Tail Repair Help

[vafifty4]

Had my Cub out for my second weekend of flight a few weeks ago and was doing ok until one flight on Sunday. I think my previous (slightly crash) landing knocked my servo motors out of their cut out, so the flight was pretty much doomed from the start.

It didn't look like it was that bad of a landing, but I still managed to rip my battery box out and break of the tail just before the little plastic piece (see picture).

I'm pretty sure there is a battery box reinforcement thread out there somewhere that I could follow for that part, but I'm not sure waht to do with the tail. I have some special "foamtastic" glue I could use to stick it back on but am not sure if that is the best way to do it because I definatly don't want to worry about watching my tail fall back off as my cub flys off uncontrollible into the sunset

Has anybody had to try and put the tail back on or would I be better buying a new Fuselage minus the electronics?

[Legot]

That happens to pretty much everyone.

For the battery box, it's best to follow some of the other tread's around here on the tip's and tricks section, or wherever they may be.

For the tail (a very quick fix) you can stick in anything from Popsicle sticks to toothpicks to thin , relatively short, dowels.

Just push in the narrow rod of your choice into the foam, pull them out, put some glue in and all over the broken side, align with the rest of the fuselage, and push the toothpicks (or rod) into it.

This is by faaaaaaaaaaaaar to simple a problem to ever need a new fuselage.

And a good thing that comes out of it is that it probably won't ever break again! Unless.........
~Legot~

[flydiver]

Be VERY VERY sure to get it STRAIGHT....or, you'll be sorry.

[vafifty4]

Thanks for the input guys, I'll have to make sure I stop and pick up some tooth picks or Popsicle sticks tomorrow then

[Dillzio]

a couple of toothpics will work well, I find simple super glue works really well for gluing it too. You can also wrap some tape with some tension on it all the way around the tail section of the fuselage (longways). Just don't use too much tape, of gaffer tape, as you need to keep the wait of the tail down.

For battery box mods, check out necubflyer's videos on youtube.
www.youtube.com/user/NeCubFlyer

[john66]

Do you think if this happens to everyone that it could perhaps be prevented with a carbon tube/rod reinforcement?

Is this a mod anyone has done? I dont recall seeing it yet though dosent mean it dosent exist, I have after all only spent about 2190 hrs reading these threads.......

Is it a worthwhile consideration like reinforcing leading edges, battery box, wing saddle, cowl reinforcement etc?

If so has anybody it done it and could post a link to the thread?

If its not worth doing, why?


John

[Dillzio]

I've seen a tail reinforcement thread here, in the ultimate super cub help thread on RC groups. If you have a good read around there it will more than likely answer all your questions www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=852122

It breaking the tail section off generally only happens to everyone, because almost everyone that gets a cub doesn't know how to fly and is therefore quite likely to crash the thing. I reinforced all of the things you listed on my cub, and I would recommend that anyone new to flying to the same. If you're inexperienced, you're likely to crash. If you're likely to crash, reinforcing the cub is an excellent idea. You know you can make your cub almost indestructable with simple packing tape?

[flydiver]

One of the very early magazines I read was about crash proofing your plane. Well into that stage of my learning curve I read it eagerly. Condensed down it was, build to fly, not to crash. Heavily reinforced planes are, well, HEAVY. The heavier they are, the harder they fall. Disappointing, but I've found it to have merit.

One problem is you really can't reinforce the motor and mount much. For some reason the motor seems to me unnaturally attracted to the ground if anything goes wrong. The only way around that is a pusher.

Some judicious reinforcement is reasonable and every plane has some notoriously weak areas warranting attention. There have been frustrated folks that tape the hell out of their planes and it ends up a pig.

[Dillzio]

...well, yeah, the packaging tape planes are pretty heavy, and they don't look the prettiest either, but like any pig they're quite tough, and not easily killed.

[belem]

I used carbon fiber rods when I repaired mine. Light and strong. Even when I had a brown out and cratered the plane the tail didn't re-break.

[john66]

Call the ghostbusters, you have an object levitating in the left of the photo!

[Legot]

lol