In article
,
Bob Kuykendall wrote:
talk with him before buying any ASC kit
or ship.

Wandering off topic, I learned a lot about sailplane design and
development from watching a couple of ASC kits go together at a shop
in Fremont, California:

* Big floppy wing shells and fuselage shells are a real pain for the
builder to align and join, and it is a huge problem if they are
aligned wrong. That is something best done at the kit factory.




I visited that shop once. They had one ASC ship partially assembled and
a set of fuselage shells at that time. I do remember the pieces all
being very floppy. The guy working on them was not at all complementary
of the kit. It was supposed to go together without the need for jigs
(fat chance). He was especially unhappy with trying to close up the
trailing edge of the wings. Apparently, it was hard to get it aligned
and clamped shut before the resin would start to go off. I seem to
remember him saying something about needing 10 guys with little cups of
resin to close the wing.

That guy also told me that it was copied mostly from a Ventus, but that
the cockpit area of the fuselage was bit deeper, thus it would not quite
fit in a clamshell trailer set up for a Ventus. Seems like ASC had their
own trailer design.

WB