For all the experienced people out there, what exactly was the issue with the Corsair retracts? I spent some time looking/playing with the Hellcat retracts and they seem rather well built. They have "locks" of some sort to hold the gear both up and down - presumably over center locks. It takes quite a bit of force on the retract links to unlock them and I hazard to guess wood splitting force to unlock them in any other fashion....so what is the issue? I can see that the ball links to rotate them may shear on a really hard landing - but that is actually good if you ask me - links are easily replaced - structural damage not so much. Now if those links are failing on relatively soft landings that is another story but all the negative info so far is rather vauge...anyone care to describe it in detail???

As an aside, when I was picking it up today, the LHS also had a DVD of the Hellcat flying. It was really windy in the vid, actually a pretty good crosswind on a paved runway. I watched the pilot plant it pretty firmly on a couple touch and go's and while the gear legs flexed pretty good (as they should) it didn't show any indication it was about to collapse. Just so we all know, the vid was continuous with retraction cycles in between, so no chance of any hanky panky there I presume.

Other than the specious gear rumours, upon close examination my Hellcat is very well put together. Honestly I couldn't do a better job of covering if I spent weeks at it. A couple of seams needed a little reheating and I have 1 very small wrinkle on the horizontal stab to iron out - but that's it for the covering! The paint on the cowl lines up perfectly with the fuse covering and the wing belly pan is very securly attached - so far. I also read about the caulk issue but frankly to try and pull it off will most likely cause more damage than its worth. If it vibrates off I'll let you all know and deal with it. I don't care for the globs of hot glue on the firewall but that's an easy mod - with smaller motors it's probably fine.

Can't wait to fly this sucker...