First of all, let me start out by saying that I'm writing this for NO reason other than to inform you the reader, of my personal experience with Horizon Hobby's customer service. I will start out with just the facts then add my own comments later. I merely want to inform people of MY personal experience with Horizon, so that those of you that have never had an experience with them will get both ends of the spectrum. Horizon's reputation is one of fast, courteous, and fair customer service; I have not experienced this....

I purchased a H9 Extra Easy 2 at the beginning of this month for my wife. She wanted to get into the hobby with me and I thought that purchasing a trainer with everything in it already would be the way to go to get her into the air ASAP. I followed the instructions to the letter, except I used some 30 min epoxy to glue the wings together, (I didn't trust clear tape to do the job). The batteries were charged overnight with the supplied charger and off to the field we went the next day...

At the field we met up with my club's senior instructor, he's been teaching people how to fly RC airplanes for 15 years and I trust him to be an expert on the hobby. He flew the Extra Easy 2 (dubbed Happy Flyer by my wife, smiley stickers and all) and trimmed it out, then after trimmed my wife flew on the buddy box until it ran out of fuel, Steve dead stick landed it perfectly. Re-fueled and up again... My wife by this time was getting the hang of turning so Steve introduced her to some maneuvers, rolls to start with. This flight was also uneventful. The 4th flight of the day my wife was doing a roll about 2 min into the flight when she got inverted the plane dove out of the roll and headed straight for the ground, Steve said he immediately released the switch and had control... he tried everything he could think of but we all watched the plane go from about 300 or 400 feet to 0. Cracked up pretty good too, engine buried in the wet mud too. So I picked it up and brought it back for the autopsy by experienced club members. Battery checked out at 4.82 volts a little low but the experts agreed enough charge to not be a factor. Then someone noted that the elevator servo could not be moved by hand, the experts at the field all agreed that the servo was "locked over solid" and that is must be a "defect". I was advised and many are to contact Horizon Hobby's and ask them if they would replace my wife's plane because of a defective servo. My instructor also wrote a letter explaining who he was and what happened.

I called Horizon hobby's and got *****, who sent me a pre-paid shipping label to send everything back, so I boxed it all up and shipped it in. By May 17th I had not heard back from anyone at Horizon, so I called in and talked with ***** again (I kept my tracking number and had already visited UPS.com to track it). Randy told me he had not seen my model yet, that it must not have shown up, so I then told him the UPS tracking info showed it had been delivered on the 13th, so then he tells me, he'll look at it this afternoon and call me back. That evening about 5:00 central I got a call saying that there was nothing wrong with any component of the airplane that the servo worked perfectly. I could not see how this was the case, I asked that it be re-tested by someone else, I also had to contact two managers at Horizon. Eventually they agreed to replace the airframe, but the same radio and engine was going back in the airplane.

I said that's fine, but at this point I don't trust that radio as far as I can throw it. So I have decided to rip out the JR radio and replace it with a Futaba system. However, it's now May 27 and still no box has arrived from Horizon. I think I'll call tomorrow the 28th and ask what's going on with it.

So again, I'm just posting this to let people know that I had some problems with Horizon. That it seems to me that they are changing their policies toward us (hobbyists). From my point of view, would it not have been easier to pull a new kit off the line already packed up and ship it out? This way they pulled a new airplane, spent time re-installing a questionable radio (this particular one not all JR's) and a repaired engine that may or may not be any good anymore. Not to mention that's it's been nearly a MONTH. I was hoping to get my wife back into the air ASAP, instead she's talking about dropping the hobby altogether because "I destroyed a $300 airplane" I keep telling her it was NOT her fault, she was doing EVERYTHING right, instructor AMA field, Buddy Box, etc.etc.

By the time all this happened I had already purchased a H9 P-51 .60 size and a sato engine, I had started building the P51, but the sato went right back to the store. Personally, I may not buy another Horizon product, as I had a bad personal experience with their customer service, I don't feel I was treated with respect, and I certainly don't think it's good business to keep someone waiting near a month for a replacement product. When/IF this plane finally shows’s back up, I'm going to sell the JR radio and install Futaba equipment that I purchased. I'm also going to ground test the living s*** out of it before it fly's again.


Again this post is MY PERSONAL experience with Horizon, I’m merely informing you of MY experience so that you can decide for yourself what kind of company they are, and if you trust that they will honor warranty’s and defects in a timely and courteous manner.

Just to clarify - Horizon 100% Great Products, 99.99% Great People and Service, I just seem to have been that 0.01%