The truth is the truth.... covering up the truth is far worse than the original offense. It was an accident. As regrettable as it is, there is no need to say anything but what happened and what can be proved from the wreckage if anything.

An eye-witness account from another experienced pilot is usually valuable.

I get some half truths and some exageration from some of these posts like "explosion or the likes".

What I do see is that if the stab did depart the aircraft in flight, there is not much for the pilot to do to save the aircraft. It would be very upsetting to crash a jet for that reason. I am sure this is why the owner felt the need to go to the manufacturer for resolution. But! There are other questions to be asked since this jet was bought second hand. Has it ever been abused, bumped hard or any kind of handling that may have weakened the stab mount?

If it is clearly a manufacturing error as suggested by the glue joints, then maybe there is a case to be made towards the manufacturer.

There are other items that may also come to light. Was there flutter? Flutter is not always heard from the ground and it could have devastating effects on the control surface. Was there any slop in the linkage, servo or mounting that could cause flutter?

Sometimes these things happen and we never know the real cause but we come to a personal conclusion and our minds become convinced. We may be right or wrong but there is no real way to prove it beyond a shadow of doubt.

I wish the best of luck for the owner of this F-15 and hope he moves past this upsetting epsiode.

Wasn't there a thread on FEJ F-15s a couple of years ago related to structural issues? Maybe this one was made during that time.

Since the pop corn is already popping and the butter is hot, I figured why not.... This thread is pretty much another silly one with abunch of preschoolers saying blaa blaa its the mfg's fault, etc, etc... Come on, its your job to make sure your jet is airworthy, ESP one thats used. Things fail overtime if not properly maintained or watched. Is it me or is this markham park place full of drama? Seems to me all kinds of questionable threads over the years have involved this place, I think its haunted with goons.

Judging by the quote of the year "i have first hand experience of many jet crashes" i'd say you might be onto something LOL

The most obvious thing when you buy a second
hand item is that you buy AS IS, so it's your obligation
to inspect it thoroughly before use(Fly). So I'm sorry for
the loss.


ENT

Given the past threads on this mfg., unbelievable internal wing pics, wings departing, no shear webs, hot glue bridging huge gaps, no glue, things blowing off in flight, ect. ect. many of you continue to defend them. Lets see, witness is unreliable, not enough posts to be credible, crash destroyed the evidence, never know what really happened, pilot error, pilot bumped it , used plane, don't know history, all 3 witnesses are full of it, on and on.
Look at the pictures !!!! The stab blew off !!! Why is it so unlikely given what has happened in the past. Continuing to support and buy from this mfg. is your decision. I wouldn't, THE STAB BLEW OFF !!!, and they are blaming the end user, not just him, but ALL OF US !!! It's a small wonder they are still in business. Posting this failure with the thought of averting an issue from the owner only contributes to the notion that they really don't get it. It is possible to have due dilligence in building and checking as you go to some degree, but you have to trust that they know how to structure a wing, AND they glued things in correctly where you cannot see inside. Do you really trust them ???

Yes FEJ should replace this mans F-15..... BVM should replace his many Bandits.....skymaster should replace his F-18 teeeeens......I say this to say as Rc flyers let us stop pointing our fingers at the MFG. everytime one crashes, I do agree that as MFG they should make sure that there products are air- worthy!!! As pilots it is in our best intrest to check our air-craft each and everytime before taking to the skys.LET THIS BE A LESSON TO ALL Mentaining your air-craft is the startto becoming a GOODPILOT

Hi,

This story is so muddied, who could know what really happened? If this were a grand jury, I don't think there would be any indictments being handed down....

BUT

I think some of these comments are correct! If you buy a composite jet, you should ALWAYS cut the wing open to make sure the manufacturer was smarter than a fifth-grader and designed it properly. You should ALWAYS skin the stabs off of the pivot shaft to make sure there's sufficient glue. You should ALWAYS get in there and inspect everything... even the things you have no way of inspecting without destroying the model (nevermind if that voids the non-existent warranty). If you DON'T do these things, then a failure is always your fault. I'm just sayin'.....

This was NOT a maintenance issue with all due respect!!!
LOL look at the on the wood holding stab!!! The gap and glue globs ect..

This thread is like a train wreck - I can't stop looking!!

I am running out of popcorn...

Them chinas make crap jets, thats it.

DITTO!!!

Chris

Thing is, the damage to FEJ is already done . . . Im not overly experienced in turbine models only having a couple of boomers and an avonds but after reading a thread like this one you have to believe that there is some truth with regards the glue and reason for failure . . . I will never consider purchasing one brand new now, let alone a 2nd hand one. Thanks for save, sorry for your loss . . .

Just my opinoin . . .

Scott.

I can tell you horror stories!!!, but I don't want to add more fuel to the, already burning fire

Chris

Well

The problem is here everywhere in the industry : One experienced guy build a prototype and validate it by mean of extensive tests and fly test for our purpose. Everybody can found on the tube some videos of Ali testing the boomerang with far overshooting of normal flight for thoses planes.

The problem start when you want to produce this prototype in great series. That mean producing hundreds of the same plane, assembled by low experienced people (whatever the nationality is). What you need is a very good quality system to control that what you are producing is what you have validated first !

You can't imagine how the production system can change thing which seems "non-important" for them. Such as verify the good temperature to cure resin, enough time to dry it, or use the specified glue and not something "equivalent half the price which is in fact non-equivalent"... I've seen some RTF kit (non-jets) glued with only points of glue in place of continous joints ! It's far quicker to do than ensure correct gluing and it was internal !

Here we have those questions :
- Does FEJ ensure that their models are correctly designed as prototype (video of tests ?)
- Does they ensure all the production models will fly as specified ?

    I have busted out the buffalo wings with dragon extra hot sauce[:@]

If I can add another bit of my own opinion . . . I think if you are flying jets etc on a weekly bases the you fit into the 'group' of the larger majority of us that have been in this hobby for many many years of flying and have probably flown every type / kind of RC plane before ending up flying jets . . . Personally my feeling is that you 'know' when you have had a structual failure due to your own building / maintenace or whether you have had a failure owing to the manufacture . . . thing is with a .40 ic jobbie it doesnt wound you so much!

Scott.

Has anyone noticed that the first ARF trainers back in the late 80's were REALLY expensive? Nearly $400.00 in 1980's money, for a .40 sized trainer?? The reason was because they were built here in the U.S. We all know that labor costs in China are well below that of the U.S. The compettion between these manufacturers is insane. They need to keep the prices down to stay competetive with eachother, so they cut costs where ever they can. It's my opinion that they will continue to cut costs until they run themselves out of business. It's only a matter of time until someone gets killed due to a cost savings (Does Toyota's throttle problem ring any bells?)

Story time not over yet.

I'll check in when real info comes in.

Steve

This is hardly the first stabilator failure that has resulted in a crash, nor will it be the last.
Regardless of who the original manufacturer was,the owner/pilot ethier has the modeling
experience to strengthen and modifiy airframe parts, add wood and glue to
areas that are improperly engineered and not properly supported or they don't.
They fly the airframe without doing proper airframe inspection and maintanence until a catastrophic failure occurs.(note a year later)

This might be the hobby of aeromodeling but the same rules of full scale aviation still apply.
Inspect BEFORE flight.....Inspect AFTER flight......keep ontop of things with Periodic Inspection and maintainence of critical flight systems.
Knowing something is going to hold up is way different thing than "thinking" something is going to hold up.
There is not a manufacturer out there who has'nt had some part of their aircraft "beefed up"
by the modeler/owner who wanted "peace of mind" and accepted the responsiblity that if they
flew it the way it came out of the box it was not going to hold up to "Thier style" of flying.
As an example of this the Nitro Falcon 120s have been flown by many worldwide with 12-14 lb thrust engines And little modification. While others have Over powered them, added stronger spars tubes ,and still exceeded the wings structural design limits only to blow the outer wing panels off the airframe inflight outboard of the tube.

FEJ has had thier teething issues, no more or less than others have, but some things that are solely under their responsibilty should be covered by them, a good example of this is the exhaust tubes were found to be coming apart at the seams on the 1/9 scale F-15s. They should have covered this as a free replacement of a "manufactured defective part". to the original owner/purchaser... To my knowledge ....they have not done so. Notice the worldwide phrase is'nt "let the seller beware" for good reason.

Just for discussion sake…what if the servo burned out, causing the surface to rotate into a catastrophic position? What if the plane was flown prior to this ownership at excessive speeds and caused a hidden deterioration time bomb to occur over time? What if the fitting on the Stab rotation drive to the servo was loose and not checked every so often? There are just so many variable in these types of things. I had a total loss last year…WE BELIEVE, due to a 8711 on a Flap burning out and sending a voltage surge that knocked out the radio system on board. A few years ago, I had a flameout too far out and too low to get back…the cause…WE BELIEVE the plastic UAT collapsed and caused fuel starvation, shutting down the turbine…ultimately causing total airframe loss since I couldn’t get the plane to a good area to land before it ran out of altitude and airspeed. By the way, both of these were FEJ airframes. Some of the parts from my crashes looked the same as the pics at the top of this thread and the airframes had many, many flights on them…that’s what something looks like when it hits with speed and this type of inertia!

Losses stink for sure…I have had a few noted above at a time when I can least afford them! I have flown BVM, SM and other airframes too. Just three years ago (I think), SM had hawks falling out of the sky with flutter and failing Stab issues. BVM had to deal with breaking booms on the KingCat AND static issues in Ultra Bandits back in time…but all of them have evolved and made better products. I have seen a tremendous growth in FEJ quality which tells me they do care and continue to progress in making better airframes. …just like the others have too. Personally, I fly FEJ for two reason: they make the bigger airframes AND they are great to deal with. Sorry…can’t afford the ScaleJets or Tomahawk stuff!

Just thinking of why I didn’t threaten Horizon on the servo issue or BVM for the UAT collapse??? One, there is an inherent risk of loss or damage associated with flying RC planes. Two, there are just too many variables that could be a part of the whole picture of failure. And Three, there is no way I can prove it was faulty when it left the factory. So, we hate it but it happens. Horizon and BVM…I will not bash them nor will I stop buying from them. FEJ…the same. Sometimes I feel our “litigious” society mindset here in the US has infected our hobby.

Rex

No bell is ringing, they manufacture the Camry in Kentucky... (which is here, in the US)

We will never be able to compete with the Chinese in this industry because even if we would not pay any benefit, even if we would not pay any taxes, the average worker in the industrialized cities in China makes under 1$ per hour. Remember when the Japs used to only manufacture crap? I do!
When in Japan the QC improved, we started getting good stuff out of Japan. Same thing will happen w/China. In time. BTW, last year the Chinese surpassed Japan as the third biggest economy. They stand now as: EC, USA, China, Japan, Germany...

Gerry