ORIGINAL: RCISFUN
ORIGINAL: JohnMac
I have seen at least two JL Hawks go in due to elevator failure. In both cases the tail broke in some way in flight, one of them loosing the whole elevator. On the other the incidence pegs, as previously described, were into balsa! That said the original SM Hawk did exactly the same thing. I lost mine in exactly this way and another guy in the club did too. I then Bought a FB Hawk (basically the same model with more paint on it). I took the tailplane apart to prevent it doing the same thing. Junk building inside.
All the chinese brands have issues, and there is some rolling of the dice when you buy.
That said, there are a lot of JL models in my club, and other than the above mentioned Hawk, and the F20 discussed on this Forum last year, there have been no fatal failures.
Thank you JohnMac you have just confirmed my post #3 in this thread
I will definitely cut mine open and post photos when I do!
Hi Rich,
I dremelled out the tailplane root without damaging the skin. Then I wiggled the tailplane pivot until it broke free. After that I removed all the balsa bits inside. Then I used the JL mechanism and tailplane pivot rods as (provided the bolts are tightened up), this mechanism is much better than the crap SM/FB system. I drilled new holes for the anti rotation pins, horizontally not vertically. This meant I could make them much longer. I then laminated a new plywood root rib with the long anti rotaion pin buried inside. A small ply internal rib was added at the tip of the rod and then the tailplane was slid over it like a glove. Finally I made some card templates for the tailplane dihedral angle, centred and locked the servo with the rods clamped in, and hysoled the tailplane in place. That never failed.
Good luck with it. Well worth doing.
BTW, I should make it clear that the FB Hawk was the same as the early SM Hawk, not the JL one.
John