Official FlightLine RC 2000mm B-24D/J Liberator Thread

[Enzo_K]

That is a tough situation. Everybody has slightly different attitude about this kind of thing, and mine is no better than anyone else's, but since you asked for opinion here is one. I agree it is not trivial to land a plane with asymmetric thrust like this. Particularly since you lost the outboard one, the yaw imbalance is higher than if you had lost an inboard. On the other hand, this is not the world's most lucrative business, and they can't make everybody whole on every accident, or it would not be a business at all. Given that our hobby is throwing stuff in the air at high speed, I think we each have to take some responsibility for the inevitable accidents. Keep in mind that every support call also costs them money, regardless of the outcome.

What seems fair to me is to buy a new one at some discount. The logic is, if we split costs into non-recurring costs and recurring costs, you already paid your share of non-recurring costs the first time you ordered one. So if you paid something to cover their manufacture, shipping, handling, staff time, overhead, etc, then they at least don't lose money, but you also aren't paying double your fair share of the large non-recurring costs such as molds and design engineering. That seems like a reasonable middle ground to me. I don't know what that discount is, and I don't think their going to tell you. If I made a wild guess it might be a 40% discount. But maybe just ask for a discounted replacement and see what they offer.

I agree with you on this one. However, the only thing they are offering me now is just their sympathy?

[Gringotuerto]

...And today, sadly, I could use some more of your opinions to help with my situation...

That is a tough situation. Everybody has slightly different attitude about this kind of thing, and mine is no better than anyone else's, but since you asked for opinion here is one. I agree it is not trivial to land a plane with asymmetric thrust like this. Particularly since you lost the outboard one, the yaw imbalance is higher than if you had lost an inboard. On the other hand, this is not the world's most lucrative business, and they can't make everybody whole on every accident, or it would not be a business at all. Given that our hobby is throwing stuff in the air at high speed, I think we each have to take some responsibility for the inevitable accidents. Keep in mind that every support call also costs them money, regardless of the outcome.

What seems fair to me is to buy a new one at some discount. The logic is, if we split costs into non-recurring costs and recurring costs, you already paid your share of non-recurring costs the first time you ordered one. So if you paid something to cover their manufacture, shipping, handling, staff time, overhead, etc, then they at least don't lose money, but you also aren't paying double your fair share of the large non-recurring costs such as molds and design engineering. That seems like a reasonable middle ground to me. I don't know what that discount is, and I don't think their going to tell you. If I made a wild guess it might be a 40% discount. But maybe just ask for a discounted replacement and see what they offer.

[Enzo_K]

I'm totally with you Enzo_K , hell I have a hard enough time just landing a plane that's in perfect working order.

Seriously, Motion RC's reply kept me from sleeping for the past few nights. It is 5:30 AM in the morning of thanksgiving, and I cant close my eye but thinking about I am the one to blame for a manufacturer defect?

[Hugh Wiedman]

Then we RC pilots are responsible for landing every defective plane safely they sell?

I'm totally with you Enzo_K , hell I have a hard enough time just landing a plane that's in perfect working order.

[Hugh Wiedman]

Hugh did that Jet jockey ever step up like a Man and pay for your lose ? never did hear what came about

Unfortunately I got as much satisfaction from that "jack as...." as I fear Enzo_K will get from MRC. Filed a grievance which was supported by everyone at the event, but not much will come from it as our club rules require 3 separate incidences to occur before anything meaningful is done. Like most things in life, we just have to move on at some point. The only satisfaction is that his damage was in the neighborhood of $4000 compared to mine in the hundreds and he was trying to sell that jet to a friend of mine for a fairly large sum, but now all his potential buyers have evaporated. Thankfully I still have the Olive version intact, which takes some of the sting out and hoping Alpha will come up with a very large silver B-17 that I can replace it with.

[Wild Man]

Hugh did that Jet jockey ever step up like a Man and pay for your lose ? never did hear what came about

[Enzo_K]

woo...That is a cruel way to lose such a beautiful plane. It also reminds me of how careful I fly my birds. Mostly only flying alone, where no other high-speed aircraft are present at the field.

Maybe they don't make a lot of profit on this plane. And I think I could take a store credit for an ARF B24 as well(may 360ish?). As I would like to support a store that sells stuff I like. But I don't think this is a reason to kick their customer off the bus when things went south. What really surprised me Motion RC customer service agent thinks it was my fault to not land an aircraft with 3 engines. If this rule applies to their product. Then we RC pilots are responsible for landing every defective plane safely they sell?

And yes not every pilot can land a plane with 3 engines at a low altitude. The customer service agent I was speaking with also mentioned he knows some pilot landed an F14 Tomcat with one of the wings swiped and the other extended. Sure, there are some ace pilots out there who might pull this off. Then lucky you Motion RC, you have a great customer saved some money for you. But you should not let us, pilots, to cover every defective plane from the manufacturer(when there is clear evidence of a defect from the manufacturer).

I actually have plans to buy more birds from Motion RC in the near future. But depends on how they are handling this problem now. I have to put that on hold.

[Hugh Wiedman]

Looks like Motion will let me carry this through thanksgiving. As non of their customer service manager called me till now.

Sorry for your loss, that's a tough way to lose a bird that you obviously have a lot of personal time in building. Customer service on these types of situations is always difficult, for both sides. Let me first say that IMO, since you have clear evidence of an electronic component failure on the 2nd flight and it's from an ESC that was defective, I do believe the right thing for them to do would be to give you a credit, but then that's easy for me to say because I'm not the one that's looking at the dealers bottom line. I'm sure the margins are not that great on these planes as for me the prices seem to be relatively low considering what you get (yes, all the electronics and servos could be much higher quality but then the price would be reflective of that). All I can say is that I've only had a problem with one of my many Motion RC products, the first of 2 F-4's that I have. It lost an elevator servo on the 2nd flight and it was destroyed on take-off. I made a claim, not really expecting MRC to do much about it, as I generally take the attitude of happens. To my pleasant surprise, they agreed to give me a credit for an ARF, as the EDF and ESC were fine from the crashed F-4. I had no video or photographic evidence (other than pics of the destroyed F-4 after the fact) to back up anything that I claimed happened either. They really stepped up to the plate for me, probably more than I would have done if I was the customer service rep, even though the servo failure was early on and critical to the accident. I can see why they replaced the jets on all the early F-18's that went out with elevator servo "cut" wires, and all the credit to them acting quickly and decisively, not something any other dealer IMO would have done.

Back to the B-24, I have 2 of them and they really are a pleasure to look at and fly. I must have over 100 flights on each, but I kind of doubt I'd be able to land it with 1 engine failure especially at a low altitude, as I had no idea you actually need to reduce the throttle to 1/3 if you have a single engine failure. It does fly outstanding at 1/3 to 1/2 throttle anyway, so I guess that makes some sense. I do hope you get this straitened out, as I believe you would have eventually learned to love this plane. 8-10 minutes of flight time (and she flies beautifully-scale or even some things that a real B-24 could never do) is not something you get with electrics very often.

At least you didn't get one of your B-24's sideswiped while landing by a 1/5 scale F-16 that thought it would be cool to do a high speed low pass over the runway while my B-24 was landing at a scale warbirds event our club recently had. I can live with my pilot errors (quite common) or even a cheap electronics mechanical failure, but dealing with another "so called pilots" stupid stunts is another thing. Photo below, please avert your eyes if you are sensitive and this is graphic in nature and not suited for minors (or anyone who owns an RC product of any kind).

THE Moment of Impact............................................ ..... .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ....................................BEFORE the "...." hit the Fan




THE BAD BOY .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .... RIP my sweet little B-24 just before going out to slaughter alongside my A-10

[Enzo_K]

From what I have heard from others that is about what they tell people who have lost planes for loss of signal for no reason, or there blue boxes and after checking they find nothing wrong and tell the poor souls sorry but we do not cover intermittent problems of our electrical components that MAY !!! have caused the crash but we have tested them and found nothing wrong. Intermittent problems are hard to prove and saves them a lot of planes and money, but I can see it puts them in a bad light. Sorry to see what happened to your B-24 You are not the first nor the last that will get the same response from them. They are not the only distributor like this and have to make dicisions such as with your crash

I understand if there was a signal lost that leads to a crash. Itcould be the pilot's problem. However in this case. We already have an agreement on the defective ESC due to a manufacturer defect. Coz I have a clear photo to prove it. And they think I should be responsible to land an aircraft with 3 engines, otherwise, I would be the one to blame for the crash.

What they are saying is like: "Hey, we know your car has a defective tire. And you 'may' have crashed your car because of a popped tire on the freeway. We say 'may' have caused the crash because the car 'could" be driven safely even with only 3 wheels rolling. If you failed to do so. We are sorry for your loss. But it is your fault to crash it."

[Wild Man]

Looks like Motion will let me carry this through thanksgiving. As non of their customer service manager called me till now.

Good Luck

[Wild Man]

From what I have heard from others that is about what they tell people who have lost planes for loss of signal for no reason, or there blue boxes and after checking they find nothing wrong and tell the poor souls sorry but we do not cover intermittent problems of our electrical components that MAY !!! have caused the crash but we have tested them and found nothing wrong. Intermittent problems are hard to prove and saves them a lot of planes and money, but I can see it puts them in a bad light. Sorry to see what happened to your B-24 You are not the first nor the last that will get the same response from them. They are not the only distributor like this and have to make dicisions such as with your crash

[Enzo_K]

Looks like Motion will let me carry this through thanksgiving. As non of their customer service manager called me till now.

[Enzo_K]

BTW guys, I found Freewing/Flightline's recent shipment of product has some QC issues. I receiver 2 fuselage decals of the same side for my B24. Somehow the tail turret came loose in the box as well. Though I didn't take picture of it, as I glued it right back in.

And some decals on my Freewing A-6E were applied inverted.

[Enzo_K]

Happy Thanksgiving guys. Hope you are able to stay with your families either online or in person.

I've been reading this thread for a while. I always like to do my research before buying a bird. I really appreciate all your inputs, and I've actually learned a lot about this bird from this thread so far. And today, sadly, I could use some more of your opinions to help with my situation.

I bought the Flightline B24 back in October. Got everything ready, but due to bad weather and COVID, I was unable to maiden her until last week. (Motion confirmed they will make exceptions for bad weather conditions on their 30-day warranty)

The maiden flight went well. I put her up for about 3 minutes and did all the trims in that flight. However, when I took her out for the second time two days ago. She suffered a leftwing outboard engine failure. She crashed roughly 8 or 10 seconds after the incident. I just called their customer service again. Motion RC and I have an agreement that the problem is a manufacturer defect ESC which caused the problem.

I was asking for a store credit refund to buy another one of these when it's back in stock. However, the customer service agent at Motion RC thinks it is my fault for not landing an aircraft safely with only 3 engines.



So what they are saying is I should be responsible to land a defective aircraft from the manufacturer. Otherwise, I would be the one to blame for the crash. It's like when you bought a car from a dealer, the tire pops on you. Then you crash the car due to a popped tire on the freeway. And the dealer thinks it is your fault for not driving the car safely with only 3 wheels.

Here is my report to Motion RC. You could find out what happened during the flight, and how I handled the situation. Please share your thoughts on this. I am currently waiting for a call from their customer service manager, coz I don't want to carry this over thanksgiving.

[Wild Man]

I just watched your video. That nasty tuck that you got I think was with the flaps DOWN. You kept saying that it happened when you put the flaps up, but mine does (did...) that same nasty tuck when adding a bunch of power (like a go around) with full flaps. With intermediate flaps it does not do that. However - I can tell you that the real one is known for tucking under like that when you overspeed the flaps when they are all the way down! Pretty cool how accurate the model is.

TLewis95 The low pass I made with flaps full down gear up the tuck ass you call it happened when I added power some up elevator and pulled the flaps up. Non the less it was a complete surprise to me when it happened. Luckily I was quick enough on the sticks to recover LOL !!! with all the flights I have made since. I do not deploy or retract the flaps while climbing out.

[OV10]

SHOUT OUT to TLewis95 …………...……….I think it is real cool that we have an actual Liberator driver in our midst

[TLewis95]

406Pilot You should get one. The Flightline B-24 Liberator flies like a big Lumber Wagon. The B-24 has more then enough power. Easy to land and take offs are impressive, just add in power gently Here is a Video of the second flight I made on mine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9T_ua_8s9g&t=5s

I just watched your video. That nasty tuck that you got I think was with the flaps DOWN. You kept saying that it happened when you put the flaps up, but mine does (did...) that same nasty tuck when adding a bunch of power (like a go around) with full flaps. With intermediate flaps it does not do that. However - I can tell you that the real one is known for tucking under like that when you overspeed the flaps when they are all the way down! Pretty cool how accurate the model is.

[TLewis95]

I like it enough to buy a second one. I have decided I will recreate the paint scheme after all. Most of the work doing the first one was in thinking about how best to do it. I think I could do it a second time pretty quickly and I even have some paint left over. I am biased towards Lil because I get to fly the real one quite a bit during the Summer - so there isn't really much other option.

I powered everything back up tonight before starting to remove all of the parts and of course - everything armed and worked just fine - which points at some sort of signal loss. I am throwing that Rx away out of principle now and everything from now on will either be Admiral (caused two total losses for me now) with a Sat, or Spektrum which has yet to let me down.

[Wild Man]

Cheers to redundant thumbs!!!!

Antenna setup is key regardless of brand. I am really liking the bigger scale warbirds and have been looking at this b24... It's suck a sweet classic looking plane. Multi engine awesomeness!!!

406Pilot You should get one. The Flightline B-24 Liberator flies like a big Lumber Wagon. The B-24 has more then enough power. Easy to land and take offs are impressive, just add in power gently Here is a Video of the second flight I made on mine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9T_ua_8s9g&t=5s

[406PIlot]

Cheers to redundant thumbs!!!!

Antenna setup is key regardless of brand. I am really liking the bigger scale warbirds and have been looking at this b24... It's suck a sweet classic looking plane. Multi engine awesomeness!!!