Jim Allen was showing the prototype at the NAT's this year and it looks great! I don't know anything more about it than what I see on the internet. Price point is up there but this is post pandemic and things are more costly across the board.
If you don't want to pay that much for an ARF I'll build you a Ricky Rat for more $!
Seriously building these little racers is a heck of a lot of fun, Laser cut kits are out there.
Sparky
https://gator-rc.com/sport-planes/pylon-racers
New ARF Proud Bird
Re: New ARF Proud Bird
Below is what I posted on the RC Groups forum yesterday:
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Thought it was time to post here that a new version of my Proud Bird EF-1 is available again as an ARF!! It hasn't been a secret but, we wanted to hold off pushing it too much till the first production batch was received and a sample checked out.
They are available from Gator R/C only. The planes are being made for Gator by Seagull Models. The first batch arrived a couple weeks ago and pre-orders were filled right away. The model is named the "PB-2". Gator is also working to stock all the needed items to go with it, including a competitive battery, motors and ESC's, spinners, etc. They also stock some very nice Kingmax servos that work well at a nice price. Check out their site, they stock a lot of very cool stuff, some is hard to find elsewhere.
https://gator-rc.com/pb2-by-grc
Mike Mueller and his daughter Ashley along with Seagull Models have been great to work with bringing this plane to the market. I just flew my first one from the first production lot and it flew great. Instructions are not currently in the box as I'm working on those with pics of the build of my first two. They'll be available as a PDF on the Gator R/C web page when they're done. I'll post here with the starting throws and CG shortly as I get the first one settled.
in the pics below, you'll notice the look is very familiar but, the structure is basically new. The wing is all new with a different airfoil package and slightly different planform at 50.5" span and a wider tip chord. The wing is also fully sheeted now. The fuselage utilizes a fair amount of the balsa plywood that Seagull likes to use and I've learned to like it a lot. The battery floor is now flat from the back of the firewall all the way to the front of the turtle deck. You can now go from too tail heavy to too nose heavy just by moving the battery. Rudder and Elevator servos are now behind the wing under a hatch in the fuse bottom. There are two hatch covers supplied with the model, one with cooling holes and one without.
Cowl is fiberglass, as are the wheel pants. Belly pan is vacuum formed plastic. There are vacuum formed plastic wing filets/fairings but they are much smaller than those on the original ARF. In fact, I've asked for approval of the model with and without the filets so the modeler can chose whether to put them on. The new cowl works good either way. The model in the attached pics does not have the filets installed.
Canopy wise, Seagull did a great job on that. I really like the way they did it. It's somewhat like the way the Eflite Shoestring was done but without the hooks at the back that would sometimes break. It has a nice frame that you glue the plastic canopy to that gives the whole thing a lot more stability.
As you can see in the pics, they are coming in all white as the previous version did so racers can get creative with trim and make it their own.
So, spread the word and let's get more EF1 racing going again especially at the club and regional level. A bit over a year ago, Dan Kane and I were brainstorming that we needed to do something about EF1 planes going forward. After some conversations between us and with Mike and Ashley at Gator R/C, the project was started and turned out great. Thank you Mike and Ashley!!
Jim Allen
******************************************************************
Thought it was time to post here that a new version of my Proud Bird EF-1 is available again as an ARF!! It hasn't been a secret but, we wanted to hold off pushing it too much till the first production batch was received and a sample checked out.
They are available from Gator R/C only. The planes are being made for Gator by Seagull Models. The first batch arrived a couple weeks ago and pre-orders were filled right away. The model is named the "PB-2". Gator is also working to stock all the needed items to go with it, including a competitive battery, motors and ESC's, spinners, etc. They also stock some very nice Kingmax servos that work well at a nice price. Check out their site, they stock a lot of very cool stuff, some is hard to find elsewhere.
https://gator-rc.com/pb2-by-grc
Mike Mueller and his daughter Ashley along with Seagull Models have been great to work with bringing this plane to the market. I just flew my first one from the first production lot and it flew great. Instructions are not currently in the box as I'm working on those with pics of the build of my first two. They'll be available as a PDF on the Gator R/C web page when they're done. I'll post here with the starting throws and CG shortly as I get the first one settled.
in the pics below, you'll notice the look is very familiar but, the structure is basically new. The wing is all new with a different airfoil package and slightly different planform at 50.5" span and a wider tip chord. The wing is also fully sheeted now. The fuselage utilizes a fair amount of the balsa plywood that Seagull likes to use and I've learned to like it a lot. The battery floor is now flat from the back of the firewall all the way to the front of the turtle deck. You can now go from too tail heavy to too nose heavy just by moving the battery. Rudder and Elevator servos are now behind the wing under a hatch in the fuse bottom. There are two hatch covers supplied with the model, one with cooling holes and one without.
Cowl is fiberglass, as are the wheel pants. Belly pan is vacuum formed plastic. There are vacuum formed plastic wing filets/fairings but they are much smaller than those on the original ARF. In fact, I've asked for approval of the model with and without the filets so the modeler can chose whether to put them on. The new cowl works good either way. The model in the attached pics does not have the filets installed.
Canopy wise, Seagull did a great job on that. I really like the way they did it. It's somewhat like the way the Eflite Shoestring was done but without the hooks at the back that would sometimes break. It has a nice frame that you glue the plastic canopy to that gives the whole thing a lot more stability.
As you can see in the pics, they are coming in all white as the previous version did so racers can get creative with trim and make it their own.
So, spread the word and let's get more EF1 racing going again especially at the club and regional level. A bit over a year ago, Dan Kane and I were brainstorming that we needed to do something about EF1 planes going forward. After some conversations between us and with Mike and Ashley at Gator R/C, the project was started and turned out great. Thank you Mike and Ashley!!
Jim Allen
Re: New ARF Proud Bird
Thanks for the update Jim! Fed-X delivered mine yesterday. Squeezed all the juice out of PB1 - Time to retire it.