for those currently flying or assembling a UCD. i flew mine for the second time yesterday afternoon and during a flyby at 1/2 throttle about 200 ft high, the right horizontal stab and elevator broke off the plane. i managed to get the plane down with only minor "other" damage including a ripped off landing gear block, cracked cowl and torn covering. the first flight and up to that point the plane and done ZERO aerobatic manuevers. just flying around in circles at no more than 1/2 throttle, on my very rich os 91 fx, and practice landings. upon inspection, the stab was constructed out of VERY soft balsa which broke at the root of the stab at the trailing edge and a little farther out on the leading edge.
spoke with hobby services late friday, but no managers were there so had to wait till monday morning to talk with one. yesterday morning i didn't get any satisfaction either. i was told that unless i send the plane back to them first, i will not receive a new one, and i will only receive a new one after they inspect it and they think it was a defect. but that means i will have to cut off the ailerons, and the entire tail assembly to fit in the box. and i was told that if they say it was not a defect then they will simply send me the pieces back to do with as i please. to me this seems stupid because if i do cut up the plane it will be totalled, whereas now all it needs is a new stab, elevators and a landing gear block. anyone have any suggestions for me as to what i should do??? thank.
i thought everyone would like to know about this. if anyone wants to know more, feel free to email me.
tony

my brother crashed his on Sat. one of his elevator clevis pulled out of the control horn. The clevis had fuel tubing around it. But it didn't help. He has 2 more on order. should be here on Thursday.

one these two were going to use 4-40 pushrods w/ metal clevis.

I can't wait to fly this plane. it looks good once you get used to it. My bro. said it flys likes it on rails. He is using YS61 2stroke for power.

Gee, I gotta try an ARF someday.....

NOT!

GP is not asking for anything unreasonable. Would you offer up a free replacement without first looking at the failure? I think not. For all they know, you ran over the tail with the car and are now crying for a replacement for free.

If you are positive the cause of the failure was poor materials, then send it back and expect to get it replaced. To look at it another way, you may very well save a lot of other modelers the same grief by sending your plane in.

John

Tony, did you hear flutter from the plane at all? Just wondering because a motor that can hover a plane at 1/3 throttle can possibly overspeed and cause fluttering at 1/2 throttle. Especially with huge control surfaces with huge counterbalances like those found on this plane. Also, were you using the 2/56 supplied hardware or 4-40?

Hope all works out well with Great Planes and you get your new parts at no charge! You might want to send an e-mail to AnnMarie Cross. You can find her e-mail address in the radio manufactures section of RCU.

Also, nice flying.........bringing a plane down with one elevator and stab is a feat most of us could not do. (Most of us don't want to have to experience it either)

Keep us posted............Mark

The most common cause of this failure is from cutting away the covering where the stab will be glued. When you cut the covering you are also scoring the sheeting underneath. This is what GP will be looking for. I use a low temp soldering iron with a real small tip that melts away the covering rather than cut it. I'd look real close at the edge of the covering before cutting it up to send it to GP. If you can see any evidence of scoring GP probably won't replace it.
My $.02
basmntdweller

This brings up a concern I have had with ARF's for many years. If the manuf knows you are going to have to remove the covering from a particular piece in order to assemble the model, then why do they cover it in the first place????? I certainly don't cover this area on a kit because I know I'm going to have to remove it later. I have seen a few mentions of ARF's where there was no covering on center of the stab or the bottom of the fin, but I can not for the life of me understand why they all don't do this. Just makes sence to me that they would want to build the best product for the consumer.

John

Why cut up the wings if they don't need replacing, just send them the fuz and they can send you back just a fuz if it was a material defect. As far as the last post goes the tail just bolts on and no removing of covering is required, did you bolt yours on or glue it. I am in the middle of putting mine together and when I was bolting on the stab I was thinking it would be easy to over tighten the screws and crush the stab possibly causing a weak point right at the fuz. Good luck and I hope it works out and I hope I don't have the same out come with mine. Brian Billings

i did not use the supplied 2-56 hardware, i replaced it with 4-40 for the elevators and the rudder.
no, i do not think it was flutter, i have had that happen before on other models, and you can hear it fluttering, but this made no noise at all. just all of a sudden the stab was floating down and the plane began a right bank.
i still haven't decided what to do. i can ifx it by building a new stab and elevators, and repairing the landing gear block (something anyone who flies arf's knows how to do quite well). and patching all the covering up.
i'm just afraid that if i cut off the surfaces and send it back that GP will find some reason to not replace it, and then the plane is ruined.
and no, i did not cut the covering off the stab when i installed it, so no worries there.
tony

Tony If I were you I'd just build a new stab and put it on the plane. It will probably take you a lot longer to tear out all your radio gear, disassemble the thing and ship it back, then assemble a new ARF. -Tom

Sorry, I do not have one of these models and was not aware that the tail was bolted on instead of glued. So, why do you have to cut the surfaces off to send the tail back for review? Also, even if GP did not replace the parts, it's not that big of a deal to cut the hinges and rehinge the sufaces. I've done this plenty of times when refinishing a plane.

John

Why cut the ailerons off?? Just put the wing in a bigger box.

I say just build a new stab. The same thing happened to my TT G-200 fun fly and that's what I did. Just a few bucks worth of wood and covering and you're back in business.

As far as what happened, I'll bet that it was flutter. A surface doesn't have to flutter for more than a fraction of a second before it rips off.

yeah i think you guys are right, just building a new stab and fixing the landing gear block is probably easier.
i was talking with the guys at my field and i think i'm going to add a spruce spar and sheet the stab for added strength.
tony

I wintessed the same thing happen at our local flying club this weekend. The plane was brand new and on it's second pass at moderate throttle when we saw the right horizontal stab fluttering. The pilot tried to bring it in just as the left one gave way and the plane went nose first into the end of the runway. I was seriously looking at this arf until this incident. I'm not so sure after hearing from others with this problem.

This is why it is so important to be willing to send back the broken pieces! If there is a quality problem, GP cannot fix it without your help!

Come on! Someone needs to send in the tail from one of these models so that maybe they can save a bunch more people from the same grief!

John

If the problem is the tail only, then you need only send us the tail, and we will replace it alone for you. If you tell us your crashed the plane and want a new one, we'd need the whole plane back...

What propeller are you running?
What are you using for elevator servos?

Please, don't take offense to my questions. Please let me explain why I ask....

This model has been tested in severe abuse conditions, both pre-production and production models, and we were unable to fail anything -- EXCEPT when flying the model at excessive speeds, such as full throttle dives on an 8-pitch prop -- or using inexpensive poor quality servos which provided little centering capabilities and allowed for such flutter.

An aircraft such as this can't be looked at as a toss about 40 sized sport plane; this is a large, high performance highly capable aerobatic bird which requires special attention to certain areas -- specifically, high quality servos with sufficient torque to support the incredible range of motion of the servos/surfaces, and proper choice of propeller to protect the model from high speeds, esp in dives.

Just like Annmarie said this plane is made to do 3d manuvers and not for speed i own one and have not have any problems with it so far
i have a os91 4stroke and wach my speed all the time but i hopw you get it fix and enjoy it is a blast to fly thanks

The plane is on the way back from what I hear. I'll try to talk to the guy this weekend and find out what prop, etc. he was using. I just noticed that it was an OS four stroke on the front. I didn't pay much more attention than that at the time.

Where can I get a job like that? I'd love to have a job where I can abuse other people's airplanes for money

I must agree with the general sentiments on this subject:
1. GP is not asking anything unreasonable.
2. Send only the parts that failed or need replacing in, unless the airplane is totaled.
3. Send the parts in! GP is not a cruel, heartless organization. If the damage is not obviously pilot-induced, then they will replace it. When I say obviously, I mean OBVIOUSLY. There has to be tire marks or boot prints on the covering, or something equally incriminating.

ann marie,
i am running a 13x8 apc prop, which is the recommended prop for break in on the 91fx. i plan on going to a 14x6 once the engine breaks in.
for the first flight, and up to this point on the second, i had never exceeded half throttle and i had only flown around in circles and done two landings.
the elevator servos were new futaba s9001's. they both got damaged, and i'm replacing them with hitec 5625 digitals that i have.
i have already rebuilt the tail myslef using high grade balsa with spruce spars for the stab. weight gain is approxiamtely 1.5 - 2 ounces. however, my plane was nose heavy, so the extra tail weight is welcome. as for the quality issue, its my opinion, and that of the 5 people who exmained the plane at my field when it went in, that the balsa used for the stab was entirely too soft and caused the problem.
as for the elevators, i built new ones, just like the originals. i could have reused the orignials, but knowing the stab had problems, i felt like i should build new ones to be safe.
as for the landing gear block, the forward former broke out along with the landing gear block and the wing dowel former. the landing gear block had ZERO glue on it. the forward former had glue on the base, but none vertically. and there wasn't any tri-stock to add gluing surface. in my opinion, this would have pulled out soon anyway.
i will be replacing the formers and adding tri-stock and aircraft ply for the landing gear block.
i'm hoping to have everything repaired this week and will try to fly it this weekend.
if you or anyone would like any more info, please let me know.
tony

Thanks, Tony. Sure wish we couldve gotten that stab in here instead of yoru repairing it so we could see what was different and resolve it with the manuf.