flybyjimbo

Whilst out on a routine lunchtime flight with a friend the most frustrating thing happened. I had climbed to roughly 300 ft and shut off the motor to do an unpowered dive which is one of my favourite manouvers. After diving for 100 ft or so i put the power on and pulled up to do a loop. Just as the plane reached horizontal from the dive the wing was violently ripped off the plane. I could only watch in horror as my wingless ABX plummeted 200 feet or so nose first into the floor. The wing fluttered down for ages.

At this point i would like to say i had modded my plane in case i crashed. Motor zip tie, fiberglass tape on the leading and trailing edges of the wing, the battery was securely fastened with a large elastic band and the canopy was held down too. I had even made a tail out of 4mm coroplast.

Upon retrieval of the wreckage the battery was still in place, altho the motor was sat next to it. Not good. The motor had dragged its yellow mounting area underneath the wing inside out. The circuit board was floating about and the boom was broken near the tail and was dislodged from its mount, bending the silver area where it enters the fuselage. My coroplast tail is in perfect shape. not a scratch on it! The wing has some serious stress marks on it but is otherwise ok. Its strange as ive done the manouver several times and the wing has always been fine.

All 6 elastic bands used to hold the wing on were wrapped around the back peg. The front peg i found snapped in half and therefore i deduce the failure of the peg to be the cause of the crash.

Has this happened to anyone? Would it be covered by the warrenty? Has anyone tried using stronger metal pegs?

Other than a crack in the circuit board the electrics seem to work fine.

netdudeuk

I reported last year that I left my ABX in the garden and went back to find that the wing was no longer on. I found that the bar had snapped and that was just while sat in the garden ! Someone else replied and said that he had had the same problem as well. Maybe a good idea to get some dowel in there.

flybyjimbo

Yeh i think definitely something much more sturdy needs to be used. I just cant believe that something so fundamentaly important to the plane i left un-modded. Im surprised that hobbyzone still use those pegs in what is described as an aerobatic plane where tremendous forces must be exerted upon them through the large wing. The new fuse shoild come in a week or so and il try to make it much stronger. Its going to be a hassle remounting the circuit board due to one of the mounting screw holes being ripped open.

Many Thanks,

James

CrashParkFlyer

Yep, it happened to me! I guess I was lucky though as my wing peg snapped straight out of the box, the very first time I put the wing on. The plane was still on the living room floor. (As you know you have to mount the tail on an ABX when it is new from the box. I just thought I'd attach the wing to admire it!). Like the suggestion above, I used some dowel. However, I ordered some replacement parts, took the dowel out and now have the plastic yellow wing pegs in once again!!
After reading of your experience - it's back to dowel for me!!