ORIGINAL: Airplanes400
ORIGINAL: icepilot
Well, I have several hundred hours on my 3 SM jets, and there are a lot of pilots here in Norway that fly SM jets everytime we are at our field. None of them have ever fallen apart, they are not flown gentile and they are great planes. I am not a rep, not sponsored and I have never reinforced any of my SM models. Contrary to your ramblings, I know these planes and I know what I am talking about - but I doubt that you are a person that can be discussed with in a sensible manner so I will end my engagement in this matter here..
Hi Icepilot,
I'm glad you have had safe flights with your SM jets. I really hate to see them crash no matter who the manufacturer is. People put a lot of money and time into these things. I hate to see all that go to waste .. for any reason ... even pilot error.
I'm sure you saw that lousy 'factory' aluminum wing tab glue job on one of the SM Dragons. Something like that should have never been put in the market. Obviously, SM lets anything go out their door. Now we have a rash of these planes coming apart in the sky !!!
In most products these days, ''Made in China'' has meant same quality, lower price. In the case of SM, ''Made in China'' means cheap quality, bad engineering, low price ...
I have very high standards for something that is going 200+ mph. The g's that these jets are capable of, and endure, would cause a human to 'black out'. A 90° bank at a constant altitude can put as much as 4 g's on an aircraft structure, and a hard landing can be 2 or more. Since these models weigh anywhere from 18 to 35 pounds, a 'g' force of 6 would be as if the plane weighed 108 to 210 pounds. That is what the minimum stress capability of these planes should be.
Fiberglass is not capable of this. SM jets do not have the proper structure or reinforcing. Their aluminum wing tab is a joke.