Check those preinstalled hardpoints!

[Hinckley Bill]

So I'm going to fly my big, beautiful Hangar 9 Ultimate a couple of weeks ago.

Take it up for the first flight of the day......no problems, awesome flight, great smoke against a clear blue sky......life is good.

Greased the landing and taxied into the pits. Wiped down the plane, fueled up with gas and smoke fluid and ready to go. I'm checking the flight surfaces and when I move the right elevator up and down by hand I noticed the ultrakote is creasing right at the control point....WHOA.

I get down on the ground and examine it more closely........can't tell for sure but it appears that the surface has "split" at the control point. Well no more flying for today.

I take 'er home, pull the tail section off and then strip the covering......what do I find?

The installation of the hard point has been performed in a "less than suitable" manner. It's offset from where it should be, making the hole drilled for the control way off center. In addition, there's minimal "real" contact area (i.e. not just where the hard point is glued to the rest of the elevator) which means that basically all the torque from the servo is really being borne by the glue joint which in this case just broke off from the rest of the elevator.

Kind of stunned me when I found it.......am considering laying a thin, triangular plywood patch over the area extending onto the elevator, both top and bottom, to allow for more application of the torque to the surface.

I'll post some pics shortly...........would like to hear everyone's experiences/thoughts on this.

Thx,

Bill

[Hinckley Bill]

Here are some pics of the "problem" hard point installation.......

[MODE 1]

Yep to doing what you say your going to do why not if you dont mind the slightly raised surface of the ply reinforcing plates. Wont see them from 10 feet away so it wont matter much.
looks to me like a bad design arrangement. No way would i have made the HP's like that.

If the planes new you could make a big noise to Horizon but then if they offer a replacement part you have the hassle of re fitting the elevators and for all you know they could fail again assuming the elves are not pre fitted but this would scare the pants off me about what else is poor quality under the covering. it may be ok now after a good look over but what about later.

Sfunny cuz i just said in another post i didnt think much of H9 products or any of these mass produced Chinese toys and this thread pops up. Not that this has any bearing on your problem but you just dont know what your getting when you open that nicely colored box.

[Hinckley Bill]

	Quote: Originally Posted by shyte
	Yep to doing what you say your going to do why not if you dont mind the slightly raised surface of the ply reinforcing plates. Wont see them from 10 feet away so it wont matter much. looks to me like a bad design arrangement. No way would i have made the HP's like that. If the planes new you could make a big noise to Horizon but then if they offer a replacement part you have the hassle of re fitting the elevators and for all you know they could fail again assuming the elves are not pre fitted but this would scare the pants off me about what else is poor quality under the covering. it may be ok now after a good look over but what about later. Sfunny cuz i just said in another post i didnt think much of H9 products or any of these mass produced Chinese toys and this thread pops up. Not that this has any bearing on your problem but you just dont know what your getting when you open that nicely colored box.

Plane is definitely not new, but not a lot of flights on it........probably why this issue didn't result in a total failure.

The problem with "outsourcing" construction of planes is that for the most part the folks actually doing the work don't have a clue about what impact such a miscue can cause. Remember the problems SIG had when it first came out with the green and white Sukhoi and the wings were failing because the shear webbing was installed with the grain horizontal?

Tough call for those trying to keep things affordable for us buyers.....

[Tired Old Man]

Sig wasn't the only one that had that problem during the time period. I remember them well.

Good catch on the elevators. Now I'll have to check mine. Thanks for the heads up!!

[Hinckley Bill]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Tired Old Man
	Sig wasn't the only one that had that problem during the time period. I remember them well. Good catch on the elevators. Now I'll have to check mine. Thanks for the heads up!!

Sorry....didn't mean to insinuate that about SIG, just so happened I picked up one of the first SIG Sukhoi's that arrived at my local hobby shop (which is no longer in business) and like most other projects didn't get to it for long enough for the recall to come out. Got a new set of wings out of it.

Perhaps my situation with the elevators is the exception, but at least this post should get people looking at all of their ARF planes a bit more closely.

[rcheliman]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Hinckley Bill
	Here are some pics of the "problem" hard point installation.......

I laminated my Rudder hard point area on both sides as well, it had alot of flex which eventually ends up in failure also. Especially when you got a Seiko servo on the Rudder. I need to check the elevator hard point area on mine and see if it's flexing also, if it is, I will just laminate the bottom side of the elevator as to keep the looks of the plane clean.

[go29kev]

i have had two of the h9 260's and both of them bit the dust. one was radio but the other was not. when i had time to inspect the crash damege after i got back home i had found that all the glue joints are falling apart and the glue is rolling off the wood like it never tried to bond with the wood and i now am 100% sure that the plane started to come apart at a glue joint causing the whole plane to flutter (because every thing machanical was perfect before the plane left the ground and every thing was good after it crashed
i have read a bunch of ppl on this site saying they found that the joints were falling apart. i rebuilt the crashed plane with a new fuse that i got and the very first thing i found was bad glue joints so i have took the extra time and reglued the joints and it fixed the problems.
I love H9 and i still have a 260 although i have rebuilt it from the radio problem crash with a new body that i cut out and glued up useing the old one as templates. but like what has been said the glueing issues is unreal.
when i asked horizon about it they said sorry being i flew the plane then its not there problem. if i had found it before i flew it they could have done something, but how can you know when its already covered when you get it. and coming from H9 i like most people thought it was a great product and should not have had any problems.

I am not dowing H9 just the way it was built.

[JoeAirPort]

Remember all the reports of the 46% Ulti's having the motor boxes come apart from lack of glue? So this is no surprise.

[MikeC3D]

Here's my suggestion to your HP problem....make a slot in the elev. and the HP, horizontaly, and make a small "BISCUIT" out of lite ply...slide in place with a little med. CA, kick it, soak it with thin CA...sand it to perfection, and redrill the hole for the control horn bolt. and wallah... done, and it wont break or come apart there again. This way you dont add the few oz. of weight from fiberglass cloth, and it wont stick up above the surface an look like hammered ***, on top or bottom. JM2cents...good luck

[SleepyC]

Not speaking directly to any one who has posted here, but when did people stop checking all the glue joints on ARF's?

I mean, when I get an ARF, I go over every single joint with either thin CA, and possibly some wood glue, I check all the hard points, hinges and then work on the covering.

Again, not dogging any of you, I'm saying in general many guys are getting lazy.

An ARF provides a cheap alternative to building a kit. I just finished a 40% Carden 330. With the Kit, the builder, the glues, covering, hardware, paint work and everything else it took to complete the airframe, I'm into it for around $3800.
Now for that price, I expect to throw my gear in it and go fly. Now thanks to ARF's, for $1400 you can have a 40% well built airplane. That is insane!! But I think it's fair that when you get that $1400 airframe you should have to look over all the glue joints and perhaps beef up a few areas with a little glue. I honestly think some people expact WAY to much out of an ARF.

Please, don't get me wrong, design flaws and material failures and not acceptable, (like the elevators shown above, that is just wrong) but a bit of preventative pre flight maintenance is just part of this hobby.

[MikeC3D]

BINGO...

Besides, they use a hot glue gun and it doesnt penetrate into the balsa like ca does, nor does epoxy. I wished they would use ca to put arf's together, but maybe it cost too much,,IDK

[go29kev]

	Quote: Originally Posted by SleepyC
	Not speaking directly to any one who has posted here, but when did people stop checking all the glue joints on ARF's? I mean, when I get an ARF, I go over every single joint with either thin CA, and possibly some wood glue, I check all the hard points, hinges and then work on the covering. Again, not dogging any of you, I'm saying in general many guys are getting lazy. An ARF provides a cheap alternative to building a kit. I just finished a 40% Carden 330. With the Kit, the builder, the glues, covering, hardware, paint work and everything else it took to complete the airframe, I'm into it for around $3800. Now for that price, I expect to throw my gear in it and go fly. Now thanks to ARF's, for $1400 you can have a 40% well built airplane. That is insane!! But I think it's fair that when you get that $1400 airframe you should have to look over all the glue joints and perhaps beef up a few areas with a little glue. I honestly think some people expact WAY to much out of an ARF. Please, don't get me wrong, design flaws and material failures and not acceptable, (like the elevators shown above, that is just wrong) but a bit of preventative pre flight maintenance is just part of this hobby.

one question????
how do you check all the glue joints on arf's when they are already covered and you cant get to them????
but i do agree that you should go over all the joints you can. but one other thing is when they use the hot glue it does keep you from going back over it with ca and gettting the joints good and glued were they meet because you are putting the glue beside the joint because of the hot glue thats already there.
as for me i'd rather get a kit and build it myself but now days everything has went ARF and a lot of the planes out there you can not get in a kit just an ARF. new people coming in to this hobby gets and ARF and goes fly what happend to the fun of the build and the respect you got form doing it yourself??? just to bad the good planes that everybody wants are ARF's now.....

[SleepyC]

	Quote:
	how do you check all the glue joints on arf's when they are already covered and you cant get to them????

Well of course you can't get to those without opening the covering.
In my expierence, if you glue all the joints you can actually see and get to , your 200% ahead of the game.
ARF's are ARF's... if your that concerned I'd stick to kit built planes.

But throwing glue on all the joints you can see will make that ARF WAY better then flying it directly out of the box.

[MikeC3D]

Well, what solution did you come up with, and have you fixed it yet?? Pic's ??