submikester

My Feedback: (6)

Well, I maidened my Sportsman Aviation Corsair. I took a couple of weeks to build it and it came out quite nice. It took off very comfortably and required almost zero trip adjustment but on the final approach turn for a third pass at about half throttle one half (the left I think) of the horizontal stab broke off ab out where it meets the fuse and took that elevator with it of course. I'd never had anything like this happen and I was still able to control it so I completed that circle and brought her down for a landing. The stab did not break clean off but it did break pretty close to the root where it meets the fuse (not quite where I cut the covering off but close). I don't think it was related to my removal of the covering for installation. I have a friend with this plane and after the flight we compared stiffness of the stab with what remained to his and his was much stiffer, very noticable difference.

The landing was pretty good- I did not have the elevator control to keep it from nosing over so the cowl took a little scraping but all in all it's very repairable. The problem is, I didn't buy an ARF to have to rebuild the tail. If I wanted to BUILD a corsair I would have bought the kit. My feeling is that the kit is faulty in that the wood in the tail is too soft, I plan on contacting Hobby People via email to start with to see what remedy they are willing to make.

My initial feeling however is that they either should replace the fuse, tail and cowl (at least) or refund my money (and take back the plane). The damage is repairable of course and I could repair it but to maintain the beauty of the airplane it would require that I purchase a roll of covering and rebuild the horizontal stabilizer. Again, not difficult but time consuming and I would have to order the covering from someone else since I don't believe they carry oracover (I want the repairs to match of course).

So, that's my experience so far. I will say some good things now...This is an EXTREMELY nice plane and with the exception of my problems I would not hesitate to get another. In fact that is likely what I will do if they simply refund my money. I Will however brace the tail (my buddy is going to brace his just in case). The hardware included is very good, the instructions are very good and the overall quality was excellent I felt. It was well built and came from a well cut kit (laser cut it looks like). The covering job was excellent and the short flight that I had was very encouraging. The landing gear operated wonderfully and required very little effort on 4.8 volts with a Cirrus retract servo.

Even with the problems I am still happy with it, I just hope that Global stands behind their product. I've been a long time customer and been pleased with their service in the past but I've never had anything like this happen before.

Bob Laine

My Feedback: (91)

Are you sure that you didn't score a faint cut line in the balsa when you trimmed the monokote to epoxy the "Stab, on? (if you had to glue it on. That happens more often than most of us realize. I use a soldering iron to cut my monokote. Bob

submikester

My Feedback: (6)

I cut it with a brand new blade, always do. There is almost always a hint of the cut in the wood and that is all there is here - a hint of a the cut. I couldn't even measure it in millimeters (maybe a 10th of one and no more than the mark I made depressed the wood to note the line I was to cut).

I followed the instructions; the wood is too soft and failed for that reason - there is no doubt in my mind of that.

Bob Laine

My Feedback: (91)

Submikester... sorry for you mishap but sometimes the very faintest of trace in the balsa, is all it takes for a component to fail. (especially if the balsa is soft) Thats what it sounds like to me but just my opinion from my past experiences with trimming the monokote, in order to glue on the stab. Good luck with the manufacturer. Bob

chashint

I would be interested in knowing the outcome with Hobby People.

submikester

My Feedback: (6)

Bob, I appreciate you observation but if the balsa is that soft it's got no business being used in a location where it might fail in that way. I just should have braced it, that damage of course is done now. I've emailed Hobby People's customer service, hopefully they will respond quickly next week.

forestroke

this is why i am adamant that for those places that require trimming covering stuck to balsa, i will always use the soldering iron method. just not worth the risk of having a stab fail. i have this plane and will be very careful when preparing the stab for glue. thanks!!!

NM2K

My Feedback: (14)

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A simple score line should not be sufficient to cause component failure, especially in view of the fact that cutting is required in that area each and every time a model is assembled.

There should have been some form of bracing incorporated into the stab's construction to prevent such a failure. Many kits use a scabbed on internal brace utilizing lite ply across said junctions. At the very least a balsa brace is utilized.

I doubt that you will have a problem with Hobby People in the resolution of this problem. A new kit, with a prepaid shipping chit for the return of the old model will probably be the result. I'm wearing my Carnack turban. <G>

submikester

My Feedback: (6)

So far no response from them. I sent them an email on Sunday and left them a message today and resent the email today.

submikester

My Feedback: (6)

I called them again today and they are going to take care of it. Good on them!

da Rock

Score lines should be as slight as possible, but if you exercise some common sense, they're no problem. Matter of fact, if you consider the situation and make sure that you get some epoxy over the score, the area will be stronger for it. And if you follow up with some CA along the seam line, the score will soak CA and be even stronger. I don't think I've ever seen a stab failure from a score line, but I've seen a number from lousy balsa.

Matter of fact, a buddy of mine just had a CAP 232 ARF he got from Atlanta hobby blow it's stab on the 2nd flight. The balsa was junk. Pity that he didn't send Atlanta Hobby a picture of the stuff, and they wouldn't take his word for it. (Truth is, you can't really blame any retailer for wanting proof.) So he's out the $110 + shipping because his ARF was built by labor that has no feel for model airplane demands.

Keep in mind that the people in the ARF "factories" aren't modelers.

da Rock

BTW, the lesson to teach from this is that we should all learn to cut that covering as carefully as possible, AND THEN............

LOOK AT THE QUALITY OF THE WOOD EXPOSED.

I've only been assembling ARFs for a year now, but have already run into a couple that had questionably soft wood back there. When I saw the "quality" of the wood, they got the bottom covering pulled and the wood reinforced.

This is one detail that we do have some control over. We get the chance to look at the wood. Make the most of it.

submikester

My Feedback: (6)

Well, I got the replacement ARF today and opened it up. Inspected the horizontal stab and it's just as bad as the one I had inthe original.

I'm a little bit at a loss to be honest. On the one hand they have sent me an entirely new model which is great support but it has the same problem and will have the same results unless I reinforce it somehow. My initial inclination is to reinforce it using aluminum tubing (thick wall not thin wall) on the bottom on each side of the stab. The other idea was to use some triangle stock to reinfoce it at the point of entry to the fuse or both.

As I said before, I have a friend with the exact same model and his is MUCH stiffer than mine.

Of course I could just go back to them and say that this one is just as bad and will end up with the same result. I'm going to go by the store I think on Friday with the stab in hand to see how the Manager sees it.

I appreciate that they sent me a new model, greatly in fact, because I really like it. Still, I'm frustrated - obviously.

submikester

My Feedback: (6)

I went by my local store where I know the manager (didn't expect any favors though), I took the stab to him and asked him if he thought it was too soft but before I could even finish the sentence he was flexing it and saying how soft it was. His comment was that it might work for an electric but not a 4 stroke (which he knows is pretty much all I have) so he took it and said he would call the support guys up to get me a good one.

Generally good service, just wish I didn't have to go through all this.

Good service though...I had the stuff in hand to simply rig it up with reinforcement.

gungalo

i had the elevator on my s.a. corsair break also!! i was flying on my first flight when it happened. i was so mad because after it happend the plane ended up in salt water. i got the engine back but the electronics were junk. when i had installed the elevator i had used a soldering iron to burn the covering away!!!!!! i know its not me!!! the quality of that piece is not as good as the rest of the kit

da Rock

I know this isn't what a lot of ARF builders want to hear, but here goes........

Building ARFs will teach you the same lessons the old guys learned building kits. We didn't know which balsa to use for what until we had a failure with the weak stuff or with the wrong stuff. But we learned not to use weak stuff. You're learning that now too.

Next time you start to assemble an ARF, test all the parts that you can. If any seem weak to you, that's the time to either strengthen them or return the ARF. If anything didn't seem weak that later failed, autopsy the broken stuff and try to learn why it failed. Us old guys learned the same lessons, only we had just a little more inside information than you're going to have. But it's the same lesson. You're just learning it differently.

If you're the type who feels everything is the responsibility of the ARF mfg, then when you see anything that's apparently weak, return the ARF right up front. If you're the type who has no time to fix their mistakes, you'll save yourself time in the long run. You've already lost some time and no way to recover that.

But if you're the type who is competent to take the next step do it. It's just a model. And repairing them before they fail ain't such a bad thing to do. You're really taking more control over the situation and it's to your benefit. You're learning to spot flawed ARFs and learning to "pre-fix" them. You're learning the same stuff us old modelers had no choice but learn. And you got somebody else to blame. But if you don't learn it, having somebody else to blame or not, you're wasting more time and wasting more money than someone else who learns to inspect and pre-fix.

And you'll have longer flying sessions with the same ARFs.

You know, if none of you learn how to actually inspect an ARF beforehand or how to prefix them, you're all going to wind up totally at the mercy of them Chinese toy makers. And they're going to be able to produce even less quality ARFs.

da Rock

I got a Sportsman Avaiation Corsair in a box in the shop. It's 2nd in line to assemble. Trust me, it'll get a jaundiced look with a weathered eye........ ok, ok....... less purple prose............ Trust me, it will be inspected closely while it's being assembed. And fixing whatever needs fixing won't take a tenth the time it'd take to deal with the mfg/distributor and maybe send it back or eat it. And when it makes it to the field it will fly safely.

Today, a guy with 3 years experience with ARFs blew his 140size warbird into pieces. That ARF should never have been sold, much less assembled. It was junk. It went in on it's 3rd or 4th flight. It had gone in on it's first flight as well. Looking through the wreckage there were a number of things he had no idea were fatal flaws. That sucker was going to wind up in a ball sooner or later. He learned from the experience. maybe.... Chances are good he won't be overlooking those details next time. He's learning. And about the only way that's available to him nowadays.

submikester

My Feedback: (6)

Well; Life pretty much got in the way for a while and I didn't get around to starting the replacement kit until yesterday. I've got the wing together and the engine mounted (working on two benches). It's a pretty easy build so I don't expect it to take long. I'm actually hoping to have it in the air on Sunday morning but we'll see how much time I actually get to spend on it tomorrow morning.

While they replaced the ARF for me they were unable to come up with a strong enough horizontal stab. I bought a nice hard sheet of 1/4" balsa and made a new one and covered it tonight. It's quite a bit stronger than the original and I don't expect any problems from it. The monocote I had on hand also was a pretty close match.

I'll post more as I complete it.

EscapeFlyer

My Feedback: (1)

I noticed the same problem with mine, and fixed it before I could break it. I sheeted both sides of the elevator and added stringers to the elevator to create the "ribbing."

Here is what it looks like now:
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This baby is a pleasure to fly! [8D]

aghost

My Feedback: (13)

Submikester - thru a combination of a nose over a couple of years ago and hanger rash during transporting my H9 corsair, I had the vertical stab break at the fuse. I cleaned up the break area and epoxied it with 20 minute epoxy. Then I used a stiff wire with a flattened end to drill four holes down through the stab into the fuse. I coated four carbon fiber rods with epoxy and ran them into the drilled holes. Ended up with a solid joint.

Brian

da Rock

a_ghost,
Now that's clever. Great idea. Simple and not much work.

Guys,
you know, the people who're making these arfs actually have little or no real understanding of what they're building. Wood selection by those workers is simple. They just pick up the next stick and use it, no matter where they're putting it or what it looks like. Nowadays, the experienced flyers are the ones who know what to inspect in their ARFs. In the old days, the experienced flyers were the ones who knew what wood to replace in the kit they were building. Same concept really.

submikester

My Feedback: (6)

Well, I dorked up my VERTICAL stabilzer through a series of colloassal blunders while assembling it. Needless to say I Did not finsih the corsair this weekend. It's pretty well framed up though. I just started getting stupid on Saturday afternoon and kept trying to make my mistake "work" which just served to make things worse.

Basically I'm pretty darned dangerous with a sharp #11 blade.

Anyway, I need to pick up some 3/16" sheet now to make a new vertical stab which I will do this week. Maybe have it ready this weekend but I'm not totally sure, if not this weekend then most certainly next.

Still a good looking plane man...a friend of mine saw one go in yesterday at the field. I'm surprised there aren't more around. I only know of a handful at our field including my own.

EscapeFlyer

My Feedback: (1)

I just moved my retracts up to the leading edge on mine. That's about 3/4 of an inch forward. I'm hoping this will help stablize my rollouts and stop nose-overs.

While you have the stab still out of the plane, you should sheet it. The stock horzontal is too flimsy, and honestly, the vertical is also. Sheeting them fixes them before they have a chance to fail.

submikester

My Feedback: (6)

That failure (horizontal stab) was my original problem. After the first flight Hobby People replaced the arf for me. Then they tried to find a stab that wasn't so soft and were unable to. They offered me a full refund but I decided to keep it and make a new stab from sheet. Which I did and which seems to be great. I'll do the same for the vertical this week. I just have to stop by the LHS to get some 3/16" sheet.

submikester

My Feedback: (6)

Well, I've almost repaired the damage I did to the vertical stab. I just have to cover the one I made. I've test fit it as well as the rudder and it all looks good. Man I can't believe how badly I dorked things up.

Anyway; once that is done it's just final radio setup, cowl fitting and plumbing. I should be able to complete all of that by Sunday.

I'll try to get some pictures of my work today or tomorrow.