A club mate brought out a new HYPE 3D this weekend - got everything set up and had a few successful flights. (Power was an Irvine 53 - I think!!).

Anyway on the third or fourth flight there was a failure at the tail-feathers and needless to say a crash followed. From what I can gather the tail feathers / fuselage rear did not stand up to the twisting forces of the manoevers and twisted the rear of the fuselage to the point where it failed (I did not see the post crash damage). We had noticed during noise testing that there was a lot of flexing of the stabilizer / fuselage rear.

The pilot had not flown the plane at high speed or carried out any manoevre that one would not expect from a 3D plane and had in fact flown the new plane very sedately every flight (being brand new), so the failure and crash was quite a surprise!.

The owner will contact the suppliers this week and ask them for a replacement - either this was a dud aeroplane or there is a serious design fault - all of us watching and those who saw the crash damage are convinced that this was not pilot error or poor assembly.

I will update this thread once I know the result of his discussions with the supplier.

Watch this space before you buy one!