Retracts - What is the Story?

In discussions at Cashmoor on Saturday it is rumoured that Jetcraft and E-flite are no longer producing electric retracts. Leaving HK crap retracts to the market!

Is this fact or are there alternatives. Personally I am not keen on air retracts.

Future possible purchases of airframes mean fixed gear models then???

PhilF51 wrote: In discussions at Cashmoor on Saturday it is rumoured that Jetcraft and E-flite are no longer producing electric retracts. Leaving HK crap retracts to the market!

Is this fact or are there alternatives. Personally I am not keen on air retracts.

Future possible purchases of airframes mean
fixed gear models then???

Phil, I use Electron retracts in all my models now,
more expensive but real quality

Are the JP units available? They certainly look very similar if not identical to the Jetcraft units at a similar price point too.

Those Electron retracts look nice, but again, they are expensive if you're putting them in a model where all other items together cost less than retracts alone.

It will be interesting to see how the cheap HK units work. I got a trike set last year and the mains worked fine, but the nose leg failed after a few goes. Going for a non-steering nose leg would allow the use of a main leg in the nose too, which is what Chris is planning to do, I think. I really hope they work because I'm building on a really tight budget these days and find it hard to justify £200 on one item

Here you go Phil, my initial experience with the cheap Hobby King retracts, and today's fun with fibreglass:

scratchbuild.wordpress.com/2016/03/05/retracts-part-1/

Glad to see they have metal trunions But they look identical to the Retracts found in my FMS & Century big foamie warbirds. On a less than perfect landing one retract casing was forced open and the trunion dropped out. Bah! Broken prop and a few dents in wing.

Not to put you off Chris but I hope these stand up to the test of time.

Pictured is the one from the Dago Red Mustang being replaced by EFlites. Only the mounting holes were slightly different but elongating the holes made a it a direct swap.

Good to see that progress is being made.