RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

Comanche:
I am not coming down on you. I understand your frustration. If you look at the forums under Taylorcraft the tail support issue is well thought out and we showed how we made the tail supports better by using a threaded rod in a clevis and welding it so it would not break.

This plane overall is a great product and I sometimes wish I had not sold mine as every time I brought it to the field it was an attention grabber and looked and flew great in the air. I can attest that it is one of the best planes I have owned.

What I am saying though to you is if when screwing in the wing bolts you were only able to screw the bolt in during assembly a few turns before it became snug something was definately wrong. In RCU forums if anyone bothers to look you can find all kinds of solutions to your questions especially on the new Taylorcraft.

Now before you go and berate me about that go take a look for yourself

Again my 2 pennies worth

Glenn Williams

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

You're always going t bang your head against brand protectionist mentalities. Ignore them. Call up HH and explain the problem. I would not take no for an answer. It took quite a few lost planes before Hobbico issued a technical bulletin on the the GP Escapade tail feather requireing reinforcing at the U joiner. The only way problems get solved is by communicating them. Posting them on forums is a form of self flagulation. The default position is that its your fault. If its a chinese arf then its Obama's fault
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RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

OK first of all this is in the wrong forum.
But to see what the fuss was about I looked at the manual, it can be downloaded here
http://www.horizonhobby.com/products...cc-bnf-HAN4920

If you look on page 21 it clearly shows there is a wing spar and a locator spar, so those two tubes carry the load.
The nylon bolt as well as the strut hold the wing against the fuse.
There would be so little outward pressure placed on that bolt it would be almost unmeasureable.

I have a black horse stuka which uses a similar method, I actually forgot the bolts on one flight and only found out after I landed, (very stupid and lucky) my point being the wings didn't simply slip out even after a few sharp rolls/dives etc. and that was with no bolts at all.
That model has very small dowel locator pins, much smaller and shorter than the taylorcraft.

Looking at the pics I cannot see how even if you left the bolt out, why wouldn't the struts keep the wing snug against the fuse?
The locator tube is very long, so how can the wing even slip out that far to disengauge the locator pin far enough without the struts holding it in.
Can someone with this plane confirm this? Leave the bolts out and see if you can pull the wings out far enough to disengauge the locator tube.

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

I cannot confirm this as I never left my wingbolts out. However I can say that the struts are made out of aluminum and the wing tube is aluminum as well. I would agree that the wing bolt is not structural in any way. It is simply to hold the wing taught against the fuselage. The wing tube carries the load as the locater pins (dowels) orient the wings for correct incidence.

Something was wrong and I do not beliee it was the planes fault. I would like to see pictures and none have surfaced as yet. So everything is his word against HH.

GLenn

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

Just a word on "gripping area" -
I recently got a 30% 50cc Yak54 from Pilot RC.  When I screwed in the wing bolts (it has two per wing), I tightened them very hard the first tine to see if the will hold, and the front one on both wings let go.  The bolts went in very loosely to begin with.  I thought I had over-tightened them and so they must have stripped, but when I unscrewed them I found that nothing was stripped. I got some good quality replacement bolts and the same thing happened.  I removed the blind nuts and found that they were extra long, with about 10 threads to grip.  Even with 10 threads, it let go because the manufacturer must have used a tap that was a bit too large when they cut the threads.  I got new blind nuts made by Hangar9 that have only a few threads, and with these I can tighten the bolts until breaking point.  So I guess it's not about "gripping area", but more about the quality / tolerance of the threads.

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

I've had many blind nuts with poor threads. I found one last night on my Stuka. I fitted the engine and found one bolt just would get to a point and slip. I checked the bolt, not problem there, I removed the blind nut (fortunately not glued in yet) and therewas the problem. It was cross threaded so I replaced it.
With the plastic bolt retainingscrew and blind nut the threads are even more important.

With some plane the aluminum wng joiner fits snuggly so its unlikely to allow the wing to "walk" too far if you forget the bolts. On others, like most of my H-9 planes, the wing tubes fit far morely loosely and with engine vibration I know the wings will " walk" the tube and fall off. I"ve done this on the ground and its proven to be the case.
Saying the wng tube being present makes it impossible for the wing to fall off is not fully understanding the failure.

A crossthreaded retaing screw + a loose fit of the wing on the wing joiner can cause the wing to move on the tube because vibration load can make the screw slip inside the nut and loosen up.
The wing is a cantilever to teh fuselage so a wing that is able to movewill bend the wing tube more as it slips along the tube.

Those who have had wings not walk off the ing tube i'd say are very lucky but thats not indicatie of what should happen.

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

You're omitting one important element: the wing struts. I FULLY understand how a wing can "walk" down the wingtube from vibration; I've watched my own wingtube "walk" back and forth on my gassers when I've started them without the wings on the tube. However, I believe it would be VERY hard for the wing to move out enough on the tube to get the anti-rotation pins out of their sockets with the wing struts on. It may very well have happened here, but it seems to be quite unlikely that it's an "engineering" problem on this plane...

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

Did you guys know that a single 1/4-20 nylon bolt from the LHS has approximately 130+ lb axial break strength? The axial yield strength (the amount of pull before the bolt starts to give and stretch) is around 90 lbs. The yield strength in the radial direction (twisting) is approximately 30 lbs on the threads. Many years ago now, back when we used to use 3-4 bolts to hold 60 sized wings on so that they could break away in a crash, I performed the testing myself out of curiosity, and was surprised by the results.

Even two bolts holding such a wing would cause major wing damage in a mishap. A single nylon 1/4-20 is good for many applications in modeling

I too have had great dealings with Horizon Hobby Support/Sevice. To the OP, definitely give them a call and explain what happened....

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

i thonk you will find that the wings are capable of moving with the struts in place

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

Possible. The question then is: is there a design flaw in the wing attachment system? Me thinks not; otherwise, there would be many more reports of this sort of thing happening to this plane (or the hundreds of similarly built ARF's with wingtubes/2 piece wings). I think there's more to this story than what the OP has let us in on...

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

Without pictures it is hard to say what happened. I was very common to have the Showtime or Funtana to have a wing flip off (saw this twice) . Pilots were drilling out the rotation pin and putting in a clip to prevent rotation, maybe a good idea on this plane also. I have a Showtime with a YS 110 and I never had the bolts turn out in flight, even thought I saw 2 planes fail the way he described, I never drilled the pins. I have a never run Funtana with a small 140 gasser in it and I will be drilling the pins. I would have figured that by how H9 would have longer pins or just drilled out the pins and include clips. I have built over 30 ARF’s and each one has had something changed to help increase it’s life expectancy. $1300 ARF that is just pick it up at the Hobby Shop and go directly to the field and just fly is a net idea but this is what can happen if you blindly trust someone else’s building skills. I the old days we would just blame the radio

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

The SHowtime does not have the best wing fixing system. One locating pin and the plastic bolt is all that holds it in place. I've got some incidence adjusters thatI'm going to fit but the wings or fuselage have been quite badly built that theres a tapering gap on the one wing of about 1/3inch. This is enough for the incidence adjuster to barely have any effect on helping to locate the wing correctly.

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

The SHowtime does not have the best wing fixing system.

Yes, for some, I have had no problems with mine, but others have. This is the same system on the Taylorcraft (but with struts), and that may be his point ...is this good enough, ? if in the past pilots modify to make it more secure then why hasen't H9 added this extra hardware??? If he was at my field he would have been told to add the safety pins and he would still be flying.

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

His point is that he should not have to modify the airplane in any way to fly it safely. It's a BNF and therefore should be a tested product before being released for the market.<div>
</div><div>All the the Showtime / Taylorcraft fixing needs for a wing failure is one of the antirotation pins glue joint to fail. One of mine did fail but I notice the trim change and landed immediately. The Left wing was starting to move by the time the Showtme stopped at the end of the runway. Thats a close call. The nylon bolt had stretched and had worked loose. Its mounted to close to the wing tube to provide any leverage against the airpressure wanting to affect wing incidence.</div><div>The Taylor crafts wing struts will provide NO safety if this is the causal. Its realluy just a cosmetic add on looking at the examples at my club. The tab at the wing where the strut mounts is not sturdy enough to take the kind of loads induced by the wing changing incidence due to vibration if the anti rotation pin has failed.</div>

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

I didn't think we were talking about the anti-rotation pins failing...my point was the struts are going to keep the wings close enough to the fuse to keep the pins in their respective holes. We can speculate all we want here; I think the attachment method has been proven in hundreds of different ARF's from dozens of different manufacturers. My EF 60" Extra has two VERY small pins and two small nylon boles, as does my 3DHS 48" Edge. My large Pilot Edge uses two anti rotation pins and 3 nylon bolts per side. Point is, this has become a standardized attachment method. Any pilot, whether he's purchases an ARF, BNF or whatever, still should check over the plane during building and then each flying session...

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

He stated the failure was the wing bolts, that is similar to failures like……. forgetting to install them, forgetting to tighten them and not checking the wing on assembly from any damage from a previous flight. Can happens to the best of pilots and I have witnessed all of the above failures. I just had a wing come off of a plug in 52 inch ARF and the root rib, bolt and pin were fine, even the fiberglass tube was still on the wing tube. So who fault is it? Plane is for 3D, never crashed but I love to do blenders, ant it is very low air time. Looking it over the glue just let go and all I have to do is slide it back in place no parts broken. This is from a high end company, should they replace the plane?? I did look it over after each session and it had never even had a bad landing. My opinion is the contact area is very small and I am amazed that it held up as well as it did. I will repair it and add something to both sides to prevent it from pulling apart. Yes, it is a poor design IMHO. It is my decision to buy another product from them or go to another vendor. I would buy another one and the first thing I would do is beef the wing up. So much of what we do is from experience and what others have reported, if I had a T Craft would be looking it over and at least adding clips to the pins even with only one failure reported.

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

I was new to flying and looking for my 2nd bird after my trainner a parkzone corsair.

I went to my local hobby store who acted like snobs but recomended a Big Stick 60. size. I aske what glues if any would I need to put this bird to geather and the sells guy picke me out some epox.

2 weeks later with my ASP .91, my wing came off! boy did she move LOL

I turned out the epoxy was only finishing resin for applying fiberglass coating and the wing gave way. The hobby store was no help but I called Horrizen and they sent me a replacement bird after I shipped them the left over parts.

Good Luck Mike

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

FWIW, Horizon does usually have very good service, from what I've seen. I purchased a used DX6i for all the little BNF stuff, and the elevator trim switch quit working. Sent it in, and they fixed it and sent it back free of charge, and included a new battery door (old one was cracked), also no charge. Didn't request or expect that; they did well!

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

CRASH UPDATE, RESPONSE FROM HORIZON HOBBY,,,,,,,, Teck support called me yesterday and we discussed the problem. I told him just what happened in about the 7 flight total time. Took of entered down wind and at 200 feet or so plane in level cruse did a slight dip and I chocked it off as wind pocket...........Then it went wild as something let loose.it turned to me and had slight nose low attitude. i concentrated on keeping wings level and it was back and forth throttle was about half and approching me. at about 100 feet in front of me.Plane wasuncontrollable at this point and going from right to leftas i tryed to keep it level....... It veared right and left and crashed. I cut power because i knew it was going in. After paying $1280 dollars for it and $135.00 for packing to send it back,, the out come was Horizon hobby will give me a new one for $ 650.00 off the new cost of $1280.00. I wish they would of replaced it free as I did nothing wrong and I still feel something failed.I honestly believe the wing walked away from the fusalage allowing the rear pin or dowl to move away from fusalage there fore allowing wing to change angle of attack. the nylon bolt was not a good fit in wing nut so this time around I will consider going to home depo and changing to a better or less wobbly fit bolt if necessary.I will also consider a pin in the rear dowl so the wing can not walk away from the fusalage.Who ever said I was a ass for paying $135.00 for packing the junk remains and sending it back to horizon hobby as directed you can go eat your words .I do Thank Horizon Hobby for meeting me half way even thow i wished I got a replacement free. I want to say that Horizon Is a Great company as I already knew and hope my fellow model flyers buy from them......Anyone with the new taylorcraft watch those nylon bolts and consider changing them or maybe even going to a steelbolt???????? I will check to see if the wing strut will stop the wing from moving out away from the fusalage if the wing bolt fails???????? The teck said it would stop wing walk but i can not conform that. Be carefull check your bird and GOODLUCKWatch those tail supports from the horizontal stab to the top of the vertical fin as they broke twice before i ever flew from vibration as i was breaking motor in on deck ...They broke at the top right where the bend is. I took mine off and replaced with aviation wire Good luck to all EDDIE when all fails push stick forward and go have a beer or 3.

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

If you were breaking those tail support wires, maybe add balancing, and tracking the tips of, your prop before doing it the next time? Maybe the vibration that broke your tail support wires also wore out your nylon wing bolts or the sockets they threaded into?

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

And the winning post is #141 quoted above! It was predictable and there was some resolution.

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

Comanche:
If you decide to pony up and buy another T-craft, Since no-one has bothered to look. I am going to do you a favor and post the link to the T-craft build that was started when the new plane came out in the ARF version. It appears nothing has changed in the design so here you go.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_90..._1/key_/tm.htm

If you take a few moments to read the posts you will find a wealth of information about "Heating issues, Struts, Paint chipping and most definately the tail brace fix." Adding wire to the tail brace area just takes away from the looks of the plane.

Further in on the posts you can see pictures of my T-craft as well and some of the add ons that I added such as painting the firewall etc.

Glenn Williams

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

Here are some pictures of the tail brace fix. Hope this helps any of you that may have this aircraft.

Glenn

RE: Taylorcraft crash
 

Wanted to show everyone what Comanche was talking about. On the pictures I am uploading you can see the following:

1. Wing tube location.
2. Servo wire access
3. Anti rotation pin.
4. Nylon bolt/thumbscrew.

Glenn Williams
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