Just a quick note to the newbies on the stock AA. Do yourself a favor and put a dab of glue around where the boom and the tail hardware join each other. The tail likes to get loose and rotate in the boom. Not only that but the boom will start to crach around it's end where the tail goes into it. We've had this happen on three different AAs after several nose in hard crashes. Make sure the tail is level with the wing (isn't turned left or right in the boom) before putting the glue on. Use as little as you can get by with so you don't make the plane any tail heavier than it already is. I just pulled the tail out of the boom and put one drop of glue on it, then stuck it back in and rotated it back and fourth a bit to spread the glue over the inside of the boom surface. Also don't use too much because you don't want to get any on the antenna wire which will make yanking the guts harder in the future. While your at it put a dab of glue around the boom where it enters the plane body as it can become loose and rotate in the plane as well.

I read a reference to somebody using a drinking straw to replace the plastic boom and make the plane less tail heavy. They simply cut off the boom right where it exits the body and then stuck the straw over the stub of the boom sticking out, then stuck the tail piece into the straw at the other end. Has anybody tried this mod and how did it perform?