Guys i took my Brand new ucando out today for its second flight and what would you guess happen. Well i was flyin it slow and inverted and out of freakin no where the whole left stab ripped off the plane (thank god for 2 elevator servos. Anyway my question is this if i were to take the half still attached to the plane and copy a whole new elevator for it would it hurt at all to put in some carbon fiber rods lengthwise across the whole thing. also whats the best way to get a stiffer more sturdy elevator out of it i dont want to loose the plane on its third flight hahahaha thanks also i was thinking of ripping off the wing covering and puttting a rod across is like in larger planes the only reason i say this is because so many people talk about the wings exploding any help and advise would be greatly appreciated

Juice Goose

I've had a UCD .46 powered with Saito 100 for 3 years now and have yet to come close to tearing off anything except for the landing gear about 4 times. I have not reinforce anything. This is not a high speed airplane. High speed can cause flutter and all kinds of not so nice things can happen. I fly with half power or less except when hovering or going vertical. As for the wing I've never heard of the wing exploding. so I don't know what they are referring to. Why your stab broke in flight could it have been cracked or weakened on the ground accidentally?
All I can say after 3 years and a couple hundred flights mine is still in one piece. (except for the landing gear). I can almost gaurantee you will knock it of eventually. This may not have been much help but you may have been going to fast.
K.O.

I've never heard of a wing exploding either, other than fludder I can't think of anything that would cause a wing to do that.
As for your stab failure, when you removed the covering in the center to glue it in the fuse did you use a knife to cut the covering? If you did, it's likely that you cut to deep into the wood making it weak thus causing it to fail in flight.
I don’t see any reason to add the carbon fiber to the horizontal stab but that's up to you. I would suggest you just order a new set of tail feathers from Tower and get your plane back in the air.

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXECJ3&P=Z

JuiceGoose
I 3rd and agree with the advice given. I am on my 3rd ucd, two are still in the air after years. One died from dumb thumb. Never heard of a wing blowing up. When you take covering off a structure, drag out your soldering iron and run it down the area you want to remove with a metal ruler and pull off. Unless you have a light toutch, you will cut the balsa with a #11 blade and end up with failure. Think this is what happended to you in this case. You can build a new stab yourself useing some care to trace out both sides and adjust for the center section as needed, or buy new from GP or Tower. Cut out the old with care. The advice that you should not be flying over 1/2 throttle is very good. 3d machines are designed as floaters and need to be flown this way to get the best out of them and yourself. You will find the 60 size ucd is a much better flyer than the 40, I suspect its a matter of wing loading. Anything more than a 70 in the ucd 40 is a might much, I fly with a ys 63 and hover with a little over 1/2 throttle. My 60 yas a 110 in it and it hovers less than 1/2 throttle. Keep them as light as you can and they will generally fly better 3d for you. ENJOY

JuiceGoose.... As said above it's all great advise!!... Adding C.F. rod is not needed as long as
careful when cutting out the covering.. Scoring the bulsa below it is what causes most the
failures IMO... I do use tail wires, but if the above is heeded too, they are not needed also!!
I started removing my stab covering by marking the stab. then cutting the covering down the
center of my marks, then pealing the covering up before making the Frt. and end cuts with the
blade itself laying flat on the stab.. I then fold the covering over creasing it to about 1/8 from
my marks and again using the blade itself and laying flat make my final cut.. This way the
center cut even if too deep will be covered with epoxy(30min) and in the center of the fuse...
For me this has worked the best...
I've had YS 63, S-82 and an S-100 on the two "Do's" that I've had... They all worked
great!! The "Do" that I'm flying now has the S-82... But I'm thinking of putting the S-100 on
it.... It is not a speed plane..... But WoW in what controlled power can help in your flying!!!

If your good in building, you can make your own replacement pretty easy, But the cost for
those parts is not too bad and a lot faster if you order....

guys thanks fo your responses i did use a soldering iron per the instructions when i cut off the covering for the stab and i was barely in the throttle at all i taped all the hinges before the first flight and as far as speed im running a os .70 fs with a 14X4 so its not fast to begin with but who knows i think im going to build be a stab and then send the other one to great planes and have them send me a new one thanks guys oh if you look in some of the older forums on the u-can-do 46 there was alot of talk about the wings buckling i figure from wing loading

JuiceGoose... I'm on the UCD 46 forum a lot... and of late there have been no
report of such, and I myself have not had any problems out of hundreds of flts
on the two that I've own... I'm sure anyone can get a bad one, But it's not the
norm for this plane IMO...

Good luck on your repair!!

Juice, I've got tons of flights on mine and never had a problem with the tail and don't have the support wires put on it either. You may want to give Great Planes a call.

We had 4 tails at my field come off....all were due to pilot error. All planes were bought with the intention of just sport flying (balls to the walls type of flying). Two guys changed their flying style and are still flying today. The other 2.....well....lets just say they moved on...

Maybe they should change the name to "You SHOULD do 3D".

hahaha guys theres a number of things it could have been i did notice today as i was drafting up and measuring a full size set of plans for the tail that where it broke was right at a joint in that side your right maybe it had just been a lemon i dont know nore do i care i called great planes and itll be 3 weeks for one so i just going to build it myself thanks again guys