Dabbling in the Darkside (other nitro engines)

Let's put this to rest:

I purchased this ARFreakiNobler in 2006, and kept it in the box until last August. During ASSEMBLY, there were some items that were below standards that I believe should not occur in a Top Flite product. Briefly: 1.) The covering on the fuselage was attached from the top-down, rather than from the bottom-up, like shingles on a roof would be. 2.) The flap and elevator joiners with soldered-on control horns were loose at the solder joint. I cleaned and resoldered them to be secure. 3.) ALL of the wood used in the kit is too light for the aircraft-I felt that a mushy fold-up from flight stresses would claim the Nobler. But...You build 'em to fly, not to crash! 4.) The included hardware was sub quality-the clevis pin on the flap pushrod failed (came out of the clevis) during linkage installation. I replaced it with a new one that I have confidence in; I did not change the elevator clevis, and that one failed in flight-at the top of a loop- the pin came out of the clevis- and had the Nobler not had flaps, it would have been nose dive to the concrete. As it happened, there was enough control from flap response to allow a "pancake slide" on the concrete, inverted, for 1/4 of a lap. It ground a perfect angle from the cowl ring, through the pilot's head, turtledeck and about 1/3 of the vertical fin. 5.) The wire landing gear was always weak and soft- return it to it's original position after every landing. You'd think it would work-harden, and stop bending... 6.) Some minor things that were just poor sub-assemblies of the plane:  A.) Squished eyelets on the lead-outs, B.) Nearly non-existant glue on the bellcrank mounting plate, C.) Too soft of foam tires, that wore rapidly...and one wing panel is longer than the other. Gotcha! It's supposed to be!

I made a list, and sent it to Top Flite-back then, and no response was received from them. Oh well, it flew well, after I played around with the balance, and put decent length lines on it for the engine that I had chosen to fly on it. The engine is mounted inverted on these Noblers, and I should have allowed for more cooling, by increasing the air inlets and outlets.

The incident: I was sort of laughing when it happened, because it was going to happen some day, and that plane had been a thorn in my side since day one. For as few flights as it had accumulated, it was looking pretty ratty. I just thought it would be me doing something stupid to cause it's demise. I thought it might fall apart in the air, or landing, or just plain dumb-thumb it into the ground. Even as bad as it looked up close, the darn thing flew very smoothly. I'm going to resurrect it as a profile job-no more full fuselage on this one. No one knew the engine would quit. I've flown many full tanks through it. There are no flaws in the design-It's a proven winner! The only problem with this plane is it is an ARF; with all their inherent shortcomings, and that it's broken, now.

I'm not mad at Ron- geez this stuff is for fun! I was not upset when he crashed it. This just took a turn for the worse-people thinking their Noblers are gonna nose-dive when the engine quits. They don't. There is nothing wrong with the way the ARF Nobler performs, other that the assembly issues that I had. Maybe theirs went together better, from being a newer release, or older one, for that matter, but they do fly nice. Also, this is just another wonkey thing that happens, when Ron comes up here, and we fly together. It's just weird that stuff like this gets blown out of proportion, by a few statements made that don't tell the entire story. I'm done, I'm happy.