Well, I bought a "new" Firebird outlaw, about 4 hours from my house, and i neglected to check it out before I left the store (museum). When I got home, I found that the rod that goes through the fuselage that connects to the motors is BROKEN inside the fuselage. This causes the motors to sometimes move in weird places and hit the wing and/or fuselage when I throttle up. It appears that the people at the museum had a bit of fun with the plane before putting it on the shelf to sell at full price. My father called the museum and got an answering machine yesterday (wednesday) and I bought it monday. So far I have attempted to get it to fly with Rubber bands (didn't work), sticky tack... which proceeded to let me fly it well enough to get it stuck up in a tree 20 feet up... the controls were useless except for the throttle. What do you suggest I do to fix it? This is assuming that the museum is refusing to replace it, and I am forced to improvise... included are pictures.

another pic

yet another picture

last one for now

I had a firebird outlaw that broke in the same place after about a month of flying it. I would first attempt to get the museum to replace it. If no luck there, this is how I repaired mine.

I lined up the two broken rods in the fuselage so that they were both even. The way mine broke, they two peices kind of peiced together like a puzzle. Make sure they are both symmetrical on both sides of the fuselage. Then hold the plane with the nose facing straight up. ( It helps if you have someone assisting you ).
Then just squeeze a bunch of crazy glue into the area where the two rods meet in the fuselage. Wait about ten minutes or so, then do the same thing. After it all dried, there was a ball of glue about the size of a piece of chewed up bubble gum holding the two rods together, and even. This worked for about two months, (probably about 20 or so flights until the glue finally gave way.

At that point I just ordered another firebird outlaw fuselage with the same channel for the plane. You can get extra parts for the firebird at C and C Hobbies on line. THe new fuselage cost about 27.00 plus shipping. I have since gotten into glow planes which I'm sure you will eventually too. They seem to be a lot less of a hassle believe it or not.

* Make sure there is absolutely no wind when you take the firebird out. It is the only way you can actually control it in the air, any wind will just take over.

Hope this helps.... Tim

Yep... thanks for the suggestion... from doing a bit of research, i've concluded that my best course of action is the following
A) Contact Museum
B) If Museum replaces, goto E, else goto C
C) Cut a piece of steel wire about 2mm thick 1in long
D) Use hot glue to fix the wire to the rod in the fuselage
E) Be happy and fly for many many days, but watch out for the wind.

Don't keep screwing around with it trying to make it work if you are going to take it back. If you do more damage, they will have every right not to take it back.

yeah... that's what my dad said too... :P

If you lose your replacement battle . . .

Can you pull either pod (and its spar) away from the fuselage to greate a gap between the broken bits? I would insert as long a piece of snug fitting dowel (a toothpick, for example) after coating it with epoxy as I could fit in the hollow spar. Make sure the pods are lined up with each other and the fuselage. You should set it on a couple piles of magazines (upside down may be easier, too) to support the pods and keep it stable while the epoxy dries.

Look at the bright side. You don't have to worry about putting the first dings on your new plane.

There's another thread on here about this kind of fix. The hobby shop near me does a fix for this using brass tubing slid over the outside of the break, with epoxy to hold the broken parts together and the brass in place.

Velco Dots work great for the Outlaw pod repair.
For complete info go to my website.

My batteries are charging, and soon, I shall be up there... AGAIN!
Check out our cool site at
http://groups.msn.com/HobbyzoneRCPla...Clubunofficial
Big Thanks form the Procrastinator

Why dont you buy a gws slow stick for 35.00$ and servos,receiver,esc for 80.00$ then buy a great radio then you could use the radio on other planes to.

Thanks,
Trevor H
[sm=bananahead.gif]

Hi,

If your other efforts do not succeed, please contact HobbyZone/Horizon Hobby per the instructions in the Manual. I am sure they can help you!

Regards

Horizion hobby and hobby zone have great reputations for customer service. But if you keep screwing around with it, there is no reason for them to take it back. If you got it broken, you should have returned it immediately. I am sure you spent a lot more than 4 hours messing with it.

If you don't want to drive it, mail it!!

Just call Horizon Hobby (the distributors) and explain the situation to them. My bet is that they'll be happy to make things right for you. (877)504-0233