Yesterday was maiden day for my F4U Corsair kit.  I am a slow builder so it took me quite a while to get this plane together.  I was extremely impressed with the Maiden flight.  Three clicks of down and it was trimmed.  It is extremely stable in the air.  I expected a scale war bird to be a handful. The corsair is not, it is very easy to fly.  It is not the fastest plane around, but it will hold its own.  What a great site to see a Corsair in the air flying superbly, and suddenly realize that is your bird, and you are flying it!  Thanks for a great kit.

  Being an old navy guy, I like Navy airplanes.  I would like to see JKA develop a F6F Hellcat kit.  If (when) you do, put me on your list for the initial production run.

Thanks,

George Kerr

Web-Pilot  

Hi: Finally got that Corsair flying today. The weather here has been very poor. It flew out of my hand and needed virtually no trim. I set the control throws at a low rate to start and it still turns just great. It is fast and tracks really well, after two passes I was throwing it around with complete confidence it would go where it was aimed. I am still a new Combat pilot , getting used to tight turning and low down, close in flying. This plane gives me a tool that will help me be better at it. A fine product at a reasonable price with incredible customer support, what more can you ask???

     Many Thanks.

     Bob Byrnes

     Alliston, Ontario, Canada.

It's Henson and I just wanted to say what a pleasure (how) your airplanes fly in the air. That plane you have in the picture is actually my first kit of yours. I put that plane together in about 2-Hours. I first flew the airplane the next day - It flew good for the first 45 seconds then the wing folded (oops, I forgot to put a spare in it). That day I went home, My father Helped me put it back together.  That Sunday was the first combat event of the season, we went back to the field ( The plane was the ugliest thing I had ever seen), but it flew great and what do you know - I got in a midair ( I flew right through the guy unscathed) I also won the contest.  Boy was I happy. the next contest I got in a midair again , again the plane was unhurt, I got second in that contest.  I was so proud of my ugly plane I thought I was indestructible, so I let my Australian friend fly it and he did a good job of proving Newton's law of gravity what ever goes up must come down.  My poor plane died that day what a sad day it was.  But now I am in the process of building two more of your kits. A corsair, and a mustang.   Thanks for your time

Henson Bartle

Editor's note: I saw the plane in person  -  he's right, it was the ugliest plane I ever saw! I also flew against him --- I was one of his victims.

  Truth be told, Never fly Combat with two identical looking planes,lol.  We (My Buddy and I) had just got done flying our 2nd round with no cuts, when we decided to throw them up a third time.  After chasing each other for about 4 minutes at "bumper cleaning" distance, my partner, Dave, decided on a high speed horizontal turn to the left to turn back into me. I being higher, decided to execute a high speed diving left turn thinking I would end up on his six when BAM!!!! the altitude was about 200 ft about 200 ft away from us.  What ensued was a pair of JKA Corsairs plummeting to the earth at a rather high speed.  I asked, " Do you have it?" he said, "No, do you have it?" I replied, "No, and my tail came off".  After Impact, he high fived and laughed at our flight and talked about how LOUD it was and how COOL it looked.  We walked toward the aircraft and on the way I saw mine first, buried in the ground up to the firewall and said, "looks like mine survived......too bad that wasn't the one I was flying". At that time my buddy Dave said, "Yep, Had we realized that in a midair that my would most likely be the one to come off, we probably wouldn't have lost yours".  See, my buddy Dave had cut a big block of foam out of his tail boom to lighten it up. We go to his plane and found it in rather good shape minus one important part......the tail, which was lying about 20 ft away.  Thoughts of patching it are just a formality prior to actually doing it. 

 Now, my Corsair is on the operating table with a Webra 40 about to go in it.  I figure, why wait for another 25 to get her to test out the airworthiness of the airframe after the crash, LETS DO IT NOW!!!!!!.  I realize that the .40 will probably pull the wings off for the simple fact that the wing wasn't built up for a 40 AND the airframe has been through a crash but as the REDNECKS say............."HEY, WATCH THIS!!!"

Regards

Frank G. Lauer

I have completed several of your kits and thought you might like hearing about them.

  The first Mustang (Yellow) has an O.S. 40LA on it. The only modifications that were made was to put a 1/4" balsa spar in the wing, top and bottom.

Also a rudder servo in the tail and I cut 1/2" off the nose. It flies great and has a long glide path at landing.

  The second Mustang (Red) had an MVVS 40 with tuned pipe and unfortunately did not fly. This was my fault not the fault of the plane.  I cut 1" off the nose and when I cut it off it must have not been straight.  This caused too much twist at take off.

  The Third Mustang (Blue) has the MVVS 40 with tuned pipe and it is so fast it is hard to describe.  This plane has to be "flown" all the time.  It's great fun and a real show stopper.  The modifications were to run the plastic former all the way to the tail for support, the 1/4" balsa wing spars and this time I didn't cut anything off the nose. This one also has rudder servo.

  The Fourth plane was your new Corsair, Blue) with an O.S. 46FX attached to the nose. It flies great and is very stable.  With an 11x7 prop it wants to leap out of your hand at launch.  It is very fast.  The modifications were to put 1/4" balsa spars top and bottom and mount the wing servos sideways for clearance.  This one has a rudder servo and a 40-70 adjustable mount so the engine can be moved farther forward.  I mounted the servo's in the tail.  They need to be much farther forward for balance.

  All planes were built with standard size servos and receivers. Another thing I like is the speed at which these planes can be built.  It cuts my building time by 70%.  Which is a good thing, as the cost of your planes being less than balsa kits has allowed me to have more planes. With these size engines, these planes are not for the faint of heart. Next summer, it is hoped that we will be flying combat with these planes.

Interest is growing at our club for these foam speedsters. I have one Mustang and one Corsair that I haven't built yet.  When they are done I will let you know what happens. I sent along some pictures I thought you might enjoy.

  Sincerely , Bruce Forester

This is a note from Bruce about a 60 powered Corsair he just built.....

The weather broke for a day that I was off, so I took out your Corsair that I put an O.S.61FX on to see what might happen. This plane is so cool it is hard to describe. Take off, or throw if you will, was flat, level, and fast. Like it was on a string. If it wasn't so fast a person could get in a chuckle or two. However, one must concentrate as it is fast, fast, fast. The really surprising thing is how stable the plane is. We tried to get it to snap, it just won't. The speed is just awesome and the rolls happen in less than a blink. A couple of us traded off flying as everyone watched what was going to happen. The flight was great, fast, and stable, then it was time to land. Power was turned off or it just died I'm not sure. Anyway, because of the altitude it was just glided around for awhile to bleed off the speed. No power and the plane just didn't seem to care, again it was very stable. It was lined up for landing and never faltered all the way to the ground. Just leveled it off about a foot off the ground and let it glide until it was time to set it down. No problems of any kind. If you look close on the fuselage you can see your company name on the side. The decals are home made on our computer and then printed on photo grade paper. Then they are taped with clear packing tape to the plane. This works really good and gives unlimited potential. Hope you enjoy the picture. Keep up the good work, you are making me look real good at the field.

Sincerely,

Bruce Forester

From: Bradley Moore [bkmoore8555@hotmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2000 6:26 AM
Subject: Corsair

Steve Van Aller has been a great customer for several years now and had some great ideas on how to fly the Corsair and Zero on Electric power. So look at the pictures and read how his recommendations on how to fly these birds electrically.

This is Steve on Maui and I got pictures of the zero speed 600 and the f4u speed 600 here are a few notes on each.....

BATTERIES:  I use 10 cell 1500ma battery packs. I get from radio shack. part #23-183 this is a camcorder battery pack that is discontinued and only costs $14.95 . Just crack open the case and solder on your battery leads and off you go. IMPORTANT: BE SURE NOT TO GET THE ONES IN THE RED AND GRAY BOXES. THE CELLS ARE CRAPPY) See the picture I have sent to get a look at what the box should look like. The ones in the clear plastic packs good to. If your store tells you they are out and the product is discontinued, have them check with all the stores in the state. You can pay for them there and the other stores will ship them to your store and you can pick them in under a week. This way you do not have to drive all over the state looking for them.

ZERO : this plane is fast and flies excellent on a speed 600 geared 3 to 1 on 10 cells. Loops and cork screws abound.

See my pictures on how I hollowed it out. I did it before I glued the two halves together and made sure I could fit the battery pack in from the hole under the canopy. later I added a small piece of wood across opening to keep the battery in place after I slip it in.  I lengthened the nose by 2 inches to give some room to shift the weight forward and mount the seed 600 motor using a piece of light weight pvc pipe which I cut away the top half of the part that sticks out.  I used torque rods for the wings and just put them on with tape that I reversed over the part that touches the rods so they don't stick. I also made the hole large enough to vent the plane for cooling.  The intake for that is through the pvc pipe in the front. I made the tail out if 1/8 balsa sheets just for a better look .  I have been flying this plane for 5 months and crashed it many times with only a broken spar to show for it. When I do destroy it I will on the phone the next day to buy a another one. 

F4U:  This plane is a good speed 600 geared, it's large and impressive and handles very smoothly. To really get some performance out of it you need to go with a cobalt motor. I got mine from Aero model design in Hong Kong($56 + 30SHIPPING) but they can also be gotten from CERMARK.COM. ($99) This turns the plane into a speed demon that can go straight up.  I hollowed out the fuse before I glued the two halves together and later cut away the top portion of the fuse in front of the canopy to allow battery access after I taped it all up. I used pvc pipe for the motor mount and cut away the top half of the portion the sticks out. I use a hose clamp to hold the motor in place and I allow for a 1/2" gap behind the motor to allow air to pass into the fuse for motor and battery cooling.

Thanks again for all your help,

Electric Steve

From: PAT GATEWOOD [KAILEE0318@HOTMAIL.COM]
Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 6:08 PM
Subject: corsair
hey guys,
this is me with my .46 powered corsair with a 11-7 prop. it weighs 4 lbs. being built with full size servos and
AA batteries. i love this plane. it's been through around 20 flights and is still with us. i would like to give some
first hand advise to anyone building this plane with a .46. chop the nose a 12 inch or so so that you have a
little room to move your battery pack around. I didn't chop any and as a result i had to put my AA's and the
full size elevator servo as far back as possible to get the cg close. also substitute the supplied firewall with
some aircraft plywood and make sure to sink dowels into the nose to increase the strength of the firewall.
with this configuration this plane has survived a full power nose first one point landing without a scratch!
wow! that isn't the only rough landing either. i have somersaulted, flipped, cart wheeled, and slammed it
around like i hate it (which i surely don't). At 4 lbs. this bad boy doesn't exactly float. but it gives new meaning
to the phrase "bore a hole into the sky"

first rate abuse loving air toys. thank you.

Pat Gatewood
solomons md

 I added about 2 inches to each wing, and fiberglassed everything with lite cloth to hold things together in our rough landing area. Despite adding about 10 ounces of nose weight, the whole thing weighs only 2lbs 7 ozs.

  Very easy build, and the styrofoam sands so much easier than EPP foam. If this all works out, I'll let you know, and you can start selling to other slopers out there.

  Here's hoping for westerly winds this spring.

     Cheers    Friedhelm Baitis  baitis@springsips.com   3/5/2007

Dan - Thought you might get a kick out of the pic. It certainly is an attention getter in the air, and flies well too. Feel free to use any photo for your website if you feel so inclined. Tell any interested slopers that the model does need to be glassed to increase the wing strength, especially in rough landing places like here in Steamboat  Friedhelm Baitis  baitis@springsips.com 4/11/2007

Well Fred,  The F4U looks fantastic!!   Looks like your modifications are working great.  It just goes to show you that these planes can be changed into anything you would like them to be or do.  You might be getting some emails from people asking how you did this and we might see more of these slopers out on the slopes.

Well, just to show how tough these birds REALLY are, here is a small video of my Corsair:




After checking the plane out, I found the left wing servo was stripped.  So I figure it was 50/50 pilot error and faulty equipment.