>
    > Hello Mark
    >
    > What is your opinion on a quickbuilt MII and quickbuilt Van8 for
   exemple
    >
    > Marc Montréal Canada

   <opinion>
   The Mustang II we bought has a centre section that was plans built (not
   finished assembled), most of the Fuselage and empenage parts are kit
   parts,
   and fast build wings (not started).

    >From what I can tell, the kits for the Mustang are farmed out to
   various
   retired guys, although I understand that Chris Tieman is constantly
   improving his kits. The quality of the wings looks good (we haven't
   started
   them yet) but it is not the erector set CNC matched hole quality of
   Vans. I
   would guess that a quick build kit for the Mustang would put you
   roughly a
   the same stage as a slow build kit from Vans.

   The building instructions for the Vans aircraft are excellent. Not
   just the
   plans, but the instructions are really clear and step by step. The
   instructions for the Mustang are much more general guidelines.

   The VNE of the RV-8 is 230mph, same as the MII. The fat Hershey bar Vans
   wing hits a bit of a drag wall, at about 200mph - you can force it to
   faster, but it take a fair bit of juice. Although the RV-8
   performance is
   spectacular, in top speed the Mustang wing has more potential. I
   personally
   wouldn't put much weight on top speed in terms of the purchase
   decision. If
   you end up with a plane you don't like the feel of, or that scares
   you when
   you need to land it, you won't fly it, so the whole building thing was a
   waste of time and money.

   Considering the investment in time and money (and patience and
   willingness
   to learn etc) required to build a plane, you would be nuts to decide
   on one
   design over another based on mine or anyone elses opinion. Go and
   find one
   of each and pay the owner whatever he wants to take you up for a
   good intro
   to type. It will be money well spent.

   Another consideration is the the folding wing option on the Mustang
   II, if
   you live in a place with sky high hangar rental.

   On the other hand I have never flown in a mustang, but just was
   offered a
   kit for a price I couldn't refuse :)

   I personally think the Mustang fuselage is pretty ugly.
   </opinion>

   Remeber, my opinion worth what you paid for it :)

   Mark Wrathall




Having worked on both a RV-9 and my Mustang II, I agree with most of
Mark's comments above.  But let me be a bit more blunt: the RV-9 plans
are a thing of beauty & absolutely unambiguous.  The Mustang plans are -
literally - exactly the same plans from 1960.  They leave *a lot* to be
desired.  The quality of pre-made parts from MAero is nothing like the
quality from Vans.  I now expect to be reworking (to one degreee or
another) everything I get from them.  Worse, you need to watch them like
a hawk -- orders can and do go astray on a regular basis.  I can't
remember a single order that didn't require phone calls to get 'fixed'.

In either case, I think my strategy would be to see if I could pick up a
partially completed kit vs. new from factory.  It would require homework
to be able to tell good build from bad, but given that partial kits are
sold below new costs it seems foolish to not get the benefit of someone
else's free labor.  You just need to be ready to redo what needs redone
-- I spent about 250 hours undoing poor work from a prior builder before
moving forward.


Mark Supinski



The Rotary Engine NewsLetter. Powered by Linux.
ACRE NL web site. http://www.rotaryeng.net
Copyright 1998-2006 All world wide rights reserved.