The Parkzone Stinson Reliant is a beautiful "Golden Age" Electric RC plane. Completely ready to fly.
The real Stinson Reliant first flew in 1938. Parkzone have faithfully reproduced this great looking scale RC airplane in Z-foam.
Scale features abound, from the landing gear and scale cowl and dummy radial engine to the molded rib reproduction on the wing and tail plane.
Assembly time is typical of Parkzone and only requires simple assembly techniques. I would not recommend this RC electric plane as your first model-take a look at this page-"Hobbyzone Super Cub" for a more suitable beginner RC plane.
The one piece tail plane slides through slots in the rear fuselage and rudder. The plastic fairing is already installed in the rear fuselage.
Plastic covers are then screwed on to the sides of the rudder, to finish off the assembly.
Tape is then applied to the plastic fairing, to retain the tail plane. Note that paint will be stripped off, if and when the tape is removed, so keep the tape away from painted areas.
It only remains to install the pushrod clevis into the elevator control horn. Snap it into the outermost hole and slide the silicone retainer over the clevis.
The landing gear is in two parts and each half bolts to the plastic fairing on the bottom of the fuselage.
Be careful not to loose the screws into the cavity in the fairing. A magnetic screwdriver would be very good for this application!
One criticism I came across was that the wheel axles come loose. It would make sense to apply a little thread locker to all the screws in this area.
Nice view of the cowl assembly. There is no assembly to be done in this area! This is how it comes out of the box.
If you take more than an hour to build the Parkzone Stinson, then you really are a slow builder!
One very nice feature is the optional flaps. An additional RC servo is required to be installed in the wing root and all of the required hardware is included.
A look at the Flap Installation Video will show you how simple it is to install the flaps and the extra fun they add to this model make them well worth while.
The flaps need to be cut away from the wing, but the actuating levers are already installed. The servo is supposed to be glued in with a "removable glue". A tip I picked up is to tape the servo with a good brand of masking tape ( just one layer) and glue the tape to the model. When the servo needs to be removed, just remove the tape!
The photo shows the correct servo. It is a Parkzone PKZ 1090. This is a 3-wire digital servo with metal gears.