climber9

Couple weeks ago I bought an Ultra Stick 40 ARF from my LHS. This is my first "kit" build, so I was excited to get started. During the wing assembly (already covered halves requiring joining), I could hear some small bits of balsa bouncing around inside the wing halves. I thought it was just some loose scrap that had been left inside prior to covering. I made it through all the steps including mounting the servos for rudder and elevator. Then I cut into the wing for the aileron and flap servos. That's when I saw the problem.

Turns out, those pieces of "scrap" balsa were actually pieces of the wing that had broken inside the covering. As you can see in the pictures, the wing spar supports were breaking off just from normal handling. The right wing's supports had all failed, but the left wing looked like it was fine.

I managed to get through to Horizon Hobby's tech support (use the callback feature, it works great, otherwise the wait time can be extensive). According to Horizon Hobby, there is a known production issue with the wing spars on this plane. They said that no parts are available for this model until June 2011 (it's now Nov 2010). The tech support guy was very helpful. He spoke with his manager and they agreed to issue a store credit to me for the list price of the model (although I paid less than thathe saw my receipt from the LHS). Also, he provided a postage paid UPS label to return the model.

So, I proceeded to break apart all my hard work so it would fit back in the box (coffin, really, I felt at that point). Vertical stabilizer...snap! Wing... snap! Elevator... snap! I've broken planes before, but never like that!

Although I am really disappointed about the production problems, and the fact that it was a known issue yet the model still was for sale on my LHS shelf, I have to say that I was pleased with every other aspect of the model. Packaging, documentation, quality of the prebuilt parts, everything. I will buy another Hangar 9 product, without hesitation I just wish that they had been more upfront initially about the known problem!

Advice to any Ultra Stick builders... cut into the wing first to look at the spars around the servo mounts. If you see them broken, call horizon hobby for a refund.

WCB

Glad to hear Horizon took care of you. They are known for great customer service.

wcb

climber9

Yeah, thanks. Definitely a class act there regarding customer support. Now... what should I buy next?

CustomPC

That's a shame because i was just about to purchase one of these and was doing a quick bit of research before hitting the "buy" button.

scooterinvegas

My Feedback: (1)

I would have fixed it and went flying :-)

If your going to stay in this hobby, you need to learn to fix some things. If it wasn't a "almost" discontinued model, you could have just gotten you new wing. Sticks are getting hard to find, that why I say you should have fixed it AND made horizon give you a credit for the wing.

Gizmo-RCU

My Feedback: (27)

Scooter,
I don't think I would have wanted to pay for a broken product,re-covering costs and why pay extra for that? I have been in the hobby for a long time and I know how to fix things but that doesn't change the fact that the wing was defective on arrival.
I have a 60 size Super Stick purchased last spring, and yes there are issues with production right now, mine came from the LHS and was unblemished, had it not been I would have returned it.
BTW Horizon is great but how would you "make" them give you credit for the wing when they didn't see it?

Just my thoughts........