Ian,
I agree with you, no one with experience in this hobby would fly that jet at that weight with 14lbs thrust. My bad for sure but the posted weight on the SM website was 17-18lbs and EVERYONE was finishing theirs out at 22-24lbs so i believe at the time i bought my kit it was false advertising and SM has to shoulder some of the blame. I was not looking for a freebe but a discount on another airframe so i could move over all of my equipment.

I received a tele call from Kevin right after he crashed his F-18. He told me the jet took of and pitched up violently but he got it under control and by switching to low elev rates was able to get in some nice flying for about 4mins. He then set up for final and got slow on the down wind leg and the jet just fell out of the sky. He used the video of a SM F-4 falling out of the sky on final that was posted here on RCU some time back as an example. Those were the details relayed to me right after the flight. Does that sound like a SM defect to you ?? this is why i have a beef with the way SM has handled Kevins crash and completely ignored my concerns.Yes, it would be nice to get the real truth from Kevin Marks and stop this dog and pony show BS.
V..