I have a Superstar Trainer (i'm sure its tail is pretty much identical to the rest of the .40 size trainers) and I plan on going out to the fiiel today. But as I was checking over vefore loading, my Horizontal Stabilizer is a little loose and wiggling side to side. The screws that go through the bottom up through it are stripped out. It did this before and I fixed it by the fillin th excess space with thse small really dense cotton cylinders, not sure what they were found em in the shed, and drilled through those.

Its heald up for a while but the problem is back. Would permenatly epocying the stabilizer on be ok?

That would be a good idea. Remember to remove the covering before applying the epoxy.

It wiggles slightly from side to side, nothing extreme and I tugged on the back to see if it would pull out. There is no movement forwards or backwards when I tug on it, this sound safe for a few flights today?

I'd fly it.
If I planned to epoxy the stab on later I'd smash the end of the stripped threaded rods a little to be sure the nuts don't come off in the air.

Hi,

It think it is obvious from your post that you have the Superstar 40 Select - correct? If you want to epoxy the stabilizer in permanently and you are not sure how to go about it, go to the Hobbico website and download their manual for the "Superstar 40 with Monokote ARF". That ARF (same aircraft) requires that both the horizontal and vertical stabilizers are epoxied in place and it will take you through the step by step. Hope this helps.

Steve

Will do. The one I purchased was the one at display at the LHS. Obviously whoever put this one together was in a hurry, you can see allot of places where they rushed, even on an ARF Trainer. But its heald up so far and I'm buying a new plane very soon so fly on... [8D]

I would definately NOT fly the plane. You are going to fight with the shifting surface. The plane will not track well and trims will be all over the place. Do as suggested peel the covering and use 30 min epoxie and glue it down before flying again. Good luck.


Mark Shuman

I would have to agree with phread59. As a general rule, it's never a good idea to go ahead and fly any plane that you know has an obvious problem. Fix it before you send it up and be safe. Doing a thorough pre-flight is an excellent habit to get into but does absolutely no good at all if you go ahead and ignore something that isn't quite right. Good pre-flight checks will save a lot of mishaps.

The slop in the horizontal stab is inherent to the design of the Superstar Select. While I agree it should be epoxied it is nothing to ruin a day at the flying field. Make sure the nuts are not pulling through the balsa and are not going to fall off and go flying. If you tighten the nuts down enough to get the slop out of the stab you will just crush the bottom of the fuselage unless you reinforce it. I think the Superstar is a great plane and mine sees frequent flight time (44 flights this year.)

Field was booked up for a contest today anyway.

The stabilizer wasn't loose enough to cause tracking problems in flight. Just wiggles a centimeter to the right or left. But now that I have some time on hand I'll fix it.

At least do a temporary fix, and pour some CA down there!