Hey guys is it just me or is the quality control at Hanger 9 haveing some trouble finding bad parts? I have just recieved another H9 27% Cap 232G due to a crash a few weeks ago. Tha one had a broken elevator half in it no big deal got another set for free from horizon. This new one i opend the box and inspected to find that both wing panels had several ribs that were crushed as well as the canopy was severely cracked. I went back to the hobby shop and had them order another set of wings. Again they had some ribs that were damaged. Now i am almost done and getting ready to setup the the radio and found the elevators on this one are SEVERLY WARPED hold the counter balance neutral and the the inboard tips are .25" off from eachother. UNLESS there QC really improves i think this will be that LAST hanger9 airplane i build!!!!!

that sounds about right i have seen the same thing with dealing with some of their kits, my eyes on on that 33% cap bad[8D]

Im worried about the these little things on a smaller airplane when they come out with the 35% 260 with the pre hinged surfaces and what not. They realy need to step it up a bit in there QC department. I have also had failues with there hardware and almost lost my old cap due to a clevis failure on the aileron. twice once on each aileron. which caused flutter

I don't own a Hanger 9 plane but most of the guys in our club do. By and large the quality of H9 planes is has been very good. Most people on this forum seem to agree as well.

I do agree i have had H9 airplanes that were extremly well built and had excellant quality in the years past but that seems to have gone away. I have a friend that had the new Funatna X100 and on the second flight the aileron servos mounts came loose in flight causing severe flutter and a lose of the airplane.

As long as we're basing the entire reputation of the company on single incidents............

I just recently finished a Hangar9 P47 Thunderbolt. What an excellent ARF. Out of the last 16 or so ARFs I've done in the last year and a half this one is about the 5th that had no flaws of design or construction. And the other H9 ARF was two Ultra Sticks that were error free. From that observation, I guess you could say that Hangar9's QC is leading the industry.

Get the idea?

There is a good probability that H9 does need to improve their QC with the model that caused this thread. There is also a good probability that H9 uses more than one chinese manufacturer.

What's the lesson to take from this thread?

Learn to inspect. We learned to build in the old days before ARFs. Nowadays, you need to learn to inspect before you assemble. Return the stuff you think should be returned or that you don't know how to fix or that will take too much effort to fix. We learned to build, you guys need to learn to fix or return.

As for H9 going to hell in a handbasket? Nah

if you read the first post you would hav e noticed that i did inspect the aircraft before assembly hence the new wings as for the elevator halfs you cannot see a warp in them unlsee you have them on the fuse becasue it is a removable stab

darock... Flyguy IS NOT bashing.... merely asking....

I work at the LHS that Flyguy uses and these errors are building and quality errors....not shipping......

we are on the THIRD set of wings with the same issue.... If Flyguy is just unlucky... fine, but with this model... there has been a few issues...
Thats all.....


I too have had great luck with Hanger 9 products.... this is just a open forum/heads up as the parts that Flyguy received looked PERFECT on the outside... but if you look carefully inside the wing, you will see the broken ribs.... almost as if they were broken during the build and just covered over....
I hope this isn't the case

Here is to hoping that this is an isolated case

exeter_acres,
And I'm not bashing either. Just opining.

Since you work in a LHS, what's your count on the number of H9 models coming back with those problems? Seems your numbers would answer the question posed by the thread.

I have 6 H9 planes. After I got my head on straight a decided that you have to beefup firewalls & everything else you can get to (as with all ARFs) they have a nice product. The only complaint that I still have with them is there retracts are way undersized. Both the Corsair & the AT6 had to small of wires for the weight of the planes. Once I replaced with larger wires the problem went away. I have Built many planes over the last 30 years. But now I Assemble them. I will get more H9 planes in the future.

I definitely love my H9 planes;have Spit,P47.Sopwith and Ultra Stick 60. Stick came with bad ribs in wing( not shipping) severly warped ailerons. Wonderful customer sevice at Horizon Hobby replaced wing set with return label included but H9 Quality contro should have caught bad wing ribs.

I agree 100% . My first three out of four planes were H9 but the firewall falling out of the fuse on my Ultra Stick 40 before the first flight was a good lesson. Reinforce where necessary and sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don't. 40+ flights later she is still going strong.

tis a good question.... Hanger 9 (Horizon) has always stood behind thier products... and they have stood behind this in that they are sending replacements to the shop.....

as summer starts...sales are a bit slower..... but I will keep an eye on this....

I would not hesitate to recommend a Hanger 9 product... I just hope they are not slipping.......

I always inspect a new airplane before assembly and go through and reinforce anything that needs it im just curious as to why im haveing the QC issues i have been having with this airplane

I can tell you guys after flying arfs for the last 5 years that i can tell a noticable difference lately in what i am seeing. i just last weekend had an almost new Funtana 50s wing fold up on me doing parachute, a manouver this plane is supposed to be best at. After a post crash inspection it was determined that the wing spar was quarter in soft type of hardwood that had been cut accross the grain not lengthwise. It snapped like a pretzel. I had been flying it about 3 months and only regularly in the last month. This is the second funtana to fold a wing up on me as one of my last ones did it in a blender.

I've got a Tribute 36, Twist 60, and Twist 150 from Hangar-9, and they've all been pretty good quality-wise. A few minor problems after several flights, but nothing major, and nothing was wrong with any of them out-of-the-box. These are smaller & simpler airframes, though, so I'm sure there's much more potential for problems with the giant scale airframes...

All I see is H-9 QC has gone down. What about the new guy that just got hired and doesn't have the jig setup skills to build a perfect airframe????[sm=spinnyeyes.gif] Remember you didn't know what you were when you started the hobby!! Yes you do get that QC guy that doesn't care or is the QC guy the BUILDER? I built H-9 260 for a friend and the stab tube fit very loose.I bought the cap 232g for myself and every thing fit perfect.[sm=thumbup.gif]

Hanger 9 is getting sloppy, and it's costing me money. Here is a thread I started like 3 weeks ago.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_6106206/tm.htm



Luftwaffe Oberst
Radio Aero Modelers Club
AMA District II
Pulaski, NY

All the ARF's are getting sloppy. No doubt about it has cost me time/money above and beyond the cost of their kits.

I just drove 2 hours to return a WM ARF that was terrible, they should be ashamed of themselves.

The most I have dropped thus far for an ARF is $430.00 for a Kangke Rearwin. The quality is very good, except the windshield didn't fit, and the paint used on the fiberglass parts was to hard, cracks and chips off like crazy. Got a new cowl out of them, only one problem same paint used=same problem.


I am just about ready to start building again. By the time you get one of these so called ARF's that have to be reworked flying, you might as well build a kit.

Da Rock,

Funny I see your post all over RCU. All I got to say is you are one h_ll of an advocate for the manufactures. I read your post about the Sports Aviation Corsair concerning the poor quality of the horizontal stabilizer that has been coming off new planes in flight. I gota ask do you really believe what your saying about people should expect to repair ARF's out of the box? Or are you just getting some kick backs from the manufactures?

Last time I bought a new car, lawnmower, appliance, funny I didn't have to rework/repaint any of those out the box.

Shouldn't we as consumers get what is advertised?

Point blank no quality control=poor product=lost sales.

My repair is finished on the J-3 Cub. This is my second patch job and I think it sucks. My wife thinks it looks fantastic, and can hardly tell etc. Well, you people decide, be honest... if it could be better say so. I feel like getting another fuse, so I will let you guys help with my decision.

I did the Lightning stripe with black Ultra. I used low heat on the Iron and carfully worked at it until the bubbles came out, and used my finger with a little pressure. It's holding so far,[&:] I didn't have enough Ultra to do the whole side...so I did a square patch instead.


So, we can use Ultra for striping, it just takes a lot of patience.









Luftwaffe Oberst
Radio Aero Modelers Club
AMA District II
Pulaski, NY

LuftwaffeOberst looks pretty good. We are our own worse critik!!![>:] Set the temp just high enough to get the covering to stick. Using a lower temp prevents gas bubbles from forming.Then I go around the edges with monokote trim solvent with a Q-tip. Tower Hobbies part # LXHZ43 Let it dry for a while then clean off the excess with with windex or your usual airplane cleaner. The trim solvent seals the edges so it will never peel off. No more worries about gas bubbles from a hot iron. I also do this on my ARFS . Covering that peels is a pet peeve of mine![sm=tired.gif]
[sm=devious.gif][sm=disappointed.gif]

This post got a little off topic... My buddy and I have been talking for some time about Hangar 9 quality problems. Extremely weak landing gear on his spit followed by the firewall coming out have been just two of the problems on this aircraft alone. What was said about once you beef up the firewalls and replace landing gear is correct but I agree with an earlier post that when we purchase an aircraft that is either ARF or RTF it should be just that. Why do something twice when it could have been done right once. Why should we have to do repairs before we ever even fly our airplanes. I am fairly new to the hobby (couple years) but I have tried my hand at building my own aircraft. It is actually fun and I feel they turn out well but I hate to do the covering (I would bet most people are in this boat) so I buy ARF's. Those little nooks and crannies that were so easy to get to during building are not so easy afterwards. Yet there are always two sides to every coin and it costs me about the same (or more) to build a plane than it does to buy a similar ARF. So there in lies the crux do we save a couple bucks and a bunch of time and buy an ARF for it to fall apart when we are flying because of cheap labor or do we spend months or years building a quality aircraft on our own. I personally will maintain a balance and build aircraft when I have time and when I need a quick diversion I will fly ARF's.

Looks good to me.

I think you should finish fly it before buying a new fuselage.

I had an Ultra Stick that was really good, though there was a niggling annoyance or two during construction. I'm not a big fan of Ultrakote, but it seems that's the best material around because they have cheapend monokote up so much. And, oh, I automatically replace all the clevises with Dubro or Great Planes as soon as I open the box.

That's the bad part.

Here's the good: I've had two Hangar Pulse XTs and they have been awesome. I fly them really, really, really hard, and they stay together. I love the way the Pulse looks, and I love the way it flies. Both of mine came out of the box in perfect condition and flew with very little trim. I haven't even changed the setup. The way it comes out of the box is perfect. Right now the Pulse is an even bigger favorite for me than the Ultra Stick. That's a big statement.

The Pulse XT PNP is a great concept, and I wish they would do more airplanes like that. With PNP just about all of the work is done. I don't want to work. I just want to fly, so this works extremely well for me.

A step even further along than PNP is the Hangar 9 RTF lineup. I have a lot of students, and I insist they get a Hangar 9 RTF trainer, Why? Well, so I don't have to build the thing, that's why. I spend about 20 minutes going over a new student's plane and then I never touch it again. I set the needle and then we fly it and fly it and fly it. One Hangar 9 Alpha at our field is on it's third student! Not only are the planes reliable and well built, but they are very stout and take an incredible amount of outright abuse. We are extremely pleased with the Hangar 9 Alpha and Arrow trainers that our students fly.

We have also had a few of the Hangar 9 PTS Mustangs show up at our field and they are really nice too. They aren't perfect trainers, but they are acceptable. With all the training aids pulled off, it's a very nice sport plane and extremely docile considering that it is, after all, a Mustang.

Personally I have owned a PTS Mustang and PTS F-22 Raptor. Both of those were very nice planes that didn't have any QC issues.

This doesn't mean that there aren't problems occasionally, but Horizon service has treated us extremely well. I empathize with the poor fellow who started this thread, but it seems like his problems may have, in part, been caused by poor handling in shipping. I mean, they don't put the things in the box with the wings smashed, do they? It probably happens in shipping. I'm sure that Hangar 9 could make a bullet proof carton, but who's going to pay for that? That's right.....US, who will turn around and then complain that the plane costs too much.

Look, I hardly mail order anything, especially ARF planes. I buy as much as possible from my LHS, partially out of loyalty, but also because I can inspect the aircraft before I pay for it. If there is a big problem, I just pick out another one. Once or twice I've missed some damage, but I take it back to the LHS and they swap it out for me. With Horizon products, shipping damage is the vendor's problem, but for QC issues, the customer sends it back.

OK, this system isn't perfect but it's very workable. You just have to carefully inspect the plane before you pay for it. I've found very few Hangar 9 quality issues, but I've also seen an entire shipment of Ultra Stick 25E kits reduced to splinters by UPS. You just gotta check the thing out carefully before you take it home.