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Jerilderie 2009 joiner box failures
G'day everyone,
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We had three planes fail on launch, one being David Hobby's Xplorer, which suffered the dreaded joiner box in the centre panel failure. David wasn't flying it, but he'd lent it to another flyer to use. The plane was landed minus the tip panel, so we could all inspect the damage. The joiner box was glued into the centre panel with bog - looked to be epoxy plus microballoons or cabosil - the bog wasn't in complete contact with the joiner box (there were voids). Another pilot also suffered a broken centre panel joiner box, but this one stayed intact enough to not eject the tip panel, and he got it on the ground ok. The same pilot later noticed another of his Xplorers had a crease across the centre panel, also from a failed joiner box. I don't know whether these X's were carbon, carbon lites, or carbon d-box panels, but in discussions with the guys during the event, I suspect Dave's was a carbon panel. In contrast, Joe Wurts built his Xplorer, and successfully flew it for the entire event (kept his Supra in reserve), came second, and no failures in his X. However, he received his X around the time of the Worlds in Turkey. He was launching his X to the moon. I was flying my Carbon Xplorer during the event, and it was launched by Joe each time I flew, also with launches to the moon. In the team I was in, there was another X, bought at the same time as I (a few weeks back), and it was also hammered pretty hard during launches. I suspect that this is either a design fault, or a manufacturing fault. |
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OUCH!!!! X3
sj |
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Last edited by SmokinJoe101; Jun 08, 2009 at 02:03 PM.
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I nosed in my xplorer on a highstart and the crash broke the boom in half, cracked the nose a little and ripped out (only) one joiner box. I cleaned it up real good inside the center panel, removed as much old epoxy/filler as possible but luckily had some extra bits of balsa/epoxy on the end that helped re-align the joiner box to the end of the center panel ( I didn't have to use my tip panel to align the joiner box). I spread some epoxy/filler mix inside the center panel top and bottom and a little on the joiner box and with misc things I had laying around I pushed apart the top and bottom skins to get some more room enough to slide the joiner box in without spreading epoxy everywhere. You just need something to keep epoxy from getting into the joiner box of course. It will take days to file that stuff out to get your joiner in again... I did slide in carbon cloth on either side of the joiner box from top skin along the joiner box to bottom skin. Not a very clean job with the room I had, but it couln't hurt. One observation I had was I was surprised how much space there was between the joiner box and the skins and in the original epoxy/filler it looked like they were a little light on the epoxy. Not anymore!! I started off going real easy on the launches but have since flown 5 contests with no problem although I still haven't gotten to a full load zoom yet. Mike Johnson |
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Yeah, There were two that went BANG!!! on the line and one that creased a center section at the comp but what people forget is these planes are made for F3J flying and not F3B winch launching!! It does not matter what you fly, if you want a light aircraft you are going to give up stength. If you have never launched on mono on an F3B winch, you will not know how much power is generated on the tow and in the F3B style zoom ! These models are not built for this. We had this problem with the Pike Perfect when they first came out and so Samba ended up building stronger models for the Australian market with a weight gain. These days alot of people have the extreme layups and do other mods to make there models stronger. I had a double Carbon Aspire built for me for launching this way. This model weighs a heafty 91oz and is Atom strong! I bet Nan would be very happy to build a stronger model (may also offer to wrap the spar caps with kevlar) but there will be a weight gain and most people will never need the extra strength. Cheers, Thomas I would also like to add to this post that I agree with Dave Webbs comment "Now playing devils advocate if you found manufacturing defects in construction then send it in for inspection. Nan will no doubt stand by thier product." |
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Last edited by gliding Oz; Jun 09, 2009 at 02:01 AM.
Reason: adding more
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On the weekend we both flew our standard Pike ET and standard Aspire in the same conditions with full pedal winch launches for no problems. The conditions throughout the 3 day contest were light, non thermic with little to no breeze. Yes we are launching on mono line with F3B winches, but any of the currrent top world class F3J models should be able to take a good launch in these conditions easily. It is true we demand alot from our J models such as the X and the Perfects these days, but the suppliers are well aware of this and design them to take the abuse envelopes too, even allowing us to choose the layups that suit our conditions and flying styles. Its also true that we went through an early teething period with the Perfects here in Aus, but the problems were not drastic failures such as joiner boxes, more like aileron flutter and some stress delamination of the skin. Both were rectified very quickly by Samba in following shipments. I hope Nan take on board the feedback from the community, the X is a great model but it seems that there are some well documented build issues occuring which smells a little of quantity over quality. The 3 we saw and poked around in on the weekend certainly supported this. Cheers, Matt |
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Matt,
When I said "these models", I am refering to the X in it's current build for this type of launching (I should of used the words, "This model is"). The X is around the same flying weight as a SL Perfect (I thought Dave Pratley told you about how light they are when you ordered your winch Batt off him). If you launched a SL Perfect the same way you would find that they would also would not stand up to the launching task. Both my standard Carbon Aspire and all the Carbon PP and ET's that flew over the weekend were heavier and yes, stronger than the X. Maybe the Australian distributor misrepresented the capabilty of the X in it's current form? I would like to see Nan take this as feed back and offer to build a stronger model for the Australian and World market to be able to handle this type of launch and for windy weather flying. |
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Now playing devils advocate if you found manufacturing defects in construction then send it in for inspection. Nan will no doubt stand by thier product. |
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That said, I flew mine all weekend. Awesome glide, extremely flat, which helps when trying for those 10 minute tasks in dead air I was nervous about the potential for failure, but so far, my carbon X hasn't shown any signs of imminent failure, and I'll continue to do hot pings (I have to, in order to compete with the Perfects...). Once the wind picks up, it's out with the Icon F3B. |
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The damaged X models all had a similar weakness around the joiner boxes back into the main spar which will cause the fail sooner or later. To me this is not a case of building a stronger model for Australian conditions, its about getting quality control into the layup technique to get rid of the lemons. As stated earlier, the Xplorer was flown to 2nd place and others did really well with them too without any problems, they are a great model. The build quality seems to be hit and miss though. Cheers, Matt. |
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Explorer
Howdy,
The issue with joiner box is being looked into, of coarse! Not to reduce the importance of getting it right, but there are now many 100's of X's out there in use, there will be some problems, as with ALL other models, they get tweaks to make the stronger, and lighter in the right places. Do we need to go and make a "list" of the issues that have been present with all of the other past, and current world class models? This process does not happen until the problem "presents" at which time, input from the best pilots, engineers, will be used to make the model even better. NAN models is no newcomer on the block. The Shadow, and Xperience had a good track record. The X is now about a year old, and with many 100's of airframes out there, there will be issues, even if only 1 or 2%, they are issues. But, like life, and business, these are opportunities for growth! Best wishes, Bob Breaux www.SoaringUSA.com |
Latest blog entry: 2015
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Samba got a message from Mike O'reilly. I will repeat the most important information here as I think that is ok:
----------------- The competition went well at Jerilderie. Carl Strautins 1st with Icon, Joe Wurts 2nd with Explorer, myself 3rd with Pike Perfect ET, Jim Houdalakis 4th with Pike Perfect ET, David Hobby 6th with Pike Perfect ET, Jamie Nancarrow and Theo Arvanatakis equal 9th both with Pike Perfects. The Australian team for France WC is Carl, Jim and David. I cannot go to the WC so I did not claim my place. Regards, Michael O'Reilly ----------------- As for Xplorer faults I think that Australia is the hardest test of all because of F3B winches. 200m to turnaround and strong thermals. And I am also sure that Nan will do everything possible to replace those with faulty joiner boxes. But one thing many do not think about is also how this can happen. If you land nose in hard the joiner box can break loose. this is then easy to see in many cases as skin will get wrinkeled in very specific places that will not happen in a launch. So if you have damage of skin from landings you might see a failure like pictures have shown. This can happen to many models since spars is not made to be strong forward/backwards. Just an input.. I have already those damages on my nr.1 model because I always land hard and had one hard one... So I will not claim anything if that model fails. |
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[QUOTE=jojoen]Samba got a message from Mike O'reilly. I will repeat the most important information here as I think that is ok:
----------------- The competition went well at Jerilderie. Carl Strautins 1st with Icon, Joe Wurts 2nd with Explorer, myself 3rd with Pike Perfect ET, Jim Houdalakis 4th with Pike Perfect ET, David Hobby 6th with Pike Perfect ET, Jamie Nancarrow and Theo Arvanatakis equal 9th both with Pike Perfects. The Australian team for France WC is Carl, Jim and David. I cannot go to the WC so I did not claim my place. Regards, Michael O'Reilly ----------------- QUOTE] It was real tight at the top. 1 point between Carl with 6000 pts and Joe with 5999. There was only 20pts between 1st and 9th (tied between 4 pilots). It did not come down to a landing comp as everyone was hitting the 100 points so it came down to the seconds of the flight. Carl and Joe both had 5 flights of 10.00 and the 100pts landing, thats 5 perfect flights. There was about 30 perfect flights all up, so if you did not get one there was a good chance of not getting the 1000pts. As Mike said Icon, Explorer, Shooter, Perfects and Aspires all made the top 9 (If Im wrong please correct me). Theo won the DLG with a blaster with Joe in 2nd and brett in 3rd |
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