Flight Disasters

[Mark Barnes]

Well I just received my brand new ARTF low wing, my second plane after moving up from a trainer. Got it all built up with a new engine and servo's etc. Everything ran up and tested fine so it's off to the flying patch for a good days flying.....well that was the plan!!

All pre checks carried out, ready for take off, and we're up in the air, with no great dramas. She flys and handles beautiful, considering its the first time I've flown a low wing model, things are going great. About 10 minutes into the flight I decide its time to bring her back in. Just about to start the final circuit, BANG!! I was that busy watching how my model was handling, at about 80 feet up, I failed to see the glider, that seemed to appear from nowhere. I hit the glider which was polystyrene (it disintigrated!)my wing bolts sheared and the wing came fluttering slowly back to the ground. My fuselage came down nose first like a bullet and buried itself 6 inches into the soft ground.
I looked at the other pilot he looked at me, not sure if he was laughing or crying, he shook my hand and said "Super".

You gotta have a sense of humour when something like this happens!
Back to the shed with my binbag full of broken balsa!

[Dinorc]

Sorry Mark, I guess you will get used to this kind of mishaps...I'll tell you my latest "bravado" - Arrive at the field, assemble the wings on my Extra 330s, install the canopy-hatch, fuel-up, start the engine, how nice when on the first flip it starts singing...,test idle and top end, taxi out, check wind direction and a beautiful take-off...but what happens to the ailerons?, panic,... they do not work...think fast now, and try a 180 turn with rudder...seems to work, so idle the engine, but it decides to quit, so here comes the soft ground. Landing outside the strip strips my landing gear...Pick up the pieces, and disassemble canopy, HERE IS the culprit I DID NOT CONNECT THE AILERONS SERVOS to the rx....AND I DID NOT DO a THOROUGH PRE-FLIGHT CHECK.... I am sooo proud of myself!!!

[Malcolm Till]

Oh pooh, was my reaction when i read both of the tails of destruction. that reminded me of the last time i used that expression !!! I was flying my hirobo shuttle in a friends garden (very large garden) when i decided to do a pass under the high voltage power lines at the end of said garden, it did'nt occur to me at that point what effect they may have on radio signals, anyhow it was a beautiful low pass until it got to the other side of the wires, when..... my lovely helicopter started a stunning display all on its own, the nose pitched up for about thirty feet then the tail came around 180 degrees... and headed back down to earth at full throttle, going in very hard indeed. result:- main rotors will now fit a picolo z, tail boom has been sent to aus for use as a boomerang, and quite a lot of the main rotor head has been upgraded to alloy, ?upgrades?. hey i enjoy flying as well as building. he he he. you have to smile. kind regards everyone. M

[Dave Harbour]

I forgot to charge the reciever battery in my son's trainer so i fast charged it and off we went, three flights into the day and the aircraft suddenly went into a left hand bank and nose dived back to terra firma?
on checking the battery it was totaly dead, duff battery so i thought but no, it wasn't until i read the instructions on the back of a Uniross fifteen minute charger (i use a GWS charger for fast charging aircraft) did i learn that fast charging only gives 80% capacity equating into three flights = flat battery, LESSON LEARNED = if fast charging keep check on the battery level after every flight or slow charge overnight, dont take it for granted that fast charging is always a good thing!
This trainer has been written off as scrap now four times yet i have rebuilt it and it flys better than a standard tutor 40 (so the club instructor says)

[Tim Mackey]

Oh dear Mark. What can I say other than bad luck -get back on the horse, and remember...its only a piece of wood !

[winchweight]

We've all had one of those days. Mine was about 3 weeks ago. I finally got my Excelsior 150, with a brand new ASP65FS in the front, all together for it's maiden. It took off and flew beautifully, big loops, quick rolls etc. But as I took it around again I was thinking "I must do something about the colour scheme as I can't really see which way up it is..... in fact.... I CAN'T SEE WHICH WAY UP IT IS!!!!!" At which point it dropped its nose and entered a spin, I tried to level the wings and opened up the throttle to try and recover. It was just responding when the ground leapt up to meet it. Endex..... Nothing survived except the remote glow unit...... Booooooo The following week I passed my A cert, so no point crying over spilt milk, just get the next one ready for wrecking.... I mean flying!

[Jonathan Lewzey]

i lost my Tutor 40 a couple of weeks ago through battery corrosion. I suddenly found I had no control and watched as it destroyed itself.
The best one though was a club slope day. I have a Hacker Ray which is a very nice model albeit with a tendency to tip stall if pushed too far. I was flying with Dad on the Buddy box and he was doing quite well I told him to try a landing. he promptly flew too far downwind and stalled trying to get back to the landing area. He only snapped the nose off. I flew his miniminus for the rest of the day. dad flew on the buddy box (with me doing the landings!) Then one flight where I was flying on my own I decided to fly a loop. Now, with a 2ch HLG this was always going to be a bit risky but it did it so I did some more. I'd finished flying for the day and asked dad if he wanted another go on the buddy box but he said I should have another go. That was a big mistake. We pushed the model to the limits of it's flight envolope pulling tighter and tighter loops till the wing retainig plate pulled out all three screws in the front. The fuse torpedoed down the hill (must have been 200 feet) and the wing floated down near the landing area. The model looked a bit wrecked but it is now in a nearly airworthy state! I hope it flies otherwise I will have to buy him a new one!

[Mark Barnes]

Well I've now got my low wing Travel Air model back together in one piece, it took an awfull lot of re-building, all new balsa and ply right back to just behind the cockpit! I have replicated the colour scheme and it now looks as good as new. I had it out this weekend, it flew brilliant and I didn't even have to alter any of the trim controls logged into my tx. I must be doing something right. Funny though, when I started my engine and walked out to the patch, everybody landed and gave me clear airspace. I think they were trying to tell me something!!!

[flytilbroke]

Last year I took a pal to Aviemore for a three day "intensive". With me in instructor mode him on the slave tranny, his Arising star went,,,,, rapidly into stony ground. I always close the aerial from the bottom segments, I can only remember closing three. Will always wonder????

Ten days later using the Arising star I had for possible instructing, him on the slave tx, I did the take off, and one circuit then passing control over. Then the model did, SPLATT.

The brand new rx battery in my new model, checked and topped up on the field had failed. Two new models, blooooo,, el.

[Brian Clamp]

Will have to add my(one of several possibles)tale of woe. My beautiful Piper cub - pictured elsewhere - was flying as usual like on rails. made a fairly low pass opened the engine up and turned at the end of the strip. model continued turning and banked straight into the ground at a high throttle. engine burried completely, model a write off. detailed accident investigation and post mortem revealed that the reciever flight switch had fallen apart,[no it was deffinitely NOT crash damage] effectively switching off the receiver. moral fit heavy duty switches and fit a strap to ensure it cannot fall apart!!!

[Stovton51]

Back to the hobby after a ten year "rest" all your wonderful stories bring the memories flooding back and inspire me to get a move on with my project,a super 60 converted to electric power,anyone any ideas regarding motor/battery/esc/prop combination any help would be appreciated.thanks

[John Davies]

It seems to me if a model gets through the first half dozen flights,then it goes on to last a good while

[Paul Theobald]

I'm lucky in that so far I haven't managed to write a model off completely (although I've come close on more than one occasion) My favourite mishap was putting my Easyglider into a 6ft high blackberry bush. Shame that I was wearing shorts and slips ons. At least I didn't have to pay to have her sprayed; the blackberries took care of that.

[Phil Meredith]

i consider myself a pretty good builder, (i have to be), so after great deliberation, i think my most memerable "fubar" was with a kit built Cesna, after a couple of weeks away i ventured up the club, got all set up, did the SMART thing and set her off down the runway, the MDS 58 pawing at the air, (not the best choice of engine but i have three kids and on a budget), she lifts a wheel, "just the one", so i gave her a bit of back stick and right aileron, and the right wing lifts some more, give her more right aileron, then more, then full right rudder, it was at this point i realised the left wing was not going to come up so i shut the power at which point the left wing dug into the grass at the side of the runway, then the engine, then the right wing tip then the rudder, as she cartwheels across the grass and slams into the side of a building, "Cheers and applause from the pits), picked up the bits and back at the pits, i noticed some black spots on the inside of the wing covering, (mouldy) i peel it back to find the balsa on the left wing was soaking wet and further peeling back i found the three outer most bays between the ribs were full to the brim with water, there had been a small split in the covering that i had taped over, and during my two weeks away it rained pretty heavily and my shed roof had leaked, didn't need a bucket, the cesna had soaked it up throught the split in the covering,
phil

[Tom Furniss]

straight to point. giles 120 size. ran on 120 4 stroke. few buitiful, treated to a 2300 super tigre, first flight. wing comes off. extra shake from new engine made it loose, guess what. no washers

balls lol

[Mark Barnes]

Thanks for the sympathy guys, but if you you just have to keep smiling when things go bad. At least now I realise that it's not only me that bad things happen to. Phil after reading your unfortunate story it made me reaslise that my garage roof is leaking slightly, and yes, that is where my wings are stored. Time to move them or fix my roof, I think!!.
My father has been learning to fly and is getting on quite well with the buddy box with one of our club instructors. On Sunday he was practicing his landing finals, when he was lining up with the patch he was trying to get between 2 trees (at least 100mtrs apart), and yes you can guess whats comming, flew it straight into the left hand tree. The instructor kept saying "mind the tree" but he still hit it. Oh well! After I got it back from the tree my Dad just laughed. He has a good sense of humour as well!!
Keep the stories coming lads, they do put a smile on my face.

[Phil Meredith]

was it murphy or sods law that says if it can happen it will ? imposible to keep two mistakes high when doing landng practice,
when i was teaching a members wife at our club you have to turn right towards the runway and then right along a row of trees down the runway, she made the first turn fine but when it came to the second turn she banked the plane fine but froze on the elevator about 15 feet above the tarmac and twenty feet from the trees, by the time i let go of the trainer switch it was already inverted and nose down, smashed it back to the rear wing retaining dowel, even the engine was in bits, i was gutted, but she thought it was great, she had never seen the inside of an engine before

[Mike Rolls]

Second flight on a new own design electric sports model. Similar in design and structure to quite a few of my others over the years. First flight just a few circuits and gentle manoeuvres - all fine. Second flight threw it around fairly hard for a couple of minutes, then levelled out, started a circuit - and the righ hand wind snapped off. Total wreck. Couldn't understand it until I checked the spars (they were now easy to get out!). They looked OK - hard, nice straight grain, flexed gently they seemed OK - until you increased the pressure a bit and they snapped like carrots - and straigh across the grain, somewhin I have never seen before unless the material had some form of stress raiser - whihc these didn't at the point of failure.
Not a happy camper - especially as to save time I replaced it with an ARTF - whihc I just don't like - one of those aeroplanes whihc somehow just doesn't 'feel right'

Mike

[JC]

Thought I would join in. I taught my self to fly on an easy star(more glue than model now but still flys well) Moved on to an electric UHU from graupner. What a loverly airplane. Three perfect uneventfull flights one bad one. No idea what happened it went into a dive on full power. I got no responce from the contols. It really is amazing that a small foamy could spread its self over such a large area. I was using an old sanwa exellence 2 radio, bought a new Graupner MX12 now.  I will be buying anothet UHU.

[Flanker .]

You can't win . I am very safety minded, ALWAYS full power check before take off, ALWAYS full control check twice.  One day I remembered that I had never checked the radio harness in my Champion 45, and it was 3 years old.

So I took all apart and cleaned all plugs with contact cleaner, and sorted everything 'till it was as new.

Next flight total radio failure while doing low level rolls. Totalled. When post crash checking it was found that a plug/socket on the batt harness was making intermittent contact. If I had left it alone ...

Still have n fly the champ. it is the same plane with a new motor, fuz, wings etc. Same tail group n wheels though. lol F

[001]

I have a three channel Super 60 with an Enya 41 four stroke, I just like pottering about the sky enjoying the sound of the motor. It has had hundreds of flights, mostly without incident. Very relaxing.

A couple of weeks ago, on one of the few windfree days this year I took it to the field, took off, made a couple of circuits then started a gentle loop. it just went into a spiral and dropped out of the sky. Cracked wing, and tailplane, messy but repairable. Some other flyers had had minor glitches and we blamed a distant electric fence. When I got the plane home an extra receiver pack dropped down from the tail. Then I remembered, I needed a receiver pack to test a radio, took it out of the Super 60, then put it back loose inside the cabin intending to fit it later, many weeks later I had forgotten this and finding it  apparently without a battery, fitted another one. The first one must have become dislodged and gone into the rear fuselage, in flight it had dropped back, moved into the tail, and upset the c of g.(and/or jammed the elevator).

Is this called nicad memory effect?

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Jon]

In 1971   I spent good money on a glider kit, money that really should have been spent on the kids and wide.

i spent many hours building the thing. really trying to build it so's it would be both perfect in the air and would really look the part.....many hours of detailed work went into it....not to mention the cuts and scratches in the wife’s best  table.

The big day came....no radio, batteries or ESC's to worry about then.....it had none....it was just a guilder that dad had built cause he's so clever   with the wife, kids, dog and plane packed into the car off we went out of Newcastle on the road which follows Hadrian’s Wall to the west..

Found a first class launching site looking south.....You could see for miles.... hand launched the plane and it just soared, I was so proudIt soared and it soared flying due south...it didn’t turn to the left or right....it just soared......a perfect flight and it looked so good too

If any of you in the south of England, France or Africa found it Id like it bake please