Durafly BF110

TLMARK

Senior Member
Durafly launched the new BF110 today and apart from a poor choice of paint it looks great :D

All sold in the UK on the release morning :eek: I had to order mine from the Euro store. looking forward to a new plane
 

Joker 53150

Mmmmmmm, balsa.
Mentor
I certainly agree about the paint, although just removing the mouth on it would make it MUCH better looking. Too bad the decals are probably pre-installed.
 

WarbirdFan66

Senior Member
yes it looks nice, and i dont care about the color, i will change it anyway, sooner or later. But im not so sure about the landinggear...i might have to change that one too...ordered my 110 yesterday :)
 

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
I've flown a grand total of 2 Durafly airplanes - the SE-5a and the Corsair. Both are OUTSTANDING! The kit (ARF) is VERY tempting at $104 from the US warehouse.
 

Joker 53150

Mmmmmmm, balsa.
Mentor
The Durafly T-28 is also an extremely good kit. It looks like some of their stuff is a little less well received, but hopefully those are just older kits/models. If they come out with a Zero, BF-109, or any of a few other birds I wouldn't hesitate to buy.
 

TLMARK

Senior Member
Yeah I have 4 Durafly and they have been very well made/designed and fly great.
mine has shipped so hopefully I have at the start of next week.

Mine will be repainted too probable in a Battle of Britain scheme
 

WarbirdFan66

Senior Member
very nice lookin Bird TLMARK...mine is due tomorrow, or so i hope, by the this will be my first Durafly Warbird, i wonder how that will turn out :), happy flyin
 

TLMARK

Senior Member
I have to admit I really like Durafly as they go out of there way to make unusual marks of plane or not previously modeled

this is the BF110 I'm going to model mine after

U8GL.jpg

a Battle of Britain BF110 flown by Lt. Joachim Koepsell
 

WarbirdFan66

Senior Member
Color is important....

...this is the BF110 I'm going to model mine after - Battle of Britain BF110 flown by Lt. Joachim Koepsell

Gorgeous color scheme TLMARK, not easy to do, but gorgeous. But im not worried i know what you can do. I am still in the process of deciding what kind of color, checking books and internet sites right now.
My 110 came in today, by the way. I had the same poroblem with the pilots, they were loose and smeared the black paint/glue all over the cockpitwindows. The only good thing was that the canopy was easy to remove so i guess no problem there.

Im feel a bit divided to be honest because this is my first durafly Warbird and i didnt really knew what to expect. Some things are nice and others, well are not that impressive i think...still overall the 110 looks like a nice bird.
But before i start changeing anything i have to wait for better weather, and do some testflights with that thing, look how she behaves, specially on the ground. If im lucky i find the time to make her flightready this weekend :)

happy flyin buddy
 

TLMARK

Senior Member
While doing research on BF110's I found some interesting Shots of 110's

This is a BF110 with a shark mouth over Dunkirk during the Battle of France.
Dunkirk.jpg

And a 110 over Paris also in 1940

Paris.jpg
 

WarbirdFan66

Senior Member
ya got mine yesterday as sheduled, i would also love to hear about a maiden of a 110, mine is ready for action now, but is tied to the hangar for now due to really bad weather.
By the way, i dont wanna talk bad about Durafly because this is my first of their warbrids, but i guess i got a monday modell...pretty much everything was messed up, the cockpit, the lights, wingspar, esc´s...the list goes on - i was not amused :(...not to mention not impressed
 

WarbirdFan66

Senior Member
tiny retract mod...

oh and i forgot, of course i tinkered a little with the reatracts, after some taxing test i did today. It was not that bad actually...or not nearly as bad as i thought it would be...still, true to my moto "as far forward as possible is not enough" i managed to move the support point of the gear a few mm further forward, and the geardoors still work fine.
IMG_1915_s300.jpg IMG_1923_s300.jpg
You can see the first mark on the tape on the floor...close to 6mm further forward...not bad for a few washers i think :)
 

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
WF66, don't hold back your impressions. They may be helpful in improving the product. Honestly, I'm really surprised you found that many problems.

I wonder if the Durafly brand is manufactured by a number of different factories. I'm glad you said something because I was ready to put my complete trust in the brand based on my personal experience.
 

WarbirdFan66

Senior Member
the mother of all mistakes... :)

... I'm really surprised you found that many problems...

To be honest i was a bit surprised too because i heard mostly good things about Durafly and their Warbirds. A few buddies at the field fly some of their planes (Corsairs and Thunderbolts) and they never had problems like this, or at least not combined in one model.

As is said i guess i got a monday morning modell, the poor chinese guy who put it togetether must have forgoten his tea or his bowl of rice this morning, or maybe is wife was mean to him, i dont know :/.

One of the worst things for me were that the elevator and tailwheel servos had no screws in them, so the servoarms could have come off at any second...i was glad that they were also not properly adjusted so i took a look into that little accesshatch in the back. Those missing screws could have resulted in a very - very short maiden flight.

Also almost all the hinges of the landinggear doors were, or came, loose after one or two test runs...the left or right, i dont remember which one exactly, engine cover were loose too...u know they should be glued to the engine nacelle...i have them taped on right now because i have to remove them anyway...you know for painting and stuff.
Oh and one other thing i didnt like much...the foam hinges on the elevator and the rudder. I moved both only once or twice to maximun deflection to loosen them up a little...and i could see clear signs of cracks in them and i dont mean a wrinkle or so...so i secured/reinforce them with hingetape on both sides...that should hold for now. Maybe i will cut them out later and replace them with nylon hinges or something like that i dont know yet, usually hingetape works fine and this is not a highspeed plane. The hinges on the ailerons on the other hand were fine...did the same thing, and no signs of cracks or anything, as it should be.

And then there were a lot of little, but very annoying things...like excess glue inside the hole for the wingspare...so i couldnt even get it in, and ....the screw thread of the forward wingjoiner nut was defect, you couldnt screw the bolt in, i had to rethread it.
Then the ESC`s were not properly setup, dont ask me how that could happen but i heard different beeps from the ESC´s when i first activated the plane (by the way there is no ESC programming manual included), i had to contact the HK LiveChat support to find out which ESC manual should work, because on my ESC there are not stickers or anything to indicate what kind/brand/type of ESC it is. And there is no mentioning in the manual that you have to teach in the throttle positions or otherwise the motor start a different times or run with different revolution either, also not a good thing.

And finaly the fuselage or the wings, i dont know, i mean i like a tight snug fit but this was a bit too tight...i had to squeeze the fuselage onto the wing, so hard that i was afraid i would damage or at least dent the foam, i was seriously thinging about getting a sandingblock or my hobbyknife (not jokin).

She is ready now (as far as i can tell) and looks nice (still a very cool, very good looking plane if you ask me), i really have to give her her that, but to be honest if a newbee had baught that plane he would have been really annoyed, annoyed enough to throw the damn thing in the corner and never touch it again.

Puh, that kind of turned into a novel :D
 

TLMARK

Senior Member
Wow WF it does sound like you have got a bad one I'm sorry to hear that. I only had 1 minor issue with mine and that was the pilots had come unstuck in the cockpit. The wing spar was very a very tight fit but I did dry fit it a couple of times to make sure slide all the way home, and would like recommend anyone else buying one to do the same. And sadly like WF the weather here now is pretty bad so I doubt a maiden will be coming anytime soon. :(
 

WarbirdFan66

Senior Member
I told you i had a lot of issues with mine. And the weather thing, same here, windspeed just passed the 25 knots mark, so no way to maiden her today, even it got kind of sunny right now :( ...forecast predicts slighly better weather for next week, from thrusday to saturday...maybe we get lucky, we will see, cheers