Thought you guys might want to hear how mine flew. Thunder Tiger Rare Bear, YS .91 FZ, robart 606HD retracts, otherwise built according to plan with the exception of the normal beefing of the firewall area. Takeoff was a little squirrelly with the spring loaded tailwheel and the 3/16 wire landing gear. So I would set up a pull pull set up for tailwheel steering ( thats how I did my second Rare Bear, because I bought two when they came out) and robostruts for sure. So its up in the air and it wants to climb. It took every bit of down trim the 9CAP had to get level flight, so I would do my first flight with about 1/8 " of down elevator to start. And this is not surprising, alot of my warbirds have needed down trim on the maiden flight. But right away I notice that this plane flies great! It is rock solid, fast and fun to fly. Reminds me of a Great Planes Shoestring. It needed no other trim adjustments for level flight. So I had been up for about 6 minutes and decided to do a somewhat lower pass on the runway. I was at about half throttle. I made a wide right turn and commenced a shallow dive headed to come right over the runway when both horizontal stabilizers decided to shear off of the fuselage. This thing looked like it got a direct antiaircraft hit. It folded up like a mallard hit point blank with a 12 guage. So the plane is totalled and the preliminary inspection shows that there is almost no glue holding the formers into the stabs. You can see from the photos that the formers stayed on the glass tubes so those are glued on good. Its a shame because it really was a nice flying plane. But I do have another one and I have a fix for the weak horizontal stabs. Get yourself a bottle of Probond or Gorilla glue. If you have not installed your stabs yet make sure all of your parts fit together first. I noticed on both of mine that the glass tubes did not fit into the holes that well. The holes need to be enlarged. On my second RB I made a new longer carbon fiber rod to replace the short one that came with the ARF. I also drilled out the former so the rod could slide farther in. Once you have all of your parts ready, take one stab at a time and pour a half ounce of glue into the end of each stab. Roll it around in your hand to spread the glue around and slide them on. Use a small amount of glue on the end former to the fuse. Now what this Probond will do is expand and encapsulate the rods, formers and sheeting all together. Plan on spending the next hour or two wiping the excess glue off as it will start to seep out the hinge slots, but once it is dry they will be solid. I can't even push the balsa sheeting in its that hard. So I will have Rare Bear 2 flying this next weekend and I know it will fly great. Several guys in our club have these but I was the first one to fly. I clued all of them in on the stab fix. If you have already mounted your stabs you can do the same thing by injecting Pro bond into small holes on the bottom of the stabs. I would suggest three holes spaced such as you in the one picture and then let the glue foam out of those holes before you patch them up. Also fly the Rare Bear on the suggested high rates in the manual as reponse is too sluggish on the low rates. I used 30% exponential also. Enjoy your plane you will love it!
Dan McKeag

Is TT going to cover any of your loss?

Yes, TT is sending me a new Rare Bear, free of charge. Fabulous customer service at Ace Hobby----this one is going to get a 160 FX

What engine and prop were you using?

It appears from the pictures that the elevator torque rods are too light and you probably experienced elevator flutter. The Gorilla glue won't do anything to avoid flutter. I would sure replace those wimpy torque rods. Dubro makes a heavy duty set. (4-40, I think)

Jim

Bummer! I was wanting one, but now with the bad flight reviews coming out, Im not buying one.

(in your best 5 year old voice) "Well, JohnVH, you were invited to my birthday party but now you're not!"

...couldn't resist.

There was no flutter. All of the hardware is 4-40 . I run a YS91 with a 13x10 APC--I was only at half throttle when it happened--

haha, good, didnt want to come anyway.

Sorry to hear about that BVAB47... Now I'm Nervous about mine... But that's great to hear that Ace is sending you a new one, and that it's a great flyer. Out of curriosity, ho did you balance come out??? Mine has a 91AC on the front, and needs almost a pound of lead to get it to balance according to the manual. Also good tip about putting pull pull on the tail wheel.... I was thinking it would be squirly on the ground with those springs.

I had 6 ounces of lead up front with an 1800mah battery pack. I also put in a dual exhaust that exited in the stock location. That weighed 4 to 5 ounces. It will be a fun plane to fly and the looks are great. I don't get too excited about faulty ARFs there aren't too many that don't need some sort of rebuilding to make them right. I beefed up the landing gear mounts as well in mine.
Dan

Thanks for the CG info, You've got a good attitude. Some people (we've all seen it) take it a little to far and bash and whine for what seems an eternity...even if they get a free replacement.....

High Sierra
I was thinking about your CofG problem and the motor you were going to use until you got a bigger unit. Due to the size of the cowl and the spinner have you thought of putting some spacers between the engine mount and the firewall to shift the motor and mount forward. With the size of spinner the temporary mod may help reduce the amount of ballast to correct the CG problem and not look to out of place. I have done this on a CAP 232 and moved the cowl foward which gave me the correct CG and it didn't look out of place. When I got he heavier motor I removed the spacers and shifted every thing back. Just a thought.
LAinWA

Well this is good. Last year I had a wing shear of from lack of gluing on a Kyosho Texan after a couple flights. I went through a nightmare to get that replaced having to go over The "B's" head to get what was right.