RunRyder RC Helicopter Topic - Approached Engineering eCobra

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Scale Model RC Helicopters > Approached Engineering eCobra

SeismicCWave
Veteran
Location: Hilo, Hawaii

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I know there seem to be a lot of followers here for this manufacturer. Unfortunately my experience with this kit is anything but pleasant. In my humble opinion for the amount of money I paid this is one horrible kit. I have built many wooden kits in my time starting from 1970. Some of the kits from the old days were horrible. The Guillows kit where you have to cut out every part to assemble. The Carl Goldberg kit where the dies were so dulled that the wood just got crunched instead of a clean cut.

This Approach Engineering kit is approaching that kind of quality. For a laser cut kit the quality control was horrible. The laser cut were inconsistent. The wood density were inconsistent. The design was horrible. The instruction non-existant.

The laser cut were terrible. I had to hand fit every part before they will mate together.

The wood density was bad. They use hard balsa for parts that were suppose to sand to shape and soft balsa where they were structural.

The design was inadequate. Why would any one make lightening cutout on a part where there is practically no wood left to hold the part together?

The kit was designed for the Logo 10 mechanics and the instruction only catered to the Swift mechanics. There were may be two line drawn circles to vaguely showed where the Logo mechanics suppose to go and simply no instruction as to where to attach the mechanics.

The plan is two generation behind the kit. The part on the plan doesn't match up the actual part in size.

If I am smarter I would have thrown this kit in the rubbish. Unfortunately I am stubborn enough to keep on going.

Ok I put on my flame suit so fire away. Unfortunately instead of every one gushing accolade over this manufacturer some one has to be the bad guy and state the truth.

11-02-2009 09:49 PM

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GrantL
Senior Heliman
Location: Springfield, MA

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Did you try and speak with Dr. Tim before trashing the product? The man will fall all over himself to help you and make ANYTHING right..

Grant

11-02-2009 10:01 PM

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Dr.Tim
Key Veteran
Location: Mojave Desert

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WOW, really sorry you feel that way .. the Logo mounting is marked on the bottom plate and the manual clearly states to remove the rails and mount directly to the bottom. Of all the kits sold you are the only complaint to date ... If your this unhappy with the kit please ship it back and I will refund your money less shipping charges.. please PM me for were to ship it to ...
Thank You ,
Dr.Tim

From Simple minds come simple ideas! Starwood Models, Approach Engineering .

11-02-2009 10:46 PM

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SeismicCWave
Veteran
Location: Hilo, Hawaii

My Posts This: Topic Forum

>>Did you try and speak with Dr. Tim before trashing the product? The man will fall all over himself to help you and make ANYTHING right..<<

Sorry, don't know a Dr Tim until I read it here. I did send Dawson a couple of email. No response.

According to the plans it was designed by some Linder guy. No mentioned of Dr. Tim anywhere.

Besides, it was not exactly a trash of the product. I was stating my experience.

>>If your this unhappy with the kit please ship it back and I will refund your money less shipping charges..<<

Thank you but I am about 40 percent through building the kit despite the problem I faced. No turning back here.

>>manual clearly states to remove the rails and mount directly to the bottom.<<

Nope, the manual clearly states NOT to install the rails and mount the Logo mechanics directly to the bottom. Then if you look at it the bottom has those landing gear blocks in the way and the Logo mechanics will not reach the bottom.

Also my bottom plate had no Logo mounting marked. For that matter some of the parts were not marked. I had to guess what they were. BTW I have kit number #1009.

Let's put it this way the kit was a very good idea but the execution was not very good. For example I thought the dog teeth alignment of the canopy and transmission housing is ingenious but when I build them the curvature of the canopy and transmission housing will not match the curvature of the fuselage. They each different rigidity in bending the curve. So they will never match unless the builder makes them match.

A lot of the blocks would have been much better saw cut then laser cut. Most of the laser cut wood won't come out without some work. I just found the engine nacelle wood pieces not even cut through.

Just because there is no complain publicly doesn't mean there is no dissatisfaction in the kit. Most people just choose to keep quiet.

It takes some one will to take the flak from the rest of the world to stand up and say something bad.

It is too easy to say good things.

11-02-2009 11:04 PM

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WrenFlyer
Senior Heliman
Location: Aberdeen, MS USA

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Quote
According to the plans it was designed by some Linder guy. No mentioned of Dr. Tim anywhere.

James Linder died while on a training mission serving our great country.
He flew attack helicopters.

Dr. Tim purchased the company to continue what James had started, some of the money goes back to help James Linder's kids. Dr. Tim has slowly made changes to the kits to improve them. For me, Dr. Tim's handling of any small problems that I had were the best customer service I've EVER had.

So perhaps a simple question here on one of the forums would have prevented your frustration.

I think you'll find my response typical of anyone of us who has built an Approach kit.

Alan Haney

11-02-2009 11:27 PM

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Dr.Tim
Key Veteran
Location: Mojave Desert

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If you had Emailed me I would have responded .. I personally respond to EVERY Email .. Good or Bad ... Did you email me through the Approach Website? I do apoligize for your experience and thank you for bringing this to my attention ..

All the Best.

Dr.Tim

From Simple minds come simple ideas! Starwood Models, Approach Engineering .

11-02-2009 11:29 PM

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SeismicCWave
Veteran
Location: Hilo, Hawaii

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>>James Linder died while on a training mission serving our great country.
He flew attack helicopters.<<

I thank him for defending our country unfortunately this information is not what this thread is about.

I am talking about the kit and NOT James personally.

>>Dr. Tim purchased the company to continue what James had started, some of the money goes back to help James Linder's kids. Dr. Tim has slowly made changes to the kits to improve them.<<

Thank you and it is very honorable for Dr. Tim. Unfortunately there is nothing in the kit that told me anything about the situation and Dr. Tim. If I bought the kit just to help out Dr. Tim and his cause I would be glad to pay twice the amount. However I posted this because of the quality of the kit. May be Dr. Tim should have pulled the kit off the market to evaluate the quality or include some contact information other then what was available. If I don't normally log onto RR I would not have noticed this. Even while I made my first post I did not know who Dr. Tim was.

>>So perhaps a simple question here on one of the forums would have prevented your frustration.<<

Perhaps, or perhaps a better quality kit would have prevented my frustration. I don't hang out here on the scale forum normally. So why would it be my responsibility to come here to find the answer if there were nothing to tell me in the kit. Maybe a short note in the kit that said if you have problem go to RR and log onto the scale forum!

I can understand all your personal feelings and emotions. I am not trying to be an a$$hole. I am stating a few facts and some of my opinion.

I bought the kit because I wanted to work with wood again after building so many metal and plastic helicopters. I thought the kit would be perfect since it is laser cut. I don't like to build those die crunch kits. I would have been better off designing and scratch building myself if that is the case. Unfortunately I came across the kit as something with a wonderful idea but poor execution.

>> I personally respond to EVERY Email .. Good or Bad ... Did you email me through the Approach Website?<<

Yes I did.

11-03-2009 12:05 AM

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SeismicCWave
Veteran
Location: Hilo, Hawaii

My Posts This: Topic Forum

Apparently the emotion on this product out shine the quality. So instead of me blabbering away in words I will show some of my problems in pictures.

A notch on the lite ply dog teeth is missing so the canopy former will not seat all the way down until I made the notch. The plan is not clear on this.

The engine nacelle wood is not cut all the way through.

The plan and the instruction did not say how HFD should fit. The triangular pieces top and bottom are in the way. Should I have cut the HFD to fit or the triangular pieces to fit. I cut the triangular pieces on this side to fit and the HFD on the other side to fit.

The landing gear blocks are in the way for the Logo 10 mechanics to fit to the bottom.

This piece show how the cutouts almost touch each other leaving very little room for the wood to hold.

This area of the transmission housing is very weak. Mine kept on snapping.

I finally had to reinforce the inside with a few pieces of cross grain wood. A simple note on the instruction to advice the modeler about this would be nice.

When this was snapping, that broke the camel's back and prompted me to come on here to vent.

Thank you very much for your patience.

11-03-2009 12:14 AM

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Hoverup
Elite Veteran
Location: Gulf Coast

My Posts This: Topic Forum

Quote
.............that broke the camel's back and prompted me to come on here to vent. Thank you very much for your patience.

Where do you kennel your camel on Hilo?

Cheers - Boyd
AMA 80393
IRCHA 3355
Major USAF
Retired

11-03-2009 12:52 AM

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jzanutto
Senior Heliman
Location: Fresno, CA

My Posts This: Topic Forum

Sorry to hear of your bad experience. I've built 2 of the Approach kits, and by no means am I a disciple of Dr. Tim following in blind faith.

I too have built kits and scratch built RC, FF since the late 60's and I have never built a "perfect" kit, they all had some area of odd fit or "i could have designed that better". I think thats the purpose of the forum, to share difficult areas and you can read on both mine and grant's big 60 cobras we had some difficult areas, we discussed them with the kit MFR and he even listened to our ideas and made some changes.

But I dont believe that the whole kit is a piece of crap fit only for the trash can. I think thats a little broad brush and not a realistic appraisal of the thing as a whole. There's no way these are like the Comet or guillows kits.

On the new W cobra I didnt like the sheeted intakes at all, and the fact that I had to make up my own template for it.

I know this is a can of worms, but theres a couple of ways of looking at a build manual. If you have to tell the modeler every single step to take the manual would be as thick as a phone book.

and with that many of those kits sold, built and flying on youtube you would think there would be more disappointment expressed

please send it back to the MFR, he has offered a full refund. But please provide him a list of items that he can change so the kit would be better.

11-03-2009 12:58 AM

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jzanutto
Senior Heliman
Location: Fresno, CA

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and by the way seismic, I am just expressing my experience and opinion too. I dont want to make an enemy here, just sharing my point of view.

11-03-2009 01:03 AM

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Rckfish
Senior Heliman
Location: Little Rock,AR

My Posts This: Topic Forum

Seismic,
A couple of questions to try and understand your dilema;
When did you purchase your kit? What outcoming are you seeking?

Quality of kits is an interesting topic and often a point of view. I have built an Approach Apache kit. I have built Vario, Century, Thunder Tiger fuses and lots of boom & pods In the fixed wing world tons of planks from Ziroli, TopFlite, scratch builds and Bob Holman plans over 30 plus years. I am fascinated by the topic because I find that the quality of the kit has one other component...the ability of the builder.

Somethings are infuriating if not crystal clear and evident...the same things don't bother others. Materials are another aspect that frustrate some when their expectations are not met...for others it is a reason to leverage their experience and building abilities. Workmanship of the kit is another.

My pet peeve is missing stuff. Most all the other issues I just seem to absorb and move through. That said, building any kit is truly a personal experience and sometimes we have to get creative or we can try to resolve through the supplier.

A more creative resolution maybe to use the experience of everyperson who subscribes to this thread. Sadly you only saw this venue as a complaint method instead of a helpdesk. Who knows maybe we all take something from this.

By the way, for what it is worth, Approach Engineering and Starwood Models will take good care of you. Glad you connected with Dr. Tim. Now he is in the position to help.

11-03-2009 01:16 AM

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SeismicCWave
Veteran
Location: Hilo, Hawaii

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>>please send it back to the MFR, he has offered a full refund.<<

I vented and the case is closed. I am going to slave on and finish this project even if I have to make all the parts myself. I will make them fit.

It is not really about money. It is about the value and quality control.

>>I too have built kits and scratch built RC, FF since the late 60's and I have never built a "perfect" kit, they all had some area of odd fit or "i could have designed that better".<<

My opinion in this hobby is "a constant struggle to cover up what yo have screwed up." No there is no perfect kit but some came very close. Most of the MK kits that I built back in the 70's were excellent. The Yoshioka kits in the late 80's and early 90's were very good. The Herr kits that came out when laser cutting was in the infant stage were exceptional. The early Graupner kits were top notch. I was hoping that with laser cutting being so popular now that the kit quality goes up.

>>But I dont believe that the whole kit is a piece of crap fit only for the trash can.<<

Well yes that was a generalization stem from frustration.

>>I know this is a can of worms, but theres a couple of ways of looking at a build manual. If you have to tell the modeler every single step to take the manual would be as thick as a phone book.<<

I actually prefer no instruction manual since I don't like reading them mostly. Funny thing is that this is one instruction manual I really read. I usually like to look at a set of plans and built. But the plan for the Cobra really need to be re-done. The 3/4" triangular pieces shown on the plan is more like 1/2" stock.

>>But please provide him a list of items that he can change so the kit would be better.<<

If Dr. Tim looked at my last post with the pictures he will have some idea what I am talking about. I have not taken the time to document every little detail but those are some of the more blatant ones. The most urgent one is to revise the plan so the parts match up. Then look at the quality of the wood. Soft wood for sanding and hard wood for structure.

A wood scale helicopter fuselage is still a wonderful idea.

>> I dont want to make an enemy here, just sharing my point of view.<<

Your point is well taken. I appreciate you sharing your opinion.

11-03-2009 01:24 AM

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SeismicCWave
Veteran
Location: Hilo, Hawaii

My Posts This: Topic Forum

>>When did you purchase your kit? What outcoming are you seeking?<<

Probably a couple of months ago from Starwood. The outcome I seek is a nice looking Cobra fuselage for my Logo 10 mechanics.

>>Quality of kits is an interesting topic and often a point of view.<<

Yes it is.

>>I have built Vario, Century, Thunder Tiger fuses and lots of boom & pods In the fixed wing world tons of planks from Ziroli, TopFlite, scratch builds and Bob Holman plans over 30 plus years. <<

I have also built many pod and boom and fiberglass fuselages from various manufacturers. However this is my first wooden helicopter fuselage.

>>I find that the quality of the kit has one other component...the ability of the builder.<<

I disagree on this point. The quality of the kit is the quality of the kit. Quality is the parts fit, finish and the design of the kit.

Yes I know where you are thinking when you said that. Supposedly when a part doesn't fit it could be the builder's fault. I have been there and understand your point.

>>Materials are another aspect that frustrate some when their expectations are not met..<<

You have hit the nail on the head. I am looking at this "laser" cut kit with some expectations. When I started building the expectation was definitely not met. Then I had no known solution until I found the scale forum here. I normally hang out on other forums but not here.

I couldn't even find the pilots for this Cobra until I asked here.

>>My pet peeve is missing stuff.<<

My cobra kit has some missing items but small enough that my personal inventory covered them.

>>Sadly you only saw this venue as a complaint method instead of a helpdesk.<<

This venue is a help desk but I also saw this venue as a place to vent some balancing view point. I have read too much good accolades about the Approach Cobra over here for the short time I logged on and no one has said anything about some of the problems. So instead of pumping more sunshine I tried to play the devil's advocate.

If I didn't get frustrated I would not have posted anything negative here and the Approach kit will still have a sterling record and Dr. Tim will not know about any potential problems brewing out there.

Just because no one is complaining about a product doesn't mean there is nothing wrong with a product. Sometimes a bit of negative feed back is necessary to improve.

11-03-2009 01:41 AM

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jack726
Veteran
Location: Cerritos California

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Some of us build but do not complain. There were 10 pieces missing from my 600 size Apache. A lot of the comments here were present on my build. I built the kit but made the missing parts myself, after several trips to the hobby shop. Dr Tim sent me new windows, without me asking him. I did not have the heart to tell him that the new ones were worse than the first ones. I have been building scale; designing and building many from scratch, for the last 40 years. I have to say that because of the many problems, including outdated plans and instructions, this was one of the more difficult kits I have ever built. The final result was a gorgeous helicopter.

I think if i was a manufacturer of balsa kits, I would randomly pull one from a batch and have an average builder, build it; giving me feedback. This way the customer might get less surprises.

I normally do not post complaints here, as people usually get torn to pieces on this forum if they say any thing negative about favored manufacturers.

11-03-2009 01:41 AM

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SeismicCWave
Veteran
Location: Hilo, Hawaii

My Posts This: Topic Forum

>>I normally do not post complaints here, as people usually get torn to pieces on this forum if they say any thing negative about favored manufacturers.<<

You are correct. Sometimes it is counter productive to post anything negative when the mass decided that the product is "good". That's why I have thick skin an high performance flame suits.

I can give as well as take.

11-03-2009 01:57 AM

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Dr.Tim
Key Veteran
Location: Mojave Desert

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Don't sweat it Seismic, your comments are welcomed, I try to improve the Quality of the kits and without comments like yours I would never know were to start , I assure you those areas with the laser cutting will and have been improved.
Enjoy the rest of your build and if there is something I can help with please email or PM me ..

Thank you .
Dr.Tim

From Simple minds come simple ideas! Starwood Models, Approach Engineering .

11-03-2009 02:12 AM

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SeismicCWave
Veteran
Location: Hilo, Hawaii

My Posts This: Topic Forum

>>Where do you kennel your camel on Hilo?<<

On the beach of course.

>>I assure you those areas with the laser cutting will and have been improved.<<

Thank you.

11-03-2009 04:02 AM

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