I just wanted to put the word out about my experience with the H9 T-34. I really liked the kit as an ARF. Good quality and in terms of quality control there were very subtle differences between the two I bought. The first one I crashed because I didn't strap a 2700mah battery in properly. There is no place to strap a battery in that plane. I ended up drilling two holes through the canopy floor and using a 12 inch plastic tie to secure the battery on my second one. That was a $200 mistake because I wanted to keep it clean looking. I built the second one in less than 48hrs, nothing like learning from mistakes.

I found the H9 retracts to be sub par. They are plastic! I fly off a paved runway and made some nice smooth fast landings in this plane and I still had problems with the nose gear retract. The retract arm pulled itself off the plastic plate mechanism inside the retract which it was threaded into. 3 out of 4 landings with the nose wheel collapsing later I ended up making a plate out of steel, tapped it for the proper thread size and soldered the arm into the plate to keep it from twisting. I think it worked, but I didn't get enough landings on the fix to find out. The fix cost me more than the original retract, but it was strong!

As mentioned in previous threads I would like to hammer this point home. This plane has a HIGH WING LOADING! With my Saito .72 it balanced perfectly and the engine was a really nice match for this plane. But for the plane's relative small wing and size it felt heavy. I'm not exactly sure how much it weighed, 7lbs or more. Power off stalls were straight ahead and I had no problems landing it hot. I don't fly trainers and I don't expect to be able to cut the throttle on half of my down wind leg and make the runway. I dislike the fact that people bash good flying planes, like the GP AT-6 because they think it lands too hot. Compared to the T-34 my brothers GP AT-6 is a great slow flying plane with excellent aerobatic capabilities for a sport scale arf. The T-34 is a different story. I found it sluggish coming out of some aerobatic manuvers such as lumchevaks, hammer heads, spins, etc. I would keep some power on in all these maneuvers as I was getting more comfortable with the plane and I didn't want it to snap on me. I realize that some sport-scale planes are poor in recovery. I decided to give my brother a go at it. He wanted to see its vertical and hung the plane on it's prop topping out at about 400-500 ft. It snapped on him and went into a right hand spin, almost a flat spin. This plane does not handle as well as his GP AT-6 and it was not coming out of the spin. Maybe if he did it again he would have been able to recover from the spin, but at the time he fought it for 400 feet or so with no success. SO LONG T-34 you yellow *******!

My thoughts are, if you have an engine for a .40 size plane and want a beater plane as practice for flying a war bird, this is a good choice. Do not compromise putting a small engine on this plane. An OS .46 was barely enough to fly another one I saw at the field. The yellow gets old quick, but it looks good in the air and is easy to see. It will not slow down to a full stall landing unless you are very competent. I typically came in over the runway at about the same speed I took off with. Get the hobbico retracts and a dremel tool if you want solid reliable retracts in this plane. The H9 retracts wobble when locked and you can not adjust them.

Any questions or slams, fire at will!

-Blue