Brittle links

[Tripler]

"Pranged" the Raptor this morning (first flight), I'm sure a link broke, "I was giving it some stick at the time" well it was for my modest standard of flying) it nose dived to the left out of a fast low loop,, lucky the ground was so soft the only damage I had was the canopy retaining bracket, and a little nick on the back edge of the blades,, I think they're fine,, amazed it didn't touch the fly bar or paddles, ,

Think I’ll change all the links, they’re 18 months old so must be getting brittle
plus the cold weather doesn’t help.,

[ChrisB]

The standard TT plastic links are normally pretty reliable,if unsure best to swap them though

[jamiem]

i had one snap on me during a flight last summer. it was one of the "double links", and went when i came out of a high high down to low level quite quickly. it suddlenly leaned to the right and went in, doing loads of damage

[Tripler]

Sounds like I was lucky,,,

[Ade_Law]

you could have popped one off in the air. as they get older they get looser and will have a greater tendancy come off the ball under load.

check all your balls and links for wear.

if its 18months old it would probably use a proper service. strip her down, check all the bearings, replace all balls and links, new set of dampers

Ade

[Tripler]

Checked me balls Ade,, and yes I think you're right they do need changing,
Mind you they have'nt done bad for a bloke my age,,

going to strip and service the V2 before it goes back into (and stay's) in the the MD,
do'nt want that sort of thing to happen to that, it would have exploaded hitting the ground, 200 notes down the drain,,,,