Hey Duuude, While the instructions say they are functional I have had to land with the strut hanging below the wheels on a number of occasions. I’m averaging 50% on yhose types of landings with no damage. But on those landings were I damage the plane it usually breaks free the back wing strut mount. That gave me the opportunity to see how it was constructed and as a mechanical engineer I can say it was not built to withstand much load. The wing hard point is a peace of cheep hard wood cantilever glued to the balsa rib. No hardening of the rib in that area or bracing for the cantilevered hard point either. The loading that hard point is going to see will put the glue bond in tension and no provision was made to dissipate that load in a reliable and repeatable fashion.

Having said that and now that you know how it is constructed I do a maneuver I call the Crazy Ivan with the cub, its basically an our of plane barrel role with the plane stalling at the top and falling through the rest of the maneuver. The plane actually stops and momentum carries it through. On several very windy days when I get hit with a gust just as I’m doing the stalled portion of that maneuver it pulls out the sheet metal screw holding the strut to the fuse. So that tells me that the wing hard point design is adequate for its function.

Before your seams start to pull!!!!!! Buy some of the Century 21 fabric and some pinking shears (at the local fabric store). Cut some pinking strips and cover all the seams with pinking tape that you make. It makes the cub look much nicer and you don’t have to rip off the factory covering because you have exposed wood after two or three years.

Good Luck

Joe Felice