Most Popular Kit

LAST EDITED ON Jan-19-04 AT 03:39 PM (CDT)
 
What is the most popular Model Airplane kit?

If you are not jerking my chain I would guess the all time champ might be the Ringmaster in one of its incarnations. For a full body stunter maybe a Nobeler.

Ringmaster (CL); Starduster (FF) and Ugly Stik (RC).

If your going to stick to UC - that is one thing. In general, however, the Piper J3 (RC) is probably one of the most popular. Or, P51 (RC).

RCPAUL

The J-3 or P-51 would be airplane modeled, not single kit. I doubt any one manufacturers kit of either matched the quantities of the listed UC,RC or FF kits.

However, with your specifications you are probably correct. There are not nearly enough P-51's out there and way to many of those floppy yellow 'explicatives'!

And YES, I know it's not yellow, it's Harbour orange or some other Cub expert color. Puke yellow is more like it. Oh, I used to think it was cute too. Of course I thought my baby's diapers were cute origianlly too.

>Ringmaster (CL); Starduster (FF) and Ugly Stik (RC).
>
>Mike Keville
Whoa, MIkey! the Starduster is No 2! Amazing how we live in our own little bubbles of interest. I built a couple of 1/2A 'dusters as a yout'. I used Holland Hornets on mine (no doubt for the same reason I used Johnsons in my stunt ships instead of Foxes...some insatiable need to be different).

They flew great and I even took one to my first Nats in '59. I had won the Junior 1/2A event at the Jim Walker champs and pretty much figured I was an Ace free flighter and would walk away with the Junior nats champ. Hmmm, fat chance.

Test flew it once and, for some reason although it was supposed to be a VTO it never got more than about 10 feet off the ground and experienced a premature arrival under considerable Hornet power. Broke the fuse in half.

Took the parts back to the work hangar (oh, boy. The work hangar. The nats aren't the same without 'em) and went in search of some Hot Stuff (yeah, right, this was 1959!). When I came back all the parts were missing. This was quite a surprise, it never occurred to me that anyone would lift stuff off the acres of benches full of wonderful things...most of which was in one piece!

That was pretty much the end of my free flight career. I will always blame its demise on the disappearance of the parts. Certainly not a total lack of skills.

1) Ringmaster; 2) Flite Streak; 3) VooDoo

Who HASN'T owned one?

>1) Ringmaster; 2) Flite Streak; 3) VooDoo
>
>Who HASN'T owned one?

1) - owned 8 samples
2) - owned 5 samples
3) - zip

I'd give the nod to Goldberg's Shoestring Stunter over the VooDoo.

Since CL was preceded by FF and RC, I doubt a CL kit would achieve status as THE most popular kit ever - although I've run into plenty of RCers who once had a Ringmaster.

LAST EDITED ON Jan-20-04 AT 03:58 AM (CDT)
 
Steve,

I've owned and built more Sterling Yaks that I have Ringmasters, and I've only had one Shoestring and no VooDoos, but I'm probably not anywhere near typical.

LAST EDITED ON Jan-20-04 AT 12:10 PM (CDT)
 
>1) Ringmaster; 2) Flite Streak; 3) VooDoo
>
>Who HASN'T owned one?
Many Ringmasters but soon "graduated" to Circus Kings.

One or maybe two Flite Streaks (I thought they were ugly so, of course, they couldn't fly well. Wrong again!)

Two VooDoos built simultaneously so I could be a Kombat King.

Flew no 1 and the bellcrank pulled out in the first lap. No evidence of glue on same.

Flew no 2 and the bellcrank pulled out in the first lap. No evidence of glue on same.

My construction techniques may have been flawed, but at least they were consistent.

End of Kombat King

Ted

Not sure why I thought it was a good idea to take those skills to the stunt arena where my "techniques" would have their insidious effects on a year's worth of labor rather than a few days. Just a glutton for punishment, I guess. Plus, I had no idea how skilled my wife would be at accomplishing the same thing without the need to leave the shop and get castor oil all over myself.

>Two VooDoos built simultaneously so I could be a Kombat
>King.
>
>Flew no 1 and the bellcrank pulled out in the first lap. No
>evidence of glue on same.
>
>Flew no 2 and the bellcranks pulled in the first lap. No
>evidence of glue on same.
>
>My construction techniques may have been flawed, but at
>least they were consistent.
>
>End of Kombat King
>
>Ted

Weren't those the fun days though?....

Maybe Doug would tell his ONE PROP STORY sometime. It always makes me laugh!!!

>
>Weren't those the fun days though?....
>
>Maybe Doug would tell his ONE PROP STORY sometime. It
>always makes me laugh!!!

After Dougie's ask Gordan about his ONE PROP STORY for the last nats with the Tony.

>After Dougie's ask Gordan about his ONE PROP STORY for the
>last nats with the Tony.

Well, Doug made it to the Top 5 with one prop. Whew!

The funny story is when Doug and Steve were first starting in CL. They would build a new plane, go to the hobby shop, and buy one prop. Then they would go to the field.... Ah, the anticipation!!!!

There's the launch! This is sooooo cooolll!!!

<nose over>

Awwww..... "YOU BROKE THE PROP"

....pack everything up and go home....

Next week go buy a new prop.... etc....

To watch Doug tell it will make you pee your pants you will laugh so hard!!!!

#1. Own one. #2. Went through 5. #3. 18 plus still have a double kit. Used to build these four at a time. In Free flight, the Starduster is a biggie indeed, but it comes in 6 variations. I have built and flown 5 Shoestring Stunters +/-. 5 Magicians. 4 Noblers and have 2 underconstruction and not counting the ARF hanging on the wall.

From my travels back and forth across the country as an army brat in the 40s and 50s I always saw PDQ Flying Clowns, Veco Warriors, Squaws, & Chiefs and Ringmasters in Texas, Georgia, Alabama, and California. So I guess one of these kits would be the most popular because I have continued to see them in my adult life in Georgia and Maryland. I don't think the Midwest profiles, Kenhi, Top Flight or Ambrid kits supplanted the above in overall popularity, although in some years they did.

As for me, I never met a model airplane or a modeler that I didn't like!

It's obviously the first one we ever built on our own and flew.

The little 5 cent glider by AJ

by any act, error, or omission, I have, intentionally or
unintentionally, displayed any breedist, disciplinist, sexist, racist,
culturalist, nationalist, regionalist, localist, ageist, lookist, ableist,
sizeist, speciesist, intellectualist, socioeconomicist, ethnocentrist,
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to get over it.

Actually the ringmaster is the top selling kit of all time. Believe that they had a contest years ago to guess the number of Ringmasters sold and the winner was over 50,000 kits. This was in the 60's so I seriously doubt that any other kit, Piper Cub, P-51 ad nausium had ever approached those numbers. Especially by one manufacturer.
Dennis

The standard Ringmaster is far and away the best seller. It enjoyed about a 6 year head start on the Streak, don't forget, and timed the high point of CL perfectly. I would guess that the Flite Streak is second, and the Shoestring third.

Both top two continue to rack up sales, and someone (Brodak?) will pick up Shoestring.

Other top sellers...Magician, the Three Sigs (which continue). Voodoo far and away the top Combat kit, and maybe in the top 5 o 6 overall.

Buster rates a Top 6 or 8 or so pick.

For full fuse stunters, Nobler #1, and don't forget the Super Ring. I would think T-Birds and Smoothies score high here too.

Actually, there are a decent amount of Acromasters sold now, but their cumulative number would not be that impressive. They have a category practically to themselves!

What was the top selling Scientific? Stuntmaster? Kingpin?

We are not counting ARFs here, right, like the various Cox, such as the PT-19?

I overlooked Flying Clown, and of course there have been tons of Jr Streaks and Rings. sold. They float in and out of the Top 10, or maybe Top 8.

The VooDoo probably sold more airplanes than all except possibly the Ringmaster. Combat guys who flew Voodoos built them by the dozen. One Ringmaster lasted for 10 years. A dozen VooDoos lasted a season. At the NATS recently Riley told me that for a few years in the 60's Goldberg was selling 50,000 VooDoo kits a year. Wasn't clear if that was single kits or double kits. I know quite a few guys who bought 2 or 3 double kits every year for 5-6 years.

One Ringmaster lasted for 10 years (Phil)

Maybe yours did...Currell

I have a 28 year old Ringmaster SR-1 that I bought from AHC with Fox 35 included (the only engine I have ever mounted on it) and fly it more than any of my planes--which I admit hasn't been much in the past 15 yearts.

I used to by the double combat cats and slap the wing into a profile and use 'em for slow combat. I forget the chord thickness of the Flitestreak, 1-3/4"? the Combat cat is the same shape and has a 1- 1/2" chord thickness. I used to gang cut the ribs for repair after re-kiting and have just used some of them after 30 years in the attic to make some more wings. Some of my buddies used to do the same with the voodo.

Actually, C*x produced something like 100,000 Me-109 Super Stunters over the years they were made.

However, I think that I heard the Ringmaster had numbers like 500K, not 50K.