I'm weighing purchasing either a Valiant or Integral. Have some concerns over the durability of the Integral hinges. Would appreciate any comments
Thanks

I built 3 Integrals and the hinges were fine thru thousands of flights. I'm sure the Valiant hinges are equally as good.

Verne Koester

I can pretty much echo what Verne just said. Lots of Integrals around this area with no hinge failures I am aware of. My own Integral has over a thousand flights on it with no signs of any problems with the hinge areas.

Woodie

I would think that both models have different hinging methods. I believe the Integral has the kevlar top hinge style and the Valiant has centre hinges.

My Spark uses the top hinge method and it works very well. One of my Sparks has well over 500 flights too.

Cheers,
Jason.

http://www.carf-models.com/public_ca...dcontrols.html

Ihave Integral broken wing from CARF- there is simply PEELPLYon top hinge- not kevlar etc.

Exactly the same like this:
http://easycomposites.co.uk/products.../peel-ply.aspx

Are you sure it's peel ply?

I thought the same thing. Peel ply actually pulls away from epoxy... That's the purpose of the product.

Thats a trick !!! Yes im 100% sure there is PEEL PLY.

Im preparing  now all my staff for World Cup F3A in UK  ( is after tomorrow but tomorrow in the morning im going to Ashford).
After comp. i will put here some very precice pics.

For me that was also shock when im finded there just... peel ply ( in Integral wing).

All hinge thats :
100 grams glass cloth/ (on top  surface  wing)
peel ply/
 50 grams glass cloth.


I have maked few tests about peel ply and in the end i maked my own composites wings using Peel Ply. Thats works very well without any problems.

Sorry for my English <br type="_moz"/>

Peel ply works fine, don't forget when you peel it out you're breaking the bond at a small area by pulling back on itself, like tearing a piece of paper.

There's no way you'd pull the peel ply out in shear, and while there is a risk that you've introduced an area for delamination to occur it's minimal because if the wing skin is peeling back on itself you've got bigger problems to deal with