Its too bad to see anyone fold up. However there were some real quality and support issues. I had one of the Panthers. It came short of parts. The layup was poor with the gel coat badly flaking. CAI acknowledged that they had a mould pressure problem but did not offer to do anything about it. The internal wing fuse structure needed at CAI's recommendation to have extensive carbon reinforcement. The plane flew well, but the amount of work that was actually necessary to build and finish was far in excess of what they advertised. This was due to parts fit and poor basic finish quality.When completed the plane looked great and flew well.
I saw the F9F go in at Top Gun, if you are familiar with the wing mechanism, I don't think it was pilot error, there were some serious design issues with that wing joint. CAI always tended to try to talk its way around these issues, it may have caught up with them.
Mike