Well got some bad news. Went to the field today and flew the RB for the third time. During a high speed pass we heard some noise and then the plane began to handle a little weird. I brought it in right away to check everything over. I came in a little hot and one of my tires caught an edge and spun on the Axel. The RB went nose down and finished its landing skidding nose down on the prop.

The Good News
I was sure I ripped the gear out but low and behold, my mount mods worked and the gear held up (spring air 103's). Pretty impressive because I came in pretty hard. I will explain how I did this in subsequent post.
The plane and spinner were unscratched thanks to the 3 bladed prop which kept the nose up as it slid down the runway on 2 blades.

The Bad News
Looking at the plane back at the bench it appeared that the horizontal stab was separating from the fuselage at the glue joint. Initially I wondered how the 30 minute epoxy could have failed. I was very careful to sand and prep the surfaces and ensured that the glue was well applied. On closer inspection back at the hanger I saw that the stab was actually separating. I cut the last section of balsa that was holding on the stab and realized that the first rib was still glued to the plane, but was torn loose from the rest of the stab.

Also, when looking inside the stab, you can see that the second rib had split.

No builder error here. I was very careful when building to assure that the CF tubes were the right length and never forced one into the stab to break a rib. Everthing was prepped and glued properly.

Thankfully I got the plane on the ground in one piece. Not sure what the solution is. I called ACE and they are doing inventory so I had to leave a message. I am assuming they will send me new tail parts, but even so, without some changes it will happen again. I think I will have to open up the stabs and reinforce, re-skin and recover to assure it will handle the larger engine (OS 160)

Some thoughts:

* One might say that the 160 is to big for the plane. Well, this is an 11 pound airplane which certainly warrants. Ace uses their 120 which is a little heavier and .2 hp less than the 160. The 160 is 36 grams and the OS 91 is 19 grams. If I use the 91, I would have to add 1 1/2 pounds of weight to the nose to balance. (plane came a touch tail heavy with the 160 and 5 cell pack in the nose. I did add a little wieght to the tail from re-inforcing, but not that much! This plane is tail heavy)

* On a previous call with ACE, they suggested that the rear fuselodge be re-inforced to avoid flutter if using a larger size engine. I laid a 3!QUOT! strips of fiberglass inside the fuselodge paralel to the stab to re-inforce. The stab mounting surface is solid.