starting to delaminate in areas where the joint was rough. The wheel spats are again made in two halves, both of white gelcoat, and as with the fuselage, a visible joint line runs down the centre. Pictures I have of Art Scholl’s Super Chipmunk N1114V show oleo type undercarriage legs with spats at the end, whereas these are 1930 style spats which enclose the leg as well as the wheel. I suspect that they are made in the same mould as those supplied with the Ryan PT-20 from the same manufacturer.

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This page was last updated on 21/02/04

Introduction

Description of the Kit