Woody218

My Feedback: (24)

First flight of my Accel Katana 40 yesterday. Went up high, throttled down to idle, nosed over into a vertical roll, went into a blender, and all we heard was a loud "Crack". Everyone present agreed it sounded rather ominous, so I brought it around for a landing. It flew "funny", and after I got it on the ground, it was easy to see why. The horizontal fin was cocked to the right at about a 20 degree angle.

The covering was split down the left side, and when I picked up the plane, it felt like a bag of marbles. We peeled back the covering, and found the fuselage had split all the way from the wing cutout to the slot where the horizontal stab is glued in. I grabbed some of the sheeting with my thumb and index finger to look inside, and a whole piece came right off in my hand. I don't know what kind of glue is used to assemble these, but there was very little on the sheeting. I looked like it had been some kind of watery aliphatic resin glue.

I then noticed some of the internal structure was loose, and found that I could easily remove those pieces that were still attached to the sheeting with no more than perhaps a half pound of force.

By now, everyone was making comments about what a piece of ***** this plane appeared to be, and I was feeling pretty pissed. I stripped the engine and radio out of it, and proceeded to disassemble it. I was amazed at how little glue this thing had inside, even the hardwood pieces came right out with no effort at all. It appears that the only thing holding this thing together was the covering!! Also, the wood was so poor, so cheesy, that I would never even give wood this bad to my kid for him to ruin. It was full of mold, black spots and holes. I dumped the whole thing in the garbage can at our field.

I know I'm going to get the "I love mine, it flies great" replies. Good for you, but as for me, I will never buy another one of these.

cropdusterdave

My Feedback: (2)

Hmmm. Do you have the old one...with the crappy yellow covering? That's the one I have.....I love it. I got one of the first ones to ship to the states. This is the first bad quality report I've heard. I have a feeling that it may have been stored in a damp place for an extended period of time or something like that. When my current one dies...I"m gonna buy another one. If I see you somewhere at a funfly this summer...I'll let you check it out. Too bad you had this experience....it really is a great profile. I'll bet if you contacted Accel....you will get a new airplane or reimbursement.


www.accelhobby.com

Woody218

My Feedback: (24)

Dave, it was one of the new ones, I got it about a month ago. Perhaps I'll PM Frank and let him know. It sure left a bad taste in my mouth.

cropdusterdave

My Feedback: (2)

I definately would....these guys usually stand up for their stuff. Tell them what a piece of crap this one was.....see what happens.

dhooks

My Feedback: (24)

Woody sorry to hear this man.

Sounds like you got a bad one. Could you show us some pics of the wormholes an mold?

Get in contact with Alex at Accel an he WILL make it right for you. He is a standup guy.

1fish

My Feedback: (3)

I am sorry to hear about your experience with the Katana but you should not have thrown it away. I can pretty much say with out a doubt OMP or if you bought it direct Accel would have replaced it no problem, I have the same plane, now I will give you the build is nowhere near the quality that the 540 Edge from Extreme Flight but its light and strong enough for any maneuver you can come up with.. I have my throws set at 150% and I go full speed into a wall and also I flat spin it at full throttle with no problems at all, I think you might have gotten a damaged one or just a poorly assembled one...

cropdusterdave

My Feedback: (2)

If it's still in the garbage go get it and send them a sample. These guys don't like bad PR.

rkrider

Well thats what can happen with arfs. Some ok and some well...... I know how you can prevent this from happening in the future. Build it youself ! That way you know its right, you support your own, and the poor guy making a nickle an hour can't spoil you're day.

Woody218

My Feedback: (24)

Yep, you're right on. I have a Katana 40 I built up from an OMP kit, that sucker is hell for stout, it just keeps on flying. I had heard great things about the Accel Kat, and wanted to try one myself. I know they are a good plane, mine had to have been built by an oriental with bad gas or something.

dhooks

My Feedback: (24)

Contact Alex at Accel first thing monday Woody an he will be more then happy to ship you a new plane for your trouble. No doubt the next one will be built by a nongassy oriental!

Quicker

Thanks for jumping in Dan.

He's been offered a free replacement if he wants it.

Customer is always right. Satisfaction guaranteed.

WhtBronco

Now that's customer service. I'm very impressed, although I believe this should be the norm and not the exception. In any case Accel has my vote for good customer service.

mstcitabria

Deleted

Quicker

Next time send me a PM or email and I'll make sure you get treated better. Alex and I have been working on the proper way to handle issues when they come up. We will tear into a kit and ship out a wing if that is what you need.

I don't know your story 100%, so I can not comment on why Alex said only $50. I personnally have seen to it that individual wings were sent out that were smashed due to UPS, and a replacement fuse was sent out for the Pitts because the guy didn't think it was good enough.

Between the original Katana 40 "P" and the current Katana 40 "GS", nearly 1,000 planes have been built with nearly 800 of those sold.

I'm sorry you're so upset mstcitabria.

Q

TailTwister

My Feedback: (1)

And still, nobody is posting pics?

mstcitabria, I love how you ignored my post in the other thread, then com here and raise the same sand. Killer strategy dude...

Is all you have done to your plane is cut out the servo holes? I'll buy it from you then, how about that?

mstcitabria

Deleted

TailTwister

My Feedback: (1)

First off, let's get this straight. Accel is not mine, I just fly the planes dude.

If all you have done is cut out some servo holes, how about I see about other means of making you happy? You gonna ignore that too? Please, continue to ignore the people that are trying to help you. That makes perfect sense to all of us.

Again, not my product, I just fly the planes.

TailTwister

My Feedback: (1)

What is it called when you continuously post the same thing over and over?

SPAMMING:
Spamming, in which a user posts the same message repeatedly in one or multiple forums, is prohibited. Spamming will also be defined as posting advertisements in the general discussion forums for products for sale in the swap shop.

RCU Policy.

You spoke your piece, you are now refusing help. Case closed in my book.

Quicker

Well, now I am at a loss. While originally, maybe you should have been given a 100% refund, since you say you only cut into the servo cutouts, but that part is over. I will still try to get you that refund.

You have a concern about quality of build. Fine, we all do, so I offered to send you another Kat 70 for free for you to dissect and post pictures here on RCU. You refused. I offered to let you have some prototypes and early runs of new planes ( free of charge ) that Accel is comming out with that I designed for your feedback, because if you are this upset, I want to know what is wrong. You refused this, too.

At this point, if all you want to do is call Accel bad names, by all means, have fun. I was hoping to understand what you think is bad and what you think is good. Maybe others out in the R/C world have the same points of view about construction, and Accel designers would have learned about that.

I can tell you, that the planes are not built with hot glue, though

depfife

My Feedback: (14)

Any mass produced product will have a certain amount of lemons. Good quality control limits the number of lemons, but even the most respected brands have a few. It is difficult to be happy when we are the unfortunate one that gets one of the lemons, but I for one would have no hesitation in purchasing another Accel product.

My Kat 40 and Kat 70 did not have any of the problems mentioned in this thread, and from reading the response of the company representatives I feel comfortable that if a future purchase from them turns out to be a lemon, they would make it right.

Eric

Quicker

Thanks Eric.

Q

TailTwister

My Feedback: (1)

Thank you Eric.

I think that if anyone did a search on RCU for "Accel", they would find loads of great feedback from many folks, and loads of happy customers flying their Accel planes like MAD!

Yes, WOODY had a problem. He too was worried about what Accel had to offer him, as a consumer, not being up to par. He spoke with a few Accel people, including Alex. He will be taken care of, and in a hurry.

Yes, MSTCITABRIA seems to have a problem too, but is demonstrating that he wants nothing more than a forum to trash the Accel Hobby name. Accel has made several attempts to make him happy, starting with a partial refund, followed by a few other offers that are well beyond the reasonable expectations of any model purchaser, including not one but a few planes to look at and evaluate based on his quality standards. This is the third thread that MSTCITABRIA has used to spread the "information" regarding his plane.

MST, again, I'm sure by now Accel is WAY SORRY for the quality of the plane you recieved. Quinn has no control over the financial end of Accel, but has worked to use his influence to get you a fair shake. I'll even say more than fair. I even offered to buy the plane from you personally. You seem to want to keep it, so how bad could it really be?

I'm sorry there seems to be no solution that you consider to be beneficial to you. I wish we could figure this out. As Eric said, bad things sneak out of every manufacturer in the world. The test is how that situation is handled. I think most folks would say that Accel has made enough of an effort here.

diggs_74

Quicker,

I would be more than willing to accept the prototypes free of charge I'll give you all the feedback you want. No true R/C'er turns down free planes.

srg123cohen

My Feedback: (13)

Quicker I second that, It will get you some publicity also further north. I could do some reviews, clear accels name .

Quicker

Opened a can of worms, didn't I