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Old 10-11-2009, 09:06 PM
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Hossfly
 
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Default RE: Word of waring on Brodak ARF


ORIGINAL: iflyg450

Today made my 3rd flight with my smoothie which is great I mean was a great flying plane. Halfway into the flight the bell crank cam loose, after looking a the wreck the plate the crank was attached to was on a 1''x1'' square of 3/32 lite ply and was held in by four drop of CA at the corners. I have the plate a Brodak will be getting a call Monday. This what you get when you go ARF. I should have just built my own. Out of 20 planes I have only done the ARF thing twice now I know why.

For anyone building assembling any ARF model these days may I suggest you take a very good look at all the engine structure area, any load bearing areas such as wing mounting, tail feathers mounting and especially bellcrank area in CL models.

Heck, even U.S. kits from days long past showed Bell Crank mounts and usually the wing LE through the fuselage as an accident waiting to happen. Guys that did not know how to tie the wing LEs to a ply bulkhead on the LE wondered why the noses cracked and looked ready to fall off after 20-30 flights. Doesn't hurt to assure 1/4" ply for bellcrank and well attached between two ply ribs.
Some extra ply and even metal brackets for firewall engine mountings. Add a couple ounces and save some fingers.

I have seen RC ARFs have tail feathers shed in the air, wings fold in the air, engines leave the airplane while sitting for run-up (one took better part of 3 fingers), leave on take-off, and in the air, ailerons and/or elevators leave the aircraft, and it's all because inexperienced model fliers simply don't know what to look for as they have little or no building experience. NO, they were not all mine.

As Mark Twain said about newspapers, "If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed."
Well, the same goes for most of the ARF Instructions these days. No read instructions - uninformed: Do read instructions, usually misinformed. [X(] [:@]