Senior Telemaster Plus (OVERSIZE)

The kit was quite enjoyable to assemble, but not trouble-free. The mis-alignment problem of the tailwheel bracket holes and the mis-drilled hole in the rudder have been addressed and are now correct. The issue with the split elevator joiner wires being too long has also been addressed and is now correct. Since transportation is not an issue for me, I elected to glue the stab halves on permenantly. I made a new one- piece elevator joiner wire, but the stock set-up would have worked well, just not needed in this case. The stab halves slid easily on the alum. spars and they fit well against the fuse sides without alignment problems.
The main wing spar paper tube that spans the fuse had started to unravel a bit and required a little CA to fix, but not a big issue. There were no problems encountered with the wings. The color of the alum. wing struts do not match the aircraft and are a deep burgandy color. I may paint these eventually, but they are not a big distraction for me.
The landing gear is nice, painted red, and the color does match. I did not like the very hard 4" foam tires supplied with the kit and installed 5.5 inch Dubro inflatable tires. There is plenty of axle to mount any tire.
The only thing I found regarding the hardware is the screws for the elevator control horn were a bit short. There are short screws for the rudder horn and longer screws for the elevator, but even the longest screws were a bit short. A look in my parts bin solved that.
I felt the motor box needed reinforced. Even though the motorbox is bolted and pinned to the firewall, in reality there are only two tabs that mechanically take the thrust of the motor. The factory glue joints (of the motorbox) were incomplete where needed, and the glue was slopped on in other places. The mounting ring of the motorbox could be pulled away from the extension box in two places on the one in this kit. After picking the excess factory glue off, I epoxied triangle stock on every joint inside and outside of the motorbox. This substantially increased its strength. The motorbox has 4 tabs that insert through the firewall. There is a hole in each of these tabs. There are 4 short lengths of what looks like maybe fiberglass rods inserted through the tabs and this pins the motorbox to the firewall. These rods needed a little wood shim in front of them to engage the back of the firewall properly.
The airplane fllys beautifully, just like a Telemaster should. My CG is well behind 6" and I may move it back even a bit more. The only other thing I plan to change is the access hatch on the belly. I will replace the screws with magnets.
The motorbox contruction keeps this version from rating 5 stars. It really needs to be properly constructed from the factory since this is a high stress area and new assemblers/flyers may not evaluate it closely enough.
Take your time and enjoy the assembly. I'm looking forward to the laser-cut kit version! Harold

This kit is very uneven. Good hardware is mixed with poor quality fittings. The plastic for the aileron and elevator hinges look beefy, but are brittle and the plastic is easily broken. The post-style control horns for ailerons and flaps came with horns that were too big for the threads. I ended up using my own. There were a number of screws and bolts missing, though surprisingly, I ended up with a bunch of other bolts left over.
The tail and vertical stab have been problematic with this model and mine was no exception. The tail wheel assembly is nice, but the tail wheel mounting plate had the holes drilled in the wrong place, and the stab needed a fair amount of sanding to fit correctly. It is important to dry-fit everything before gluing or you could end up in trouble. I don't like the connection of the two elevator halves. It is very difficult to get them aligned with each other and the connection is not very robust.
The color of the struts is not even close to that of the red covering. They look like they should be on another model.
The flaps and pinned wing halves are a good addition, and the fuselage has a ton of interior volume, but consider that this volume comes at the cost of additional drag with no gain in lift, as the wing area is the same as the older Sr. Telemaster.
Nothing else may fly like a Telemaster, but until the factory makes a few improvements and takes care of the quality issues, there are plenty of other ARF's that assemble better than a Telemaster.

OK. Here we go. As you can see by my first review, that I had an aileron issue, that the support people took care of right away. As I started to put the plane together, I saw that the fuse was a good clean strong build, and the covering had no wrinkles at all. Getting into the building, I found that the tail feathers did not work as good as they looked. As was mentioned in one of the other reviews, the tail wheel did not fit without doing some modifacition. The U connector for the elevator, did not fit and I had to make a new one. while I was doing some CA work I spilled some alcohol on the rudder and all of the decals desolved. I'm waiting for some calm weather so that I can Maidien fly the Plus.I have 2 Seniors of which one is a Plus, and I am waiting to see if they all fly alike. The Plus is powered by an 80 Rimfire, swinging a 13x8 prop. My other one is just a Senior powered by an 80 Rimfire, ecept it is swinging a 14x7 prop.

Out of the box the left aileron was smashed. Called hobby-lobby and they ask for me to ship it back. I declined because I wasn't going to pay another $40 dollars for shipping. Everyone else gets the plane for $400 dollars and I have to pay $440. Didn't seem fair. I pulled the coating back off the aileron and repaired it myself. Wings went together pretty easy. It looks good if you can slow the servos down for the flaps. I have mine set to 10 seconds. Next I continued to build the tail. I didn't care for the flimsy control horns for the tail, so I threw them away and replaced them with a single pole by Debro. While building the tail I noticed that the tail wheel hole on the rudder was about 1 inch to far north. I aligned it up and drilled a hole in the correct spot. Next I started installing the motor. The blind nuts on the back of the firewall are pretty weak and I ended up stripping two of them. I just used nuts behind the blind nuts and I feel a lot better about that. Overall I think it could be manufacture with a little more care and I find it funny that most of the hardware is awesome but them some junk was thrown into the mix. On a final not the tail wheel is really nice and I love the turnbuckle linkage. The plane will go up on its maiden this Saturday and I should have a youtube vid up by Sunday.

Got my new Tele Plus on Friday. I was immediately impressed with the construction of the fuselage. Light but appears to be very strong. Looks like a carbon fiber rod running the length of the fuse on both sides. The covering is bubble and wrinkle free and the design is well done. It came with two bottom hatch doors, one apparently is to hold a camera. The instructions do not mention it, so no clue as to which camera model or brand will fit. The area behind the bottom hatch is huge. I plan to use it for candy drops and a video platform.
I am going to power with a G20 gas that will require me to modify the firewall and remove the front cheeks to clear the carb and muffler. I am currently researching some type of cowling to clean up the front end.

So far the only thing I plan not to use are the wheels.Cheesey hard foam and one of the wheels does not look to be round. The wheel collars have Phillips screws instead of a hex head. A kit this expensive should have better wheels and hardware. The rest of the control hardware looks great.
Will report back when I have it in the air.

I am rating this review as a 5 star, but it is not just the airplane, but the support group as well. I think I may be one of the first few to order the "Senior Plus". When the item arrived, it got here as scheduled. The first thing as always, I did an inventory on the parts. Everything was there, even some extra things which I could not firure out where there went. The packing was for the most part good, except for the tail feathers. The bag that contained the elevators, rudder, and control surfaces for each was just flopping around. Also the wing struts had come loose from the tape holding them down. Some how all of this caused the left aileron control to be broken in 3 places on the trailing edge. As on the old telemaster, the instruction booklet leaves alot to be desired. Trying to figure out where all of the parts go was really confusing. I am glad that I know how to figure screw sizes. After taking invenory of the parts, I had to call support to find out where the extra parts go. I reached support, and got a call back quite fast, compared to some of the other large hobby shops. It seems that being one of the first few to buy the " Plus", it took some checking up to find the answer to some of my questions. All of my questions were answered,and people even had to go to the warehouse and open up a new box. I happened to get one of the proto-type planes, and it was set up for several different configurestions. When they found out about the broken aileron, I had a new one in 3 days. Hobby-Lobby makes it easy to work with, and they do their best to get you into air asap. The " Plus" is quite different from the old Senior Telemaster, but if it holds true, "Nothing fly's like a Telemaster."