What's the lowest cost to get a jet in the air?

[stuart cotgrove]

As in the title, always seems just that bit too expensive.

How cheaply have some of you done it please?

[stewart clifford]

If you went secondhand I reckon about £1500, I have a Fly Eagle Jet F16 coming up for sale very soon. It will be just the airframe and retracts, it currently has a Jetcat P80 for power. You can pick those engines up at reasonable prices.

Stewart

[chris_bell]

I managed to get a Fully rigged Hotspot for £1300 with a jetcat P80.

Bargins are around to be had - if you keep your ear to the ground..

Things to be aware of though - some turbines are not all they appear to be - i'd never buy one I hadn't seen running. Though personally i'd really feel hapier knowing the person who's selling it... I've heard some horror stories..

Also the old P80's are down on power compaired to the new models - but still cracking turbines.

Chris

[Andy Boylett]

I got an unused Eurofighter, brand new, fully complete with all servos and retracts (only cheap air spring legs though) for £430. It was complete with an OS91VRDF Ramtech ducted fan unit, which I am now selling. The plane can have a turbine and one of my local club members has one installed.

However, as I am using electric it now has a 5Kw EDF (electric ducted fan) http://www.edfjetsandfoamies.com/ramtec-scorpion-120-fan-unit-103-p.asp
This produces 8kg of thrust (not sure what turbine that is equivalent to).

Andy

[Jason Griffiths]

http://www.bmfaclassifieds.co.uk/detail.php?id=50153

[Barrie King]

Stuart, I found the best way is to get an engine then design your own plane for it, mine is fitted with a Wren 44 and based on an Acrowot wing and tail feathers, great off grass, and cost less than £100 excluding the engine of course.

[Vince Raia]

Hi Stuart, I am now into jets more than prop jobs, (and I'm not made of money!!) I started off by getting a good basic training model, and one that most people start with is a Boomerang Intro, It's a nice wooden airframe that you can pick up cheaply, they normally go for anything up to £350. (I got mine off Tony Hooper ready to fly as I part exchanged another model plus a couple of hundred quid)

the great thing about the Intro is, if you don't like the colour or it's a bit tatty, you can recover it as I have done in a scheme you fancy. (you have probably seen my avatar on RCMF)

Of course the biggest outlay is for a turbine, and as Chris said, you can get an early P60/70/80 or Wren 54 for anything around £700-£850 as long as you go and see it running when you buy it, and take someone like Steve Mitchell with you to make sure it's okay, your rocking. the only problem with the early JC's was their pick-up from idle was slower but as long as you don't go below a 1/4 throttle, it will pick up okay.

Also the cheapest option is to get a Boomer with fixed U/C or the basic piano wire retracts, as the fancy ones are expensive.
You can use standard servos on the model, but use something like an 8411 on the elevator, trouble is, once you get the bug ...............

Good luck Stuey, HTH.

Vince.

[Dave Parry]

I don’t have a Jet Turbine Plane, but if I decided to get one then I would go with Barry Kings Jet trainer, that look great for around £100, nice one Barry, you should sell the plans for that.

[Barrie King]

Thanks for that Dave, the other 4 in the name is due to the fact that the fuselage is 4inch wide all the way from the tail to near the nose, made the build so much easier and each side is cut out of one piece of lite ply.

[Tom Nohr]

Buy a used turbine in the 2-4kg range and get a epo plane made for 90mm fan and you have a cheap jet. like mine skysword
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y-uqjO7oTw&t=4s

[David Baker]

How long is a piece of string?
Keep looking at the for sales on here and on the Bmfa classifieds..
Get yourself a nice “low hour” Kero start 80n turbine for about £750. (Make sure you see it do a cold and hot start!)
Then get a cheap as chips used Mick Reaves Reaper airframe! It’s a delta with canard elevators and has all the benefits of a delta.. Seriously.. the kit is only around £300 for brand new! Great value!
Ignore any sort of retracts... major pain in the backside! Just screw a fixed u/c on it
And fly the pants off it...
The reaper I fly.. I had given to me! The other I own as a spare? Was £36 off eBay complete with air up air down retracts..
I hope you get sorted soon and enjoy burning the Kero!

[Lee scholey]

Hi there in the coming months I am hoping to be putting out some kits for the lower end jet flying where you don't have to spend thousands for a basic kit

[Olivier_Vandebroucke]

Then it depends on how much you're doing by yourself, of course. Sure, even a second hand entry level turbine will fetch a price in the upper third of 3 digit prices, but you can reduce massively the cost of the rest of the plane if you're doing it yourself instead of buying off-the-shelf kits.
But then, it'll take MUCH more time, the raw materials aren't free either, and it requires some skills lest you want your much awaited plane to crash after its frist take-off.