Commercial Air Brakes?

[Nigel Argall]

Ok guys, give me some advice here. After a long break (don’t ask), I have recommenced construction of my ¼ scale Pilatus B4 and have arrived at… Air Brakes. Heath Robinson would be proud of my efforts and I can see (now) why so many folk dislike making them. I am considering just biting the bullet and fitting commercial units.
Gliders Distribution seem to have some nice ones but they are £60. I have come across these ones from HobbyKing at £25 which look great.

https://hobbyking.com/en_us/glider-spoi ... -side.html

So, the questions are:
a) Anyone got experience of these – are they OK (I’m conscious they don’t exactly get a huge amount of use).
b) Experience of HobbyKing? Any thoughts?
c) These ones appear to be coming from Australia. I know folk who have ordered stuff from the far East without problems but it makes me a bit nervous.
d) Any other suggestions?
Thanks so much for your wisdom!

[Peter Balcombe]

Nigel,
DIY air brakes are not that bad to make, but you do need to get the pivot points on the same distances to ensure good operation.
Robbie Bridson put a good airbrake 'how-to' article on the forum a while ago if you can find it.

I have used a couple of the Hobbyking spoiler sets in 3m gliders and they appear to work well.
However, I did have one set which stopped working after a while & I found a broken connection inside the motor unit, so they may suffer from manufacturing QC issues.
Another thing to be aware of when ordering items from abroad is that if over £12 or so then are subject to VAT. If identified at Customs that payment is needed then Royal Mail have an arrangement to pay this on your behalf & recover from you before they let you have the package - but they also heap on a sizeable collection fee for the privilege.

[jimbo]

Hi Nigel, As we discussed today (whilst flying and talking about windsurfing in 20ft swell), i think the main concern is failure of the servos and replacement of the item, in this case the complete brake. Replacing a complete Airbrake is a major pain. Replacing a servo is simple. Ideally you would want to get some multiplex type airbrakes. If there is no way to replace the servo independently i would steer away from the cheap n nasty hobbyking item. Trawl the Ebays/Shops/german sellers, airbrakes do come up at decent prices, something must be available or perhaps someone on here has a crashed model with a surplus airbrakes?

[Peter Balcombe]

Jimbo/Nigel,
The smaller spoilers seem to be difficult to find at the moment as Gliders Distribution seem to be continually out of stock of the smaller ones (especially the cheaper servo operated type) and even the more expensive equivalents from topmodel.fr are only available in the servo types at present.
I don't know if this shortage is anything to do with less people seeming to be building at 1/4 scale or below these days, but I hope things improve.

[barry h]

Hi Nigel
I have used Electric airbrakes for several models, the last one being a 3mtr Fox. I have never had any problems with this type of unit, they work just as well as servo driven units.
Staufeinbeil UK offer these units over several different sizes.

Bought from their UK website and generally delivered within a couple of days by DPD so you even get a text letting you know what time the delivery driver is going to be with you.

Unless you are a complete hooligan and decide to pop out the brakes at full diving speeds they should give you no problems whatsoever.

Regards
Barry

[RobbieB]

Nigel,
DIY air brakes are not that bad to make, but you do need to get the pivot points on the same distances to ensure good operation.
Robbie Bridson put a good airbrake 'how-to' article on the forum a while ago if you can find it.......................

http://www.scalesoaring.co.uk/VINTAGE/H ... rakes.html

[roo Hawkins]

I have used 3 sets of hobbyking airbrakes in the past all have worked OK. I have used them also in my 4.8 jantar I thought they might be a bit small but they work OK. I have now started to use top model cz brakes now really cheap and great service from them.http://www.topmodelcz.cz/index.php?&des ... shop_id=32

[Peter Balcombe]

The topmodelcz brakes look to be much cheaper than the equivalent ones on the topmodel.fr website.
Did you have to pay any additional VAT charges Roo & what are their UK delivery charges like?
Peter

[roo Hawkins]

Hi peter it is the same vat has the uk as it is in the EU so no extra vat the post was I think about 6 euros contact them and they will send you a invoice and you then can pay by PayPal. All my shipments have arrived only one got sent to Greece buy mistake. But they sent a new shipment out straight away. Get them while we are still in the EU. ROO

[Nigel Argall]

Fantastic advice - as always. Thanks so much all of you.