Out flying my tiger trainer .60 today, had a nice landing but the roll out went into a small bush. When I got to the plane, I found that the fire wall ripped clean out of the fuse. No other damage, just the missing firewall. The moral of this story, re enforce the firewall.Great flying plane, and an easy fix, but you never know what you're getting with these ARF's. Double check everything during assembly. Unless you like making repairs.

Mine was the kit. And incidentally, I never had such problems.

Any time you put a plane in the bush/ground you are going
to suffer some damage. The amount of damage depends
on how hard it hit and were it hit.
One thing for sure is if you dont plant it in the bush/ground
you will bring it home in one piece. LOL

A novice pilot in our club was flying this same ARF and was having terrible trouble. He apparently used elastics that had seen better days and the wing was not holding tightly to the fuse. He called for help and I took control (partially). After a fairly wild ride at low throttle, I made a less-than stellar landing in the tall grass just off the edge of the runway. Didn't land hard, but when we approached the plane, it was apparent that the firewall had pulled out. I was a bit surprised that there was any damage! Examination of the plane showed NO wood had pulled away from the firewall or fuselage- hardly even a splinter. Clean separation along the glue line. It was evident that this joint had never been glued properly. Two lessons learned:
1) Elastics are cheap; planes are not. Use lots of fresh rubber and check them before assembly.
2) DO NOT ASSUME that an ARF was put together correctly at the factory! Check all of the stress points and reinforce as needed.

He was probably lucky that this happened on a slightly rough landing rather than pulling out of a loop at 200'.

Ross

At least I know it wasn't just mine. My fire wall seperated on the roll out, after a very nice landing. Just rolled pretty softly into a bush. It's fixed now, and it wont be having that problem again.

This situation is not only for this specific ARF as I have seen problems in all brands. It is best to check all planes over before flight. Loose connections, bad glue joints (or no glue at all) and the like are common problems. If we look at the price of a stick built kit plus the cost of covering material vs the modern ARF the cost is very close (and in some cases the parts cost will exceed the ARF). The old adage "You get what you pay for" could apply here. I fly ARFS and also build the ones that are more important to me (IMAC planes and warbirds).

In the past few weeks I have seen one 60 size go in because the wing dowel holes were drilled several times in the side of the lite ply. This was not visible until after the crash as the plastic top cap covered the problem. The wing parted company from the plane. Another plane showed up at the field this week. Problems with the engine prevented the plane from being flown. The owners came to my shop and we did a thorough visual on the plane. One end of the push rods was loose so I pulled them out of the plane. The sleeves were missing on the back end of the rods. Many other problems were corrected and the plane is now airworthy. Some problems were just getting a better set up by centering all the controls and re aligning the wheels on the servos for equal throw, adding fuel tubing sleeves to the clevis when attached to the horn, replacing the fuel tubing that was damaged and the like.

Get some help not only for flight training but also in the set up of the plane and equipment. It will make your experience more enjoyable.

EXCAP232

I think the original intent of this thread has been lost, my intention was to inform people who have this plane( or any other ARF) to double check and re enforce if necessary the glue joint around the fire wall and the rest of the plane for that matter. It was my intent to help save people from the same headache that I and I'm sure a few others have encountered. The reason this is posted in the beginners forum is that this particular airplane is a trainer, and those that have not put a plane together in the past could possibly make this fix before it becomes an issue. I made this thread not to seek pity or advice, but only to inform people, especially beginners of the importance of double checking these critical joints. Like I knew I should have but didn't bother because I got complacent. That being said, I appreciate the fact that I can always turn to RCU if I need any advice with my aircraft. Enough typing, time to go fly.

i was there with him talkin him thru that landing... he has landed many times and they are almost as good as mine most of the time. but this was not a hard hit .. it was his intent on pointing out something and not to get chastised for it.... i have flown enough planes in my time (8yrs) to know a few things.. and this shouldnt have happened with this incident. there is clearly a minor problem that we observed and felt the need to address... and by the way he is a good pilot... and does very well for just starting out in this business. and, as i said, was just pointing out a flaw to others that may be getting this airplane.

Nobody is chastizing anyone. Were did you get that ideal.
I understand he was trying to point out something was wrong with
the farwall setup. If by chance you was talking about my post.
Dont be scared to comment directly to me. I will try to make myself
clearer.

I have this trainer. I can only get to the face of the firewall, not the inside of the firewall. There are small traingle pieces of wood at the junction of the fuse and the firewall. Should I just add some thin CA to this joint? I just completed my fourth landing today, and they have been somewhat hard landings.



Any good advice on re-enforcing the firewall?

In every production there is some models that might
experiance some defects. But that dont mean yours is one of them.
You have stated that you have some kinda hard landing on it and its still
holding up. If i was you and your worried about it i would just keep
a close eye on it. If it breaks than repair it.

Your statement on planting it in the ground could be read as the guy had a hard landing, when he specifically stated he had a nice landing. C'mon, you know how we pilots take pride in out landings!!!

Hey you got a valid point. I went back and edit my first post
to clarify. I dont consider hitting a bush after landing is a
nice landing.LOL

it was a very nice landing... but noone seen the little bush... if you flew were we do... you would see why.. but anyhow... it didnt hit the thing very hard at all... which is the point of airing this situation. so it doesnt really matter whether or not YOU consider this a good landing.... it was because i was there and seen it... but theres always a critic.