Originally Posted by
zacharyR
wow you should really be happy .. other's have not been so lucky
always nice to hear a good ending
I am very happy though I do not believe it was luck. I have been buying from Tower Hobbies since I started flying, in that time I've had other problems with products. It's always been something wrong with the product, damaged cowl, wing, etc. They have always without fail stood behind the products they sell. This time I was not sure they would replace an entire airplane after a crash but all is well.
Originally Posted by
Luchnia
One thing for sure, CA hinges are not as bad as some would say. You certainly can get bad ones, yet I have not seen any. I have a plane with CA hinges that flew well over 600 flights (many aggressive) and never had a hinge failure. That was stock factory hinges, too. It proved to me that it is a myth that CA hinges don't last but around 100 flights.
Like you, I've used ca hinges many, many times in the past with onty two failures. I have seen many that I would not use, usualy in the cheaper imports from China. The 3 provided with this plane for attaching the rudder were that type, they had a very smooth feel and were thinner than the regular great planes hinges. I still used them but I doubled them side by side with standard great planes hinges and they held through a very hard crash. I still trust ca hinges but from now on I will pin them.
With the replacement plane I'm going to cut the hinges out and use a wider ca hinge that will be pinned. Several of the hinges on the plane that was destroyed I noticed afterwards were crooked as seen in the photo of the elevator above. If I had pinned them the pins would have probably missed the hinge.
No matter how much quality control Hobbico has in place, you still have people building the planes in China who are not flyers. Sometimes they just do not take the time to make sure everything is correct.