Chris Nicastro

My Feedback: (3)

I know a guy named John in WA that had this problem so thats no rumor either. I can ask him to give me the details but the bottom line was to strengthen the wing mounts. What Im asking about and looking for is to see if this is a real trend or just a couple individual problems.
Coming from experience with Chinese manufacturers in the hobby I know that QC and wood quality are nightmares to control. It would be no surprise to me if this is a persistent problem with any all wood ARF made in China. Its not a slam on TF,Tower Hobbies or Hobbico, its just a fact of life and a very difficult production issue to solve in our industry.

If there is a problem ltes get to the bottom of it and make sure people are aware to check the plane out.

First time Ive heard of flutter in the tail or horizontal stab. My concern is the wing mount.

karl hibbs

My Feedback: (6)

Chris, How do you know John? He has been a friend for a long time and I would say he is a very good builder, when he told me about the crash I was as surprised as any one else. I have since seen the inside of the wing where the bolts go through and the bearing area is only about 1.5" square under the bolts and nothing between the bolts but 1/16" balsa sheeting over the blocks that are very soft. what happens is the bolts end up crushing the blocks and split them. the flutter is very real and I have seen it with my own eyes .

Chris Nicastro

My Feedback: (3)

I met John through Roberto and he told me about John's incident and warned me to inspect mine.
So I thought I would bring this up and see who else has had an experience with this issue and what they did about it.
Im starting my assembly next week and Ill start a thread about it. Its getting a Saito 300 twin with a custom motor mount.

Did you see the tail flutter on the one John flew or was it another Corsair?

karl hibbs

My Feedback: (6)

The flutter was on a different gs TF corsair.

Hellcat716

My Feedback: (2)

Obviously it is a isolated problem. There are many flying with no problems. Top-flite delayed the delivery of this plane because of quality control problems and I am sure if this was a problem it would have been taken care of.

karl hibbs

My Feedback: (6)

Don't be to sure about them taking care of the problem. just because you have the same plane and don't want to hear that there is potential problems

smith john

My Feedback: (4)

I had 15 flights on the new Topflight Corsair when the wing came off, the bolts and blocks were still in the fuselage. I sent the entire aircraft back to Tower. They informed me that it was my fault because the forward pins were not epoxied in. I had epoxied the forward pins in. They would not come off of the stance. Even if the pins failed, the wing could not come out of the plane. We settled for a P-40 and I had to pay $250 for it. I lost the difference in the price of the Corsair and an additional cost for the P-40, not counting the damage to the servos. I personally feel that Tower did not honor their committment to the buyer. The tail has flooded on another Corsair which crashed here. If anyone else has had a wing failure, please contact me. Tower has always in the past ie P-51 worked with the owner to make it right. I feel I was not treated correctly by Tower.

Hellcat716

My Feedback: (2)

If the two bolts and blocks were still attached to the fuselage, I do not see how the wing can come off. You really need to send pictures of this incident. I am sorry for your loss of your aircraft but I feel confident my plane will survive. Thanks for the heads up if there is a problem. Will talk to Top-Flite and see if there really is a defect in this design.

sgrady

My Feedback: (5)

Pics of the issue would be great !

kochj

Did the wing slide off after the the bolt ripped out?

Tip flite did a simmular setup on staggerwing biplane, and there wasn't any issues with that one...

I had a QQ 69" yak that had the wing fall off in a flat spin, as the wing pulled the bolt through the thin ultralite ply wood...
I take is as my fualt, as I should have know better than to use the small 440 bolt w/ such a small washer (it was what was used from factory)
But shame on me for now using a large fender washer....


This corsair doesn't do many flat spins does it???

Anyhow, I like this one of all the TopFlite installments.... but I think I will say my Fav. is the Fw-190 that will be out in oct....

kochj

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZTm3...x=2&playnext=1

The saito 325 5cyl fits....
Here is a pair of corsair's with each a saito 325 in it...

scottrc

The full scale Corsair is known to be very problematic with flat spins. The kit should have enough washout built in, but then again, if the plane is not laterally balanced, it could go into one from a stall.

tevans55

Does anyone here know if the TF ARF wing will fit on the TF kit plane? Don't ask why I want to know but it involves a small tree.[]

Thanks for any input you can provide.

tevans55

Found the answer to my question at the LHS...the answer is yes. The center section of the ARF wing sits nicely in the wing saddle of the kit. Wing bolts are in a different location but that is relatively minor.

kochj

Nice of them to do that for those that never finished the wings...and only the fuse...when doing a kit...

kochj

[/quote]

The full scale Corsair is known to be very problematic with flat spins. The kit should have enough washout built in, but then again, if the plane is not laterally balanced, it could go into one from a stall.

[/quote]

I was refering to someone use this corsair as there aerobatic plane instead of flying it like a warbird!....

A very tight flat spn can put a fair amount of pulling forces on the main wings. Ibiet enought to pull the wings off, if there was a weakness.

vatechguy3

My Feedback: (11)

has anyone looked at the mintor 75cc twin??
4.9 lbs
236mm plug cap to plug cap.
what is the inside of the cowl dimension?

tony

Chris Nicastro

My Feedback: (3)

Flutter Question

So looking into this and so far having assembled the plane by the book I do notice two big things;
1) the elevators are very flimsy
2) the rudder/bellcrank has a lot of twist even after having been epoxied during assembly

The elevators have a lot of flex when you hold the torque rod end and apply a little pressure up or down along the trailing edge.

The rudder will not center by radio due to the assembly of the torquerod and linkage. When you move the rudder by hand there is a great deal of play around the center basically creating deadband. Im not sure at this moment what this is attributed to but a quick guess suggests the balsa is flexing a lot. Im going to have to do some surgery to figure out the problem and fix it. Probably some shear webbing to distribute the load and eliminate LE twist.

Another note, today I installed the main gear and noticed there was 3 different grades of "hardwood" and of course it split easily except for the hardest of the group. I predrilled the holes and ran the screws through, it split anyway, to make threads and then CA'd the wood to help seal it.
Also, check your retract pockets as I have found that my left wing pocket is shorter by 3mm than the right side. The retract would not drop in like the right side did. This was measured from the front of the wing spar to the edge of the front of the pocket.

Question: has anyone else seen these issues?
Have you built the arf as is and flown it with NO mods?

Im just irritated that this "name brand" ARF has these fundamental issues and for the price Im sure not going to consider another one any time soon. IMO this is no better than any of the KMP ARF's Ive built, period. So now Im going to fix these problems and further delay the maiden, probably missing the last few days of decent weather we are going to see for a while as winter closes in.

Oh not to mention I still need to address the wing mount issue that John experienced, because that will send me over the edge with this plane for sure if it fails in flight.

Any updates would be great,

Chris

karl hibbs

My Feedback: (6)

Chris,
I have seen the plane fly stock and it fluttered at half throttle. The wire they use is to small for torque rods and it bends real easy. You are going to need to rebuild the tail with stronger wire. why would you want to take the chance.

Chris Nicastro

My Feedback: (3)

Agreed, and its just a pain to look at a new plane and have to start over. You dont know until its far enough into the build to see whats going on.
I see that the long control rod as it exits the white tube flexes where it is unsupported before the clevis. I will try to shore this up and see how much better it is for the rudder then see whats next. There is more up top too as I hold the torque rod and easily move the rudder. This is either poor material or a poor design or both I suspect.

I dont know, maybe I should strip it pull the tail apart and glass it for next year.

For now though I need to break in the new engine so that will be the next thing. Ive ordered air cylinders to work the doors, that will be next week sometime.

Anyone relocate the rudder servo in the tail area above the retract?

bushong572

My Feedback: (59)

I have been flying the plane for quite a few months now.


Rudder:

I owned a giant Cessna with the same rudder linkage. While I didn't like it, I saw no easy fix. I flew it as is for 3 years with 0 problems. You would think it would be noticeable in flight. This Corsair exhibits some of the "snaking" that every Corsair I've owned has (regardless of rudder set up). I haven't had any issues with the stock set up.

Elevator:

I am running the stock elevator set-up and have had 0 flutter issues. Be sure and run thin epoxy or CA into the wire joiner holes in each elevator to strengthen the holes.
I'm running a DA 50 w/22x8 prop and fly at full throttle much of the time. If you do not overpower this plane, I think you will be fine.

Wings:

I don't see how the wings can fail if installed properly. I'm not saying it hasn't happened, I just don't see how.

Retracts:

I haven't had any probelms with the retract mounts......and I've had a few HARD landings.



I was very dissapointed in the finish of my plane (covering...paint). That all disappeared once I flew it.

karl hibbs

My Feedback: (6)

Maybe we should all put throttle coupled speed limiters on our warbirds ,that way topflight can keep designing poor quality airplane linkage and then charge extra for it. The elevator flutter has been known to be a problem since day one. The wing mount I have seen after the crash and there is not much holding the wing on ,I wish I would have taken pictures for all to see what is not there. If I was putting one together I would cut it open and reinforce it.

bushong572

My Feedback: (59)

Thanks for the smart ass reply........

Thunderbolt47

My Feedback: (8)

Frank Noll's Corsair was very fast at Joe Nall. It showed no sign of flutter.

Capt G

My Feedback: (8)

+1