I don't think this is unique to sailplanes. In all areas, most of what
you get is ARF. Overseas labor is so cheap, you get complete models for
the price of making a kit in the US. And the vast majority of pilots
don't have any time to build anyway.
You can find a few kits at polecataero. And skybench has plenty if you
like nostalgia. But designing a high performance full house model in
wood went away 10 years ago. You can find fuselages out there and there
are some good bagging videos if you want to scratch build. Check out
the Charles River RC site and pick any one of Mark Drela's designs and
build it. You won't be disappointed. Just don't try to improve on the
structure or materials selection.
Maybe a little building will come back with the current exchange rate
for the Euro. That has bumped up the price of the imports a lot. Gone
are the days of a $600 fully molded model.
Scott and Jennifer Martin wrote:
Can someone point me in the direction of some good sailplane kits? I
don't mean floaters. I mean good, high-quality wood kits, with maybe a
fiberglass fuse, for high-performance full-house sailplanes.
I ask this question because I can't find any such kits anywhere. Does
anyone make them?
I prefer to build my own aircraft; no ARFs or ARCs for me. I'm
currently building an Alcyone 3M and a two-meter Prophet, both of which
are from kits that I acquired some years ago. The Alcyone 3M was in
production when I got the kit as a gift, and my guess is the particular
Prophet kit I have was kitted in the 1980s; I acquired it from someone
who sold me a pair of Prophet kits: one a 2m, and the other a 2.5m.
Neither the Alcyone series nor the Prophet series of kits is in
production today, and that disappoints me. When I started building RC
sailplanes in the mid-1980s, builders' kits abounded. Nowadays, if it's
in a box, it's probably an ARF or ARC. I have plenty of sets of
full-sized plans to keep me busy scratch-building for a few years, given
my slow rate of production. But it sure would be nice to see something
like Harley's Genie in a builder's kit (I plan to build one from
scratch, given that I already have a set of cores for it). Do any of
you remember the Sailfish or Heat Seeker or Jouster or Runaway? You can
get the plans for these sailplanes, but you can't get them in kits.
What has happened to the kit market? Are there no profits in the kit
business. Or am I just looking in the wrong places?
Scott Martin
Chandler, Ariz.
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