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Poquito Loco

On Sun, 27 Apr 2014 05:56:52 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Saturday, April 26, 2014 5:46:26 PM UTC-4, John H. wrote:
Flew the Apprentice for the first time this morning. Had a problem...the damn thing just kept

climbing. It would turn just fine, but pushing the 'down' lever did almost nothing. Finally, afraid

it was going to fly out of sight, I just cut the power. Gravity, thank God, still works and brought

the plane down. Once low enough I hit the panic switch, which leveled the plane, and brought it to a

(rough) landing.

But, nothing broke!

Turns out the upward curvature of the horizontal stabilizer was not supposed to be there. This was

noticed by another Apprentice owner at the school. The bowing of the stabilizer was keeping the

elevator from moving properly, but seemed to aid in the climbing of the airplane.

Horizon Hobby, when told of the problem, said they'd have a new horizontal stabilizer in the mail

Monday. Their customer support is great. I didn't buy the plane from them, and didn't save my

receipt, but the part will be on the way soon.

That was absolutely the problem. That curvature pushed the tail down, and in turn the nose up. The definition of "climb".

Look at it this way... you overcame adversity on your first flight and survived. That's a good thing. It gets easier from here.

Have fun!

The horizontal stabilzer's in the oven now. We'll see if a bit of heat will allow it to straighten
and stay straight. Flying it was definitely exciting, especially wondering into whose back yard it
would crash!