In your experience what's the most common cause of a crash?

[Andrew Leftwich]

Pilot error mixed with inexperience, plus a bit of weather. Trying to fly in high wind, inexperience leads to

too slow reaction to the affect of the wind on the model.

[James Fuller]

Based strictly on my flying pilot error is the cause almost exclusively. Overconfidence is usually my undoing.I have been flying r/c models since 1960. In the beginning equipment was unreliable and caused lots of crashes. Once reliability began to be built in to the equipment most all problems were caused by the loose nut on the transmitter stick. I actually have airplanes that are over ten years old and have been flown a fair amount. radio is so reliable that you can expect to wear out airplanes.

[Braddock, VC]

But what's the biggest cause of pilot error?

I've been building wot 4s, on my tenth now, for years and the amount of control deflection the designer recommends is small. I religiously follow what the maker/designer says nowadays and have only lost one plane to over controlling. Some of the planes I see at the local field have relatively enormous deflections especially on aileron and ele. Not 3-d types btw.

The other thing is exponential, I've seen relatively inexperienced pilots with 80% who consistently crash either just after take off or at low level.

Finally batteries and switches, since I've changed to toggle switches and LiFe batteries I feel much more confident than in days of yore when slide switches ruled.

Edited By Braddock, VC on 08/10/2015 01:15:37

[cymaz]

I did a maiden for a club mate last Saturday. Everything went well. He had a flight and then lost control and the plane sustained nose damage...repairable.

The reason? One of the two servo elevators beame detached from the Y lead!

Shows the importance of securing all the connections

[ben goodfellow 1]

OF my last 4 over the last few years ......two were LOS (one confirmed by manufactuer ..) 1 was lipo TRAY coming out of plane( carbon z yak) and 4th was engine cutting in a hover with no height to recover . flying low..........fly low

[Gary Manuel]

Only ever had one crash that wasn't 100% my fault.

That was a mid air, so it was 50% my fault.

[Colin Leighfield]

Me. Usually through disorientation caused buy flying fast too low at a distance. I am trying to train myself out of it, the underlying cause is not getting to the field every week and practicing more. An underlying personal problem I have to resolve. I don't think I've ever had a problem through radio (JR and Spektrum) failure as such, though I did have one about 5 years ago caused by an aileron servo (very well used JR491) going on the blink.

Edited By Colin Leighfield on 08/10/2015 09:53:44

[cymaz]

Most common cause of a crash......

Leaving the ground on take off ?

[Bob Cotsford]

I recently had a mystery crash which I could only attribute to the switch switching itself off - a HD unit with built in charge socket, I've no idea what brand. That's the second equipment related crash I can remember since the days of soldered servo plugs and sockets on flyleads, the other being battery failure - which could equally be seen as operator error as I should have replaced the pack as a matter of routine maintainance.

[andyh]

ran out of altitude, airspeed & ideas!

[Rene Wallage]

Magic trees were not an option?

[Don Fry]

Re telemetry, airspeed, my big winter hack/ engine test bed had a pitot tube for airspeed. Was damaged when the motor stopped in a bad position, and the thing had an arrival, and sustained damage. My fault, brain too slow. You are too busy to listen to some sultry lady telling in a bored voice how fast it was going. Apart from when the thing stopped, and she is now intoning "airspeed no data, airspeed no data". Could have told you that, I think.

[ron evans]

Three whoopsies in the last five years.....( other ? )

After a sharp pull up with my MX2, the lipo abandoned ship....crunch.

Midair with OD delta.....crunch.

And the one that really hurts. I'd been given an old but very nice F86 Sabre PSS , and installed the radio but was a bit paranoid about the RX battery which was a couple of years old. Capacity checked out OK, 90% at 1A down to 4.4v so off I went. A quick range check and it was soon scything up and down the slope in fine fashion. Ten minutes into the flight.... no control and the Sabre rolled inverted, down into the pine forest in the valley....shred...crunch.

The dozy ground crew hadn't recharged the battery after the capacity check......

[Mark Kettle 1]

To low and slow.

[bouncebounce crunch]

Had the splines of a servo arm fail (not the servo end), at first we thought servo gears but not so. model survived fully deflected rudder fo a safe landing.

had a grub screw give way on aileron pushrod arrangement. got her home safely with one aileron.

Dead stick at low level and heading upwind is a joy when your strip is surrounded by trees. 50% strike rate with that one.

[Dave Bran]

Last was a power modded 1970's glider with a polyester Fus (Firecrest).

I'd struggled to find a decent glue to hold the components in, but thought I'd managed it after a couple of failed tests.

Several flight sessions later, it suddenly went out of trim while in a loop, badly so. Fighting it quite a bit I got it around and back down towards a landing though it was extremely loose on the controls, when it suddenly uncontrollably veered starboard into the leafy lower branches of an Oak.

Quite a soft "landing" and the only damage was a dented LE to one wing.

On inspection it became I think clear what had happened, the two servo rails (wood) had parted from the Fus.

When I'd pulled elevator up to lift the all flying tail up for the loop it'd obviously created so much load that the bond had failed, leaving the two servos screwed to rails no longer fixed in position and now almost dangling on their snakes.

The tree had taken the motor off the Fus , too, a clean separation of the motor mount bond leaving the Fus intact.

Having tried and failed with Polyester Resin (keyed and reinforced), Epoxy, Hot Glue, etc, if I'm bothered to fly it again (and I'm not sure I am!) I'm going to screw through the Fus into the bearers!!

[Erfolg]

I am a little surprised that polyester resin did not work. Generally if you abrade the surface, clean the dust off with some acetone, then either mix up some filler and polyester resin and use as a paste. Talc is ok with most gliders as weight up front t is not critical.

Another approach is to wet out with polyester and then use cloth to bond the rails to the body.

Perhaps one major difference that I have normally adopted with gliders is to make a ply tray with which to bond in place.

An alternative adhesive that sticks to polyester and epoxy is Stablit Express by Henkel. Pretty expensive though. I have normally used on tail booms.

Crashes are inevitable, particularly when the model is rock solid in handling and you have flown it hundreds of time. It could be you or model/radio related. It seems to eventually come with the territory.