Wot 4 elevator pin failure.

[Kieren MacGregor]

Those who know me would know that i'm addicted to speed and high G manoveres .

So back in August 3 months after passing my SAA bronze when I grew out of the OS 40LA that had powered My Wot 4 since Early April I decided to follow suit our local speed freak who has a SC 61 in his.So I bought an OS 65 AX.

Then one beutifull day in September (a rare event in Scotland) I took off on my first flight of the day after one slow curcut I applied full thottle and climbed verticaly before rolling out at about 350ft i headed downwind a bit then still at full thottle performed half a snap-roll and dived.

As I gentely started easing out of the dive I lost elevator athority and i could hear it flutering loudly I just had time to close the throttle before it burried itself the best part of 8 inches into the runway on inspection of the wreak i found the elevator pin gone. I will buy another one at some point but next time i will fit metal clevis'.

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

Don't rely too much on a metal clevis. Although almost undoubtedly better than a plastic one, control surface flutter will find the weakest link and break whatever it is! A full throttle dive with an overpowered model is rather a good way to test for flutter....

I've seen a metal clevis retained by a fuel tube fastener removed from a servo arm by relatively mild flutter while I was carefully testing a model with a history of it - I've witnessed an aileron break in two and detach - and seen the resulting wing damage from the twisting/flexing loads applied to it, after it was landed successfully - the D box was structually compromised.

Flutter kills aeroplanes!