[Max]

HK-450 scale fuselage alert!

If you have an HK450 scale fuselage, heed this warning!

Today I was flying around at lunchtime and noticed I was having trouble with trim. It kept moving fore/aft and left/right.

I landed several times to inspect and then continued test flying albeit gingerly and close by just in case. After landing again, I noticed the main rotor kept “settling” into the heli as I spooled down.

Removing the canopy, I inspected the inside and was shocked to discover that the glue joint on the entire left upper side of the mounting bracket has broken loose.


The lower right side was also on the verge of breaking loose and the upper right side was cracked and also doomed to fail.



Unlike my align EC-135 fuselage that required me to glue my mounting bracket together, using MY building skills and MY glue, the HK scale fuse comes with the mounting bracket already pre-assembled. A close inspection of the adhesive used makes me realize it is not the best quality glue. Cheap glue and an anonymous assembler can mean the joints could be a failure waiting to happen, as it did with mine. Also, my heli did not display any unusual vibration, it was quite smooth; just what you would normally see in a 450 heli.


SUGGESTIONS FOR CORRECTION:
EPOXY 1/4" Sq Triangle stock into each joint of the frame. This should provide more than enough strength to the existing glue joint.

I will have to dis-assemble the heli, remove the frame and then fix it all up.. Better now than to have a catastrophic failure while flying

[Max]

Oh- I forgot to mention that I have only had less than 10 - 10 minute flights on this heli with this scale body before these cracks/breaks appeared.