It still bothers me is not knowing, for sure, why the failures have occured.

I fly my IMPACTs with George Asteris, he had built two for himself and aligned two for me. We put the rear former in, as advised, in all of them. I went further and installed a rear fuselage lengthways "ladder" in both of mine.

George flew his a lot more than I did this year, No sign of any failures. Gerge destroyed his first two in two different ways. The first was due to a dead-stick DZ in a strong down wind position. Hit the hill on the way back, hard. No damage however in the area that has been failing. The second one had a mid-air with a BIG vulture. Destroyed the plane but still OK in the "danger-zone".

(George is a renowned designer and pattern builder. I mention this because he has now almost finished his third IMPACT. The plane must have impressed him a lot for him to make three for himself.)

My two Impacts have been FAI'd and Master'd with multi snaps and flown in tough wind conditions. Still holding up.

Where I am going with this story is that braced or not ALL of these ones held up. Yet some others have sadly and clearlly failed. (I forgot to mention that all of ours have light balsa/foam rudders).

I have put up a bunch of theories on this forum, but they are only theories. I can neither condem the supplier or exonerate the plane.

Do we have any new theoreis or ideas out there as to why some have failed and the rest have not?

Curious as ever - Eric.