While paint was drying in the Harvard wheel wells, (did the same gear mount mod as on the Bear) I cut most of the lower skin away on the damaged wing. The amazing thing is that it flew at all and did not fold in on itself simply taxiing for takeoff. The ribs, including ALL the structure the tube was built into are soft balsa and not glued to the aft side of the shear web, and therefore the spar, at all. It was assembled like a cabinet with only the top half of the ribs fitting through notches in the soft balsa shear web and the only glue of any substance was to the balsa skins, (also relatively soft).

All I can say to that is, Thunder Tiger, you "NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT!" *******s. This was by far worse than I could have ever expected and before anyone takes one of these airborne I would strongly advise at least skin removal to have a boo. That lousy tail construction is a good example of what to expect inside the wing. I'm surprised no lawsuits have come from this dangerous a product.

Oh, by the way, I have no way to know how their thin walled F/G wing joiner tube would have held up, but the C/F survived in perfect shape. The wing insert tube has some damage to work on, but should at least form a start on new ones if necessary.