I bought a gorgeous large SS when I was in Texas, all set up to fly. Had an O.S. 1.20 in it, as I recall. I took off, and it felt good. It climbed, turned back across the field, and before it was flying parallel to the field, the tail feathers came off in one large piece. The wing & fuse pounded in out there in rattlesnake country, and we found it a few hours later. I don't recall ever finding the tail feathers. Anyway, with all the sand and cactus out there, it found a nice big rock to impact upon, and the engine and radio were all demolished. I started reading up on it, and found it's not all that uncommon for that to happen with the large SS's. I tried to make the fuse spin with the ailerons on the way down, hoping to save the engine and any gear I could, but that big ol' rock had other ideas.
Anything giant scale got flying wires after that, including any type of Super Sportster. If they need them or not, I'll never know about it, because now ALL the tail feathers stay right where they belong!
I check my incidence on anything I build, sdstick, but unfortunately, I didn't built that plane, and so I probably did not check it out.
The guy I bought it from said he'd flown it quite a bit, and it was a great flyer. Maybe the tail feathers got knocked loose on the way to the swap meet?
I do know my GSS is an incredible flyer; slow, fast, aerobatics, it does it all.
JIM