Kit AAI RQ-7 Shadow FPV 2000mm Laser Cut

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• Value

Customer Rated

May 14, 2016

Don't get me wrong I'm having fun building the RQ-7, but there are problems with the model.

the mounting points for the landing gear are drilled in the wrong place, and the hole in the wheels are too small to fit the shafts, they have to be drilled out.
some parts need the tabs modifying because they not match the holes in the appropriate panels ( B13 & B14 where they fit into A2 if any one cares)
and other panels aren't big enough so you need to buy a little bit of extra sheet. finally i was missing some of the balsa wood strips for the wings

Sorry if thats all a bit negative they are relatively small things and i got all the extra balsa i needed for less that 10.

the plus point which is a huge one is that the body of the model has a massive easily accessible bay for mounting FPV cameras and gimbals and theres a cut out near the nose that can be easily modified to house a downwards viewing camera for mapping.

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• Quality
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Certified Buyer Rated

May 08, 2016

Very nice kit. 3 days for shipping from NL to FR. Parts are ready to be glur, just need a sharp knife. think about have 4m of 3mm x 3mm and 4m of 6mm x 6mm paulownia wood to complete this kit. Some hole wasn't at the good place but its very easy to correct that. perform a test before use glue, especialy for the landing gear D3 parts and for the tail tube in wing (parts D2, D4 and A12). After assembly, dry weight is above 1400gr. I will use glow .46 engine, I think its the better way for handsome look and nice flight time.

• Overall
• Quality
• Value

Customer Rated

May 04, 2016

I love that I'm building this massive model for just over $100 dollars. I'm most of the way done building the fuselage and it's been a lot of fun so far. I don't know if I'll add electronics and try to fly it yet, I really wanted to try building a balsa model.

There is one big flaw however; the quality control at least on my model was not very good. Many of the balsa pieces are not laser cut through all the way so I'm having to trace the back of the balsa on the laser cut lines with an xacto knife to get them apart. Some pieces are so bad however that I can't even see the lines on the back, and the wood doesn't break cleanly if I try to snap the pieces. This is making getting some of the parts out extremely tedious. Most of the parts however are fine, this issue is just with a couple of sheets of parts which does translate into a lot of extra work.