david Osborne Posted June 22, 2009 Share Posted June 22, 2009 I have had some problems with ARTF undercarriage on my P47. I had a perfectly reasonable landing (I have witness) and the undercarriage came out. While I confess this was not the first landing and others were not perfect I do believe that the poor construction in this area contributed to the problem / failure. I repaired the damage and in the process uncovered other areas of concern within the wing structure. Again I cannot be 100% sure about the origins of the damage but suffice to say there was a lack of glue and no external indication of problems. Since the repair and reinforcement I have not had any issues. Work included beefing up the ribs in the u/c area, glueing all joints in the wing, using birch ply instead of the standard light ply u/c mountings ( a common fault on ARFT). I am working on a P-51 ARTF and customising it but I did notice similar construction issues with this model as well, including a rib that is completely cracked through in the u/c well area, and this is straight out of the box. No point trying to get a warranty replacement as I am ripping it apart for modification anyway and thats how I found it. Still goes to show that even expensive ARTF suffer. other problems include tailplane joiner tubes that need to be bent to allow a flush fit making incidence setting a nightmare. I have mentioned some of this to the retailers but they are not always enthusiastic about such matters, often quoting the value for money thread. however it does not matter how little it cost if it is not fit for purpose but again this is a difficult argument. On the plus side I have had good experience with some makes with no construction or failure issues and the general finish is very good. Are we allowed to name names? Just in case images do not work I have uploaded a load to my photo album. Cheers Dave Osborne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david Osborne Posted June 22, 2009 Author Share Posted June 22, 2009 Just noticed I should have started a new thread sorry for the repeat posting Dave Osborne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Foreman Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 I think that this is a problem with ARTF, if you build from a kit or plan you have more control over the final quality and soundness of the airframe. On some of the ARTF's I have had bulkheads rip off in flight and undercarriages collapse on not so hard a landing, I guess you do get what you pay for. Cheers Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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