Build thread for CA extra

[notorious_benny]

Hi all, I am thinking of building a 34% columbo anderson extra. Either a 300 of a 330 from a kit.

Can anybody point me towards a build thread on these models?? I have checked out the online manuals on CA's website but they are a little light on detail.

Cheers.

Ben.

[bob101]

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_3949906/tm.htm

I dunno about the 34% but I got the first new 30% 330L kit, as the old kits aren't available anymore. It's on RCU. Basically the kit was a disaster and I wound up salvaging the gear/canopy/cowl out of a $600 kit. The fuse framed up great, once you got past that it was like a 4 year put the kit together. The manual you mention on the website is the same kit you get in the plane, pretty light but it's a straightforward build like all other similar planes.

Aeroworks was never any help, in fact they weren't even sure I got the right size stabs for the plane and some of my measurements of key spots on the fuse were off of their kit by 1" and they couldn't really come up with anything.

The laser cut balsa in the kit was for apparently for the wrong kit, after 4-5 e-mails and several phone calls Rocco told me that basically CA screwed up all the kits like that. I was missing material and 2 out of 5 sheets of the plywood was unusable because it had a 1/2" wide delam running right thru it.

When my stabs were put on the stab tube they fell into the servo cutout in the fuse. After all this aeroworks thought it was par for the course and was no big deal. My stabs were apparently cut wrong to begin with, they didn't fit the stab root rib (neither did the wing but I made new ones from scratch) but the stab tube was flat up against the trailing edge and with the supplied trailing edge material that's pre beveled you wind up with less than a 1/4" to hold a hinge in there. Even with a klett hinge that's not much on a 20 pound plane imo.

I finally got the red ass and abondoned the kit, the old kits had a few problems but they were cheap - the new kits are premium priced kits ($600 for a 30% kit) and it was just a hassle from the get go and the quality was just not there.

After I gave up on it I gave it to a friend who was gonna cut some new stabs and salvage it....up until this point I had only put on the right wing as that's what fit in my shop. So he comes over and we put on the left wing and it won't go on so we thought it was just a tight tube. I break out the bore scope and the rib at the end of the tube is off by almost a 1/2" covering part of the tube. Meaning I would have to either open it up somehow or open up the wing and fix it.

Literally everything on my plane that was made of foam was wrong, the wings didn't match the laser cut root ribs like the stabs - Rocco said just sand to fit - too bad the ribs were too short to even cover the wings....The hatch canopy foam didn't fit and I had to rig something up, the bottom 2 pieces of foam that cover the bottom of the plane didn't match up to each other just like the top 2 pieces.

During all this I wrote CA and they said aeroworks is responsible for support in the US, aeroworks said not much they can do since it's a CA kit and not an aeroworks kit. I got not nothing out of them except Mark Dennis saying about 20 times that everything I mentioned was "It's no big deal", he even said use the plywood that was would fold over under it's own weight for the formers.

I'm positive I got a bad kit and all the kits can't be that bad....but it's all I have to go on. Aeroworks was confident that nothing was wrong and someone else had bought one and it flew so I must be full of it. I'd buy another CA kit if I could buy the old 31% kit.

Mark Dennis jumped on me in the build thread saying they offered to replace the wood, which they did. After I e-mailed them about 4-5 times over a 2 week + time period and never heard anything from them and trying to call at the same time and never got an answer. By the time I heard back from them on what they would do (they never did anything they just said well we "woulda" replaced it but nothing ever became of it) I had already cut new pieces from the template I had. I emailed them a bunch and called them a bunch, never heard a word till I posted on the site how bad it was going. All told it was around a month before I actually talked to a real person on the phone and again all I got was "it's no big deal".

[Steve]

Bobby at Cactus Aviation my still have one of the older 300L's around.

[bob101]

I called him before I ordered the new kit from AeroWorks, he didn't have any of the 27% or 31% ones but he may have some of the 34%'s.

[damien]

That is a pitty about the new kit, the new CA 330's fly so well, I have been flying the 27% and it is amazing, better than the old 300 IMO. I am now getting the 34% 330L ARF, I have seen the 34% ARC and the quality was very good.
CA models are having a birthday special for April with up to 25% off. I would suggest going for the ARC, that way you get a good plane without having to worry about getting a bad kit.

[The Hobbyman]

I am flying a 34% at the moment, and have just purchased a 38% arc, the quality of both of these models is fantastic. I am also building a 27% kit which was faultless out of the box, sounds like you may have just copped one bad one out of a big bunch of good ones. Here's a pic of the 34%.