Boy is this thing a dog. Yeah, it was only $40, but sometimes you don't get what you paid for. This one really hasn't been worth spit so far.

I just got back from a very pleasant day at the field. It only got over freezing after about an hour, but with most of the day having only a very slight breeze, and not a cloud in the sky, you couldn't tell that it was cold. I spent most of my flying trying to figure out why the model responded to the elevator so oddly.

It would respond to the elevator smoothly sometimes. Sometimes it'd HOOK AROUND like it'd snagged it's wing on something every once in awhile. I tried to see if there was some pattern to it. Tried it inside and outside. Even detuned the exponential in the TX for elevator. Then when I was wiping the sucker down I took a close look at the elevator. The hinges were "gone" on one side. Only one side had any connection at all. You wanna know why it wasn't patently obvious just looking at it?

This sucker ain't got one nano-ounce of balsa anywhere in it. It's all either plywood or some kind of SE Asian wood that's sorta yellow and must be part rubber, 'cause it flexes when you try to cut it with a knife. And the elevator is that yellow stuff. And it holds it's shape unless pushed or pulled. And just sitting there, the elevator looks like the hinges are good to go. How that sucker didn't flutter in flight I got only one guess. The last bit of hinge holding that one side gave up on the last landing.

I decided to put nylon hinges into the thing when I got home and that might have been a bad move too. I might have burned out my new Slot Machine cutting the slots for those hinges. The wood just sorta gummed up the blades and would bow back from the tool if I pushed it. Amazing.........

This thing has been throwing those SUDDEN TIGHT LOOPS for the last few outings. And the model has only been out about five times. So the hinges went after maybe 6-10 flights. They're just clear plastic and seem to be all different lengths.

"You get what you pay for." isn't really true when suggesting that a cheap model is only worth what you paid for it. This one hasn't been and it was only $40. (Although, I gotta admit that I've laughed my butt off a couple of times while messing with it. It actually HAS been worth $40 worth of entertainment and I've learned a bunch from it. Actually, I'm glad I got it.)