mikehannah

Hi Folks
I have just ordered a Groove with the West 50. Mainly as a bit of low cost fun. Having read this forum which suggests the Tailplane is a weak part of the plane what mods do people reocommend tobeef it up. and will this void any gaurantee the plane may come with.
I have bought it mainly as a F3A practice machine( damn site cheaper than my high pond sterling F3A animals) but also for a bit of 3D fun.

Mike

Sprink

They are pretty good, but they are not THAT good. I have the 56 in a Seduction Wildstyle, and it has no problems pulling that round, but it weighs slightly less than 4 lb, where as the groove I would expect to be 5lb or a bit more.

Mike, would be surprised if adding a brace would void any warranty.

Shahid

I heard of Irvines, and this happened to mine too. If you get a black oil (you'll notice it stright away) or liquids semming to come out of nowhere from the crankcase you gotta split! Though dont get this confused with the exhaust leaks, I got a NEW exhaust and that leaked, I have to apply extra back pressure just to start me engine...

Dont get me wrong they are great engines but news of other crankcase splits has got me thinking, maybe it was just a batch of bad metal vertainly Dave what you have said with your 6 Irvines seems to point it in that direction.

JIMBO D

Mike, before you worry about beefing the tail up voiding the warranty,consider if the warranty would cover the tail falling off in the first place!! My guess is it would't, but it might be worth phoning Weston and finding out.

Jim

miskin

hi all

anyone out there flying the groove yet ? i would like to know how they perform. i quite fancy one .... the tail plane problem sound exactly what happened to my hype as i only live 20 minutes away from weston's a quick drive down to see alan and 5 minutes later i walk out with a brand new one (free of charge ).. i braced the tail plane on the new hype and never had a problem after that

i will be running a OS 50 SX in the groove (when i get it) what servo are you guy's using??


miskin

jolly_roger_uk

I think we need to get one thing straight, how many of you guys have experienced this tail plane problem and how many of you are flying this model (3d etc etc) with no modification. So far i seem to hearing conflicting stories, some say that the tail plane fell apart during straight and level flight, yet others say that they can perform full throttle walls / parachutes with no problem. Could it just be down to cutting too deep when removing the covering from the tailplane or a bad batch of models?????

Your thoughts.....

simon Ka

Let me try to clear this up. I designed the Groove for Westons with advice and prototype feedback from The Boy.

The first and second protypes were both flown and tested with extremely violent manouvres with absoloutely no problems.

We were both very happy with the development and final result, however Westons had their own man test fly the Groove after Sandown
and decided to change the stab design ......whether the construction was made lighter I don't know as I don't have anything to do with them thesedays, but the total stab area was increased.

There are a few out there now, and I only see one report of a tail breaking and that was with the grain running the wrong way. So I believe
the likely cause of this is a factory cock-up and its a one off. However, Grooves, Hypes any thing of this ilk, its always worth adding some bracing.....some of you 3D hooligans put these lightweight planes under pretty severe stresses.

bri neasham

Hope it was just me being unlucky receiving a kit with a faulty tail, ref the grain direction.
Something i would definitely check for though.

As i said in my earlier post the tail didn't fail due to flutter, abuse in the air or cutting the tail when trimming the covering, it did simply break off when flying straight & level at moderate speed. Suprisingly the handling felt just the same with half a tail!!

After sticking the tail back on and adding bracing it has so far defied all attempts to deliberately break it in the air!

Regards

Brian

The boys Back

if it felt the same with half the tail missing, it begs the question why they increased the tail area from the prototype!
increasing the aria without changing the design is dangerous as increasing the aria increases the load and flexibility. if it flexes it will flutter.

Bri, i would think your tail fluttered off, when i say flutter it could have been just 1 pitch one way then off on the other (too fast to see ) and it would give the impression that it just broke off.

i would be tempted to brace the tail if i built one (although as mentioned before i put the prototypes through "HELL" and nothing broke off, including a downwind dead stick which flattened the undercarriage but all the woodwork was in tact)

simon Ka

Less is more.........more or less

Baron UK

The grain direction is the SAME on all of them. They all run with the grain nose to tail. I checked [:@]

mikehannah

Okay so it may have a problem and it may not. I will find out in the New Year.
So what servos are people recommending for the beast?

Mike

thewww

getting back to you original question i had the west t50 on my groove when it was first flown with the correct pipe it flew ok but needed a lot of weight at the front to get the COG correct i thought this was wrong as this plane was supposed to be designed for that engine , on the third flight the pipe broke away at the welding near the manifold and went straight through the wing on landing, i have since changed the engine for a JEN56 with the quiet silencer and there seems to be very little difference in the power if any , but i have been able to remove the big chunk of lead from the front and the plane flys a lot better , try a JEN56 if you get a chance

J100PRO

Take a look at the thread "Tail Failure Weston Groove" You are not alone!!.
I have sorted my Groove out, details are in the above thread.
J.P.