Comet kits need another chance.

[Jimmy]

Sterling ! Goodness sake. I'm almost 70 (May - 30) I built my first Ringmaster when I maybe 9. Went to the Junior Grand Nationals in Gridley California with it . Recovering alcoholic (27 years) Viet Nam Vet (67-68). Just diagnosed with cancer. I'm going to build airplanes until the day I die. It's a dying art. One of my boys took an interest in building. Found out about girls and cars. Tried to warn him. Airplanes won't mess with ya head ! That's a fact. He died in Iraq. Check out, Michael C. Balsley in Google. (Sorry Mark. Some how I felt the need to open my soul for a second)

[kittyfritters]

If I understand the story correctly, when Guillow bought Comet the main objective was to get the RTF models that Comet was producing at the time. When Guillow's staff arrived to take over the property the place was in disarray, and when they finally found the originals of the kit plans they were out back in a dumpster! These were recovered and sent to the Guillow's plant but the majority of them were lost in a fire a few years later. What Comet plans are available are from modelers who had the kits and scanned the plans. If you check the available plans on web sites (try Outerzone) and forums (http://hippocketaeronautics.com/ and several Comet forums on Yahoo) against the Comet catalogs you will find that many of the plans are missing. This may not be much of a problem since Comet made models of the same planes in different series.

Anyway, it would probably make more business sense for Guillow to expand some of their existing lines with modern day derivatives of some of the Comet kits. The current Guillow design standards make for a lighter more flyable model, built out of the box, than the older kits and the Comet designs required a bit of experience and a few mods to make them fly well anyway. It all hinges on whether or not Guillow perceives a market need and financial opportunity for such models. "Scratch building" from classic plans is fun and relatively inexpensive, as we all know, but putting a model into kit takes time and money and there must be a market that allows you to profit from doing it. (Believe me, I know!)

Howard
(Kittyfritters)

[scigs30]

I agree with Howard completely. I am finishing up an old Comet Taylor Cub right now built out of the box and it is a lot o
fun. I would rather see Guillows convert their entire current line of kits to laser cut and bring back some of their discontinued kits. Of course it would be nice to see some new designs.

[heywooood]

Sterling ! Goodness sake. I'm almost 70 (May - 30) I built my first Ringmaster when I maybe 9. Went to the Junior Grand Nationals in Gridley California with it . Recovering alcoholic (27 years) Viet Nam Vet (67-68). Just diagnosed with cancer. I'm going to build airplanes until the day I die. It's a dying art. One of my boys took an interest in building. Found out about girls and cars. Tried to warn him. Airplanes won't mess with ya head ! That's a fact. He died in Iraq. Check out, Michael C. Balsley in Google. (Sorry Mark. Some how I felt the need to open my soul for a second)

Sorry for your loss, Jim and I thank you for your service and the service of your son to your Country.

[Chris A.]

I still have a number of Comet kits for the second time around on favorites like the Spitfire Mk IX, the Allison engine P 51, the P 47D and a cut out P 38. I like the kit size and the fact they build up lighter than the equivalent Guillows. I've always thought the kits were well engineered. If you consider the kits as sort of the starting point that allows you to add as much detail as you want. I search the internet sites where you can pick up colors, source your own decals and add details to the models. The kits I have only contained wheels, a prop, nose plug and wire hook, and a piece of clear plastic sheet along with the wood, plan and covering material. You have to build it out from cutting all the formers from the printwood sheets. I put each sheet of uncut printwood on a printer for a mirror image copy, then put the copy face down on much lighter contest balsa and press a sponge soaked in acetone through the paper onto the balsa. This makes a crisp positive duplicate of the original printwood with much lighter balsa parts that are much easier to cut out of the wood. Do this outside as acetone is nasty stuff and highly flammable. The original printwood sheets then go back in the box along with the original plans and covering material as I work using the plan copy and aftermarket colored tissue. I still need to add the Comet Hellcat and Corsair to the collection but really all I need is the plan and a copy of the printwood sets. I was very lucky when a friend made a mold and started making P 38 canopies for his Comet P 38, it really makes the kit complete. Cutting out printwood is tedious, so I precut the entire printwood set putting parts for each major assembly in a separate parts box. As I often make a mistake or break a part, I can just go back and make a duplicate.

[scigs30]

Here is my Comet kit, built out of the box with no modifications ready to cover. I know there are a lot of mods I could make to produce a better model, but then it would not be a vintage Comet kit. I was going to use colored tissue, but I think I really want to use the supplied white tissue. Either I will leave it white or airbrush lightly with color, still have not decided.

[mustangman]

It would be nice if they could reproduce some of the comet kits with laser cut wood. I suppose it would be too costly as stated the plans or dies were lost in the fire. there are kits out there they could buy and redo I'm sure, probably not feasible. mark

[Bill Gaylord]

DPC Aerowerkes does produce a number of the popular Sterling and Comet kits, with LC wood.
http://dpcmodels.homestead.com/srks.html
They may sell more if they were an Ebay vendor or had instant Paypal purchase at their site, but I understand the vendor's various reasons for not doing that, such as not wanting to sell what they don't have readily cut on hand. You can make an order request, and they will respond with an order/payment invoice. Still, I don't believe they are selling in much quantity. The appeal of the Guillow's kits is that they are full kits, with molded plastic cowls, canopies, and detail parts, which allow the average modeler to build a decent looking scale model. Many of the Comet kits did not have the molded parts and canopies. The x-wing kits are pretty much out of the question, as the x-wing rib appearance is horribly off scale. I built two of the Super Stars kits (below) with molded plastic parts. The plastic molding/fit was poor, as well as the balsa parts, and the wings were redesigned for parallel rib construction. They also have the heavy tube. It would be much easier to start from scratch, than to attempt to improve and bring back those kits. Case it point is that I built the C-150, purely for the novelty of having the only E-conversion, as far as I know of. It would have been easier to enlarge my Guillow's C150 plans and fabricate my own cowl cap, while the windows could be easily made from flat clear sheet stock. With DPC making LC versions of the popular smaller Comet kits, it probably doesn't leave much, other than subjects like the larger Comet Aeronca. I would imagine DPC would have reproduced that kit, if there was a market. Looking at the market for those type of stick and tissue builds, without detail parts such as molded cowls, it appears that it is geared toward rubber flyers at the smaller scales.

[David Lewis]

To minimize tooling, Guillows could offer the Comet kits with good wood and printed sheets, no die crunch or laser cut. Cost could be kept low, plastic parts, plans, etc are easily produced.

Hi Elkhart. My guess is projected sales volume is too low to make it worthwhile. They'd probably need an elaborate, expensive advertising/marketing campaign to have any hope, considering current conditions. I hope they'll always be around but hobby dealers who sell balsa stock and scratch builder supplies are dwindling.

[Bill Gaylord]

That's exactly it. At Ebay there used to be piles of these NIB models for sale. It's been dropping off a bit, likely due to increasing shipping costs, and the supply outnumbering the demand, which lowers prices, making sales less worthwhile. There still are quite a few of them there however. The printwood kits generally used better wood also. A vendor producing the kits new would have to compete with the NOS kits, which probably would not allow for desirable pricing on their end.

[scigs30]

Here is a Comet kit built out of the box, and yes she flies. I used everything in the box with no modifications.

[bsadonkill]

There are a lot of old Comet plans avaliable on OUTERZONE . UK . COM . . With that said i need to point out that the dimentions of some of the down loads are different then the origianal size. For example , i down loaded a Comet Bluebird with a 20 inch wing span on to a 11 by 8 inch sheet of paper. I had to have the plan blowen up 262% to get it to its correct size. Now with that said , i checked out many of their plans and found many to be the correct size. Many of the plans from the 60s and 70s are avaliable , along with paper print outs of the original print wood .

[flying t]

comet kits are part of our American history,there are facebook groups dedicated to this dieing hobby and old guys like me are getting a big kick out of building a kit from our young days,i love comet kits but don't have money to buy old kits on ebaynation,bought a continentalma kit and made a copy of it,guillows could sell a lot of comet kits right now,they should reissue the guillow kits from the 30s,too,i bash balsa too,scratch built a few comets,building the 900 series mustang and waiting to build a typhoon,rember startrek got 1 more year cause of fans,email guillows corp.