Mikecam

Well I'm in shock here. I have felt like I have been put through the ringer to get this plane. It all started as a Birthday gift for my son. We would build it together and then my son and I would be able to fly together at the same time. My son was very much looking forward to it. To keep a long story short here is the story on getting the Great Planes escapade.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_88...tm.htm#8823652

For those that don't want to read the whole story it pretty much gets summed like this. My son opened the plane for his birthday on may 5. It had 3 different holes in the covering. After waiting for a replacement it turned out Great planes had problems with there emails. So I received the plane about 4 weeks ago. Only 6 or so months late.
My son and I put it together and enjoyed doing it together. We have had great fall weather and today with a high of 9c and wind just 5km/h it was time for the maiden. I called my son's school and told them my son would not be in today, a family matter. My son was excited to get a chance to fly his plane and getting out of school for the day was icing on the cake.
Well the takeoff went perfect, lifted off and flew great. 1 click of elevator up and she flew hands off. I did a few passes to check on the trims then did a climb. With the OS 46fx the plane climbed very well. Brought her around and cut power and put her into a 45 degree dive. The plan was to bring her back down a bit and hand off to my son still fairly high. Well I never got the chance. I heard a flapping sound and looked up to see both elevator halves flapping behind the rudder. All 6 hinges had pulled out of the slots. All 6 appeared to have very little glue on them. Not a lot I could do. She went in hard and now I'm left with a engine that won't turn over, a 2.4 Futaba receiver that is in 2 pieces, 1 servo that looks okay out of 5 and a garbage bag full of balsa.

The look on my son's face will be forever etched into my head. The funny part is (you have to laugh sometimes) was that my son ended up consoling me. Here I was, a devastated 38 year old and my 11 year old son was telling me it was only a plane and that we could get another one and fly together next summer. Sometimes your kids really surprise you.

Here are some pictures, I did go through the escapade thread and I did wick some CA into the elevator joiner. I remember reading about elevator failures and that the joiner was not glued in, I also glued down the tail feathers to help with the problem. I pulled on all the surfaces but obviously not hard enough. What glue I do see looks like wood glue. The only part of the hinge with glue and splintered balsa was right at the end. The glue did not wick down into the slot.

For those of you with this plane it might be a good idea to wick some CA into all the hinges. It's possible that this failure has occurred already and I didn't read about it. I did check on Great Planes website for tech notices and read about the joiner and grabbing the canopy for starting. Nothing else.

I understand that this hobby has up's and downs and I know by next spring I'm sure I'll be gung ho to get flying but right now I'm happy to put everything away till next year. It's tough to think about all the work that went into this plane and know that no matter what we did the end result was going to be the same. The end result was predicted the day the worker put this Escapade in the box. I will email Great Planes with the pictures but I'm sure they will have another "email problem". Thanks for listening, I know it has been helpful to me to get this incident off my chest. So don't be afraid to give a good pull on those surfaces. Thanks

gboulton

My Feedback: (15)

No it wasn't. Like every other plane that goes in for similar reasons, it was "predicted" the moment you neglected to perform a thorough pre-flight on an airplane you didn't build.

Meesh

My Feedback: (135)

I doesn't look like there was enough of the hinge in the elevator. They don't look centered. I would agree with the glue (or lack of it) assessment.

Good luck with your case.

dignlivn

Mike,


Sorry for your loss, but as Winter sets in have
you thought about a KIT for the two of you ?
Buy two kits identical and build them together.

Bob

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

Mike, show those pics to Great Planes - chances are they will replace it

Flyin Beagle

My Feedback: (1)

Sorry for your bad fortune, but I must say that the next to last picture is some of the most impressive carnage I have seen in a while.

I remeber when I was in elementary school, I watched my dad bury his trainer about 6 inches deep into the middle of a rugby game at the local universities intramural fields. I t looked very similar to that, and that story continues to come up from time to time. Be glad your son probably thinks you are the greatest dad ever. After all you got him out of school to go fly airplanes, then gave him a good story to tell all of his buddies. And he can give you a hard time for destroying his birthday present for the rest of eterninty

Tcat1000

My Feedback: (34)

I fail to understand why folks don't take the time to PIN the hinges on both sides of the hinge line before taking a new bird to the field. Either scratch built.....kit built or ARF. It takes so litle time & probably would have saved this plane. I use "Midwest" small dowels from my local hobby shop or you could use round toothpicks.

After using only one drop on each side of hinge line, I drill the correct size hole for the dowel or toothpick, (two per hinge, on each half) insert the dowel, cut off both sides flush, carefully grind the dowel flush with the dremel & then go back & CA the hinge. This last CA also glues the dowel or toothpick in permantly. I then put a dab of correct color paint on the exposed dowel ends.

I know you don't have to do this & also you shouldn't have to.....BUT.......................

Hope it works out for ya..............Tcat

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

Simple - There's no reason to.

Any hinge that has been properly installed will not fail as this one did.

landeck

My Feedback: (1)

I am sorry for your loss. This is the very reason that I prefer ARFs that do not have the hinges pre glued in. I would rather do that step my self to be sure it is done right. I have an Escapade with a Magnum 46 XLS in it that I have been flying since early spring. I love the plane and it is one of the very best I have ever flown in 37 years of RC. In fact it ranks up there with the GP Ultra Sport 40 that I have been flying for the last 20 years. I would bet that Tower will replace it.

Bruce

Bax

My Feedback: (11)

After seeing this thread, we're having kits inspected to see what's up with the hinges. However, it's always a good idea to do a good preflight inspection to make sure nothing's wrong before you fly.

As always, if anyone has a difficulty with a Great Planes kit, we stand behind them. Just send the items to us with a note that explains the difficulty.

Also, every email gets our computer-generated autoreply. This answers a very large number of questions. However, if your question isn't answered, just hit the "reply" button in your email program and send it back to us. If you don't send it back to us, we'll never make another reply to your question. You don't have to type anything in, just send it back to us. Then, a tech will read it and get a reply to you.

Mikecam

Thank you Bax. Will ship the parts to you for inspection.

Thanks to everyone else for the reply's. Still new at this hobby but learning more and more every day.

dash008

My Feedback: (1)

Wow! Harsh... The guy yanked on the elevator, what more should he do? You should be able to trust that the product was built properly.

hugger-4641

My Feedback: (6)

I'm looking at the amount of balsa left on the hinges and thinking: "they should have been strong enough to survive at least one flight, unless it was a very high speed dive, or they were already broke loose before he took off". Does anyone agree?

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

11 years old, eh? I'll bet he is telling all his friends at school about the "cool" wreck his Dad did.

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

That DID occur to me. Flutter may have contributed as well. But there does appear to be a serious lack of glue there. And once one hinge lets go, it won't be long before the others follow

DenverJayhawk

Geez. He said he wicked glue in the elevator joiner and pulled on the elevator to check. What more do you expect? Great Planes advertises one of the features of this model is prehinged control surfaces. If they advertise this, then they need quality control measures to ensure it's done correctly.

Tcat1000

My Feedback: (34)

First of all, he stated above that he was new into this hobby, so lets give him a break. He's learning!

You guys are 100% correct. He paid for a complete bird, pre hinged & all. He should not have to re-glue Etc etc etc.

But.......I'll say it again............Pin the hinges! I just finished a Modeltech Magic 3D V2 & the hinges in the ail's........rudder.........& elevator come all glued in place. The first thing I did was to pin & re-glue all control surfaces!

Did I have to? NOPE! Should I have to? NOPE! Did I feel better after I did? YUP! Maybe that's why in my 29 years of crazy nutcase flying & training new club members, I have never lost a control surface.

I did the same thing to my Escapade & I fly the snot out of it. I have a 55 AX on it. No control issues on them or any other of my "way too many planes." (wife's words)

More than once I have had flutter in a steep-way too fast high speed dive & my bird lived to tell about it. I think I know why it came home to Papa in one piece.

I am not trying to impress anyone, just making a statement & again you are right in stating that you shouldn't have to pin or re-glue anything, but my Escapade don't look like the one in one of the above pics either!

If you get 10 flyers at the same field with the posters issue & questions, or anything else, you will get 10 different opinions, so I won't rattle on anymore & try to enforce MY opinion on anybody & will close with the following....................

A wise old Indian Chief (can't remember just who it was, sorry) once said that an once of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Hmmm................Maybe that statement just might fit here...............

Tcat1000

Tcat1000

My Feedback: (34)

Well..............maybe it wasn't an old Indian Chief...................

hugger-4641

My Feedback: (6)

I don't get mad, and I don't get even, I get one up!

Mikecam

Here's another picture of the underside of one of the hinges. No glue at all, the dark area is the small amount of glue and balsa on the top side. The balsa that is stuck on the hinge is very thin, again it looks like the glue did not wick at all into the hinge and slot. Live and learn, lots of good advice presented so far and if the crystal ball wasn't in the shop getting fixed this week I would have done some of them. Sometimes you just have to make a joke and laugh about it. Thanks for the kind words.

gboulton

My Feedback: (15)

I expect the same thing from every pilot...

A quality, thorough PRE-FLIGHT on every airplane, every time, with extra attention to detail when performing a maiden, particularly on an aircraft one didn't build.

This has nothing to do with whether or not an ARF or RTF "should" or "should not" require an owner to assemble, repair, or strengthen certain things. It has EVERYTHING to do with simply being thorough, and not risking yourself, your aircraft, or spectators unnecessarily.

Am I honestly to believe that an elevator held on with "very little glue" on the hinges, including at least one with "No glue at all"...an elevator that separated under normal flight loads because "All 6 hinges" pulled away from their slots... was throughly inspected and tested prior to flight? That by some miracle, the glue that held the elevator firmly in place when it was tugged on with sufficient force to identify such flaws suddenly ceased to function once the aircraft was airborne?

The OP just said "Live and learn". That's the lesson to be learned. The poor gluing job did not seal this aircraft's fate. The poor inspection process did.

MikeL

My Feedback: (3)

Do you fly ARFs? If so, on how many of them have you stripped the covering and inspected all of the glue joints? How thorough is thorough enough?

There are reasonable expectations in this hobby, as with all manufactured goods. The OP took reasonable steps to inspect his model. Just because the model failed does not mean that he did not do a reasonable inspection.

blhollo2

My Feedback: (278)

Even though the whole situation was NOT your fault,we have all been there if you fly long enough, be thankful for a really nice crash that will bring lasting memories so you can do a good flight check and once over..from the pics it looks like it was a sight to see, very nice crash debris field!..thats looking from the bright side of things!!

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

What is "sufficient force to identify such flaws"? Can you quantify it? Can that information be found anywhere that a beginner, or anyone else wanting to know, can readily find it. Do you test it until it fails just to make sure it was adequately glued? Last, but not least, is this a lesson your learned the hard way?

air mail rcu

Thank goodness nobody was hurt. Yes you should inspect everything you buy. Yes hinges should be pinned. Yes the glue should wick into the hinges. Yes we live in a imperfect world. Bottom line the manufacture did not glue the hinges properly. Bottom line they and only they are responsible for the plane ,motor, radio and any other thing that broke. Will they own up and replace everything? I doubt it. Not a fan of Great Pains....I mean Planes.

One good thing will come out of this. The next plane will have pinned hinges with better glue joints. Probably not from the manufacture.[] But hey,I could be wrong.