Hi,

I previously posted a comment and video about a test-hop (maiden) I helped a fellow modeler with. The airplane looked and flew GREAT, and while the gear had a little trouble retracting reliably on the ground, they performed flawlessly in the air.

Yesterday, we flew the airplane another two flights. The first ended in a touch-n-go (we fly from a short runway and with 0 head-wind, I went longer than I'm used to) followed by a super-grease landing. The second flight, unfortunately, ended in disaster.

On the second pass after the takeoff, I was climbing at about 10 degrees with full-throttle (K-170) when the starboard stab began fluttering. By the time my eye perceived the problem, the oscillation was EXTREME. No exaggeration... the trailing edge of the stab was flapping about 10" up and 10" down. Frankly, I couldn't understand how it was staying on the plane; or how the aft-end of the plane was staying together at all. I chopped the power immediately and began the fight to regain control of the plane. With a lot of cross-control, I did manage to get the jet turned around and away from the highway it was headed for, and ended up dumping it in the marsh.

The airframe was totaled, but the equipment inside was OK. The stab linkage was snapped at the ball-link. The question now is whether the failure at the linkage caused the flutter or if flutter caused the failure at the linkage. My own thought is that the flutter/oscillation was a pretty clear indication that the stab is not 'dynamic balanced' or inherently stable at flight speed.

Thoughts?