LAST EDITED ON Oct-15-06 AT 03:50 PM (CST)
As some of you may have read in a mish mash of related and unrelated threads here over the last month or so,..I crashed a Tutor II ARF back in Sept. Some motor damage resulted (ST-51 impactus concreteus). New motor parts were ordered up along with yet another T-II ARF. Anyway, while slotting the flying surfaces for hinges and such on the new T-II the fuselage was eye-balled for true and found to have a warp to the inside of the circle. Not what anyone would like to see and even more so given it's direction of warp. The warp was approx. 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch over the length of the fuselage aft of the doublers. So with keyboard in hand I bang out a note to Hobbico Inc (Tower) and report my findings. Happy to say they responded with a "Send the defective piece back and we will replace it.", message in reply. The only trouble is, the cost of shipping the piece back to them, from Canada, typically might run into dollars equal to 1/4 the cost of the kit in the first place. Shipping international is not the cheapest idea if sending stuff from inside Canada to the outside world,..at least not in my experience. So, with this thinking in mind I reply to Hobbico,.."Can I just buy a new fuselage outright, and cut my shipping losses?". They reply, " As your such a good customer,..we'll send a fuselage out anyway." Well "Thank you very much!" says me. Rather nice turn of events for once. These kinds of things happen much more often with those vendors in the cottage industries, at least that's my feel. Still, somewhat surprised that the mega vendor would also provide this fix. What might make this even more interesting is the fact that there are no replacement parts listed on the TF site to fix or repair a T-II if one was so inclined to do so. The on-line parts list contains nothing! Just thought I'd relate a rather happy ending. Your mileage will of course vary.
As some of you may have read in a mish mash of related and unrelated threads here over the last month or so,..I crashed a Tutor II ARF back in Sept. Some motor damage resulted (ST-51 impactus concreteus). New motor parts were ordered up along with yet another T-II ARF. Anyway, while slotting the flying surfaces for hinges and such on the new T-II the fuselage was eye-balled for true and found to have a warp to the inside of the circle. Not what anyone would like to see and even more so given it's direction of warp. The warp was approx. 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch over the length of the fuselage aft of the doublers. So with keyboard in hand I bang out a note to Hobbico Inc (Tower) and report my findings. Happy to say they responded with a "Send the defective piece back and we will replace it.", message in reply. The only trouble is, the cost of shipping the piece back to them, from Canada, typically might run into dollars equal to 1/4 the cost of the kit in the first place. Shipping international is not the cheapest idea if sending stuff from inside Canada to the outside world,..at least not in my experience. So, with this thinking in mind I reply to Hobbico,.."Can I just buy a new fuselage outright, and cut my shipping losses?". They reply, " As your such a good customer,..we'll send a fuselage out anyway." Well "Thank you very much!" says me. Rather nice turn of events for once. These kinds of things happen much more often with those vendors in the cottage industries, at least that's my feel. Still, somewhat surprised that the mega vendor would also provide this fix. What might make this even more interesting is the fact that there are no replacement parts listed on the TF site to fix or repair a T-II if one was so inclined to do so. The on-line parts list contains nothing! Just thought I'd relate a rather happy ending. Your mileage will of course vary.
Tony
Latest Tower code: 25$ off on $149.00 is 010RV (as of Oct 12th)
Tony Bagley
Sarnia, Ont. Canada