Quote Dick T. I surmise most of the rest are builder/pilot induced. Some guys take short cuts in the assembly process, some are flying a plane way beyond their skill level. Some ignore inspecting the airframe after the bad landing, for some it is just bad luck. Every flying club has people in each of these catagories. It doesn't make them bad guys, but it doesn't make Hangar 9 responsible for all of it either. Another perception is "bad or flawed design". Most of us have never designed an airplane so critisizing a pro pilot/designer seems rather silly when comparing credentials
I've been in the amazing and awsome hobby since 1976 and I've seen many pilots try to fly a plane beyond his or her capabilities and when they crash they try to find fault in everything
else such as machanical or structural failure etc... and not fault them selves. I've dumb thumbed
many airplanes I'm not ashamed to admit it. I've even tried flying planes I should have never attempted, I tried to fly a Laser 200 right after I learned to fly a trainer, it put a hole in the paved runway I was flying from. I chalked it up to the oop's I messed up column. Did it make me a bad guy? No it did not. But it did however make me a better pilot. Unfotunatly bad things can happen when trying to cheat gravity. its part of the learning curve.
Bad or flawed design? The Funtana 90 may fall into this catagory slightly. The Funtana 90 is a fairly new release and maybe Hanger 9 should have done more flight testing and or structural
research before releasing it to the public. I will say this though Hanger 9 should have definatly packaged the plane a little better. Unfortunatly arf's are built by humans and to err is human.
As far as critisizem goes I think we should critisize a designer or a pilot as long it is constructive. I have designed a few C/L
model's that others have flown and I took constructive critisizem, it allowed me to find flaws in my designs so I could build a better model. also critisizing a pilot/designer even if you've never designed model before is not silly. there are many pilots that feel they have ideas that can make a design better. after all our hobby was started by an idea.