Things that have dropped off in flight

[Chris Walby]

Just for a bit of fun could people own up or recount of others misfortune over the years with suitable saves from the bin liner.

Mine from this week was approaching the flight line and lowering the U/C. I was expecting to see gear down and locked but was treated to the oleo and wheel descend to the ground from one nacelle! No major panic or damage just a gear up landing ensued.

Surely that can easily be bettered?

[J D 8]

Wheels are a favourite of mine, have lost several the years.

Motor from Ripmax Coyote when folding prop threw a blade, managed to fly it back down despite rearward c of g.

[Peter Jenkins]

Wheels, spats and Saito 4 stroke exhausts (many times)!

Once doing a maiden for another flyer, we found one elevator missing on landing. I had not noticed any change in handling so it might have come off early on in the flight!

[Colin Carpenter]

Sebart Shark 🦈coming out of a loop, when I heard a strange noise and thought I saw the spinner hanging off ! Cut the throttle and dead sticked down ok. Walked over to the model and saw the motor hanging out of the nose with wires twisted to hell. The fibre mount had broken apart and motor fell out of the cowl !😱😱All the bits were inside the cowl so a rebuild wasn’t too much of a problem. It was a secondhand plane that was purchased in 2012 and never flown. No gussets on mount which were added during the rebuild. Colin

Edited By Colin Carpenter on 11/06/2020 19:15:21

[Stuphedd]

The club was doing a demo at the local steam fair, Ross did a fastish touch and go with his SE5 , the flight pack came though the bottom of the airframe and the plane flew away never to be seen again .

Something dropped off as the engine cut on Alans bipe , he deadstick landed it perfectly on the patch and found it engineless .

A bipe I sold to a guy who immediately put a pilot in the cockpit , Whilst doing aerobatics the pilot ejected ,and tuned off the radio on his way out, the switch was in the cockpit to!!

cheers

[Gary Manuel]

This one is going to take some believing!

I wouldn't have believed it myself if it hadn't have happened to me and was not witnessed by several members.

I started my Saito 150 as normal in my Slipstream MXS and took off. Just after take off, the engine cut and I managed to land OK with no damage. Post flight inspection revealed that the prop was turning with no resistance. Obviously no compression, so I feared an expensive repair. On closer inspection, there was no glow plug in the cylinder head. Ah that explains it, the plug has unscrewed and fallen out after take off. New plug fitted, refueled and ready to restart.

Glow clip would not fit onto the plug. Wait! There's a plug already inside the glow clip!

The only way to explain this is that I started the engine and the glow plug came away from the engine as I removed the clip. The engine ran for long enough WITHOUT A GLOW PLUG for me to take off, before cutting. I still don't believe that this happened, but it did.

Anyone have an explanation? I feel like someone who has reported seeing a UFO or being spoken to by God - nobody is going to believe me.

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

Never had anything fall off mine, but I do wear a safety helmet when others fly.

[Peter Miller]

A battery pack fell out of the bottom of my Super 60. Well,they are not supposed to be aerobatic.

The front of an old KK spinner came off.It removed a prop blade,the imbalance wrenched the engine out of the model. This was a control liner back in the 80s.

[Flyer]

Had the top wing come off a Precedent Bi-Fly, with a SC108 making the noise! Managed to land as a low winger, and the caban strut twisted 90 degrees too, so ended up doing an impressive side slip approach. The top wing landed about 30 secs later...…

Only time I'd managed a side slip approach too.

Cheers

Ade

[paul d]

I've lost the odd wheel in the past oh and I had all the carefully applied trim fly off from a Hooligan ( remember them?) in front of most of the club...I was only young!

Years before I did find a mill's 1.3 complete with bearers and prop in the middle of a local common, no other signs of wreckage and I've always assumed it "fell off" ??

[Andy48]

Similar to Gary's post. I took off with my electric model. The plane had literally just left the ground and the engine stopped. Thankfully there was plenty of short grass left for the landing. Spent ages trying to find the problem. In the end it turned out that one of the three leads to the engine had broken off with vibration just where it was soldered to the plug. This, was of course covered with heat shrink and looked perfectly normal.

[trevor wood 2]

I had a large electric glider fitted with a folding prop which shed a blade as power was increased to pull into a loop. The noise it made was most impressive, but not as impressive as the sight of the rudder falling off as the out-of-balance forces caused the caused the three 30 year old nylon hinges to snap. Ordinarily this wouldn't have caused too many problems, but the 9ft span, 5lb model didn't have ailerons. Whilst the model remained controllable vertically I didn't have much influence over where it would land, only when. Fortunately shrubs and a shallow pond prevented any significant damage when the inevitable contact with terra firma occurred.

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

The undercarriage drops off my Me163 Komet every time I fly it. There again, I'd be disappointed if it didn't!

[Jesus Cardin]

First thing I dropped off from a glider, while making loops was......the receiver battery! The canopy, "secured" with tape, opened to one side and the battery fell off free.

Of course, the glider continued looping from 40-50 meters to the ground but due to a great luck and that ground was soaked with rain water, it went straight into the ground like a javelin suffering NO damage at all. Even the battery was found a few meters from the glider making a perfect female form on the soft ground.

We only needed connecting the battery and double and triple securing the canopy and we went up again with the high start!

From then on -it was about nearly 40 years ago- I have only dropped toy parachutists and candy for children!

[Richard Harris]

One of my mates had a fuselage fall off once at a fly in and it was caught on camera. He rebuilt it piece by piece and flew it again the next day. We have always double checked our Jesus nuts from that day forwards. Rotors did a great landing to be fair, we could never find the offending nut though.

[Trevor Crook]

Years ago, Kodak Instamatic from my mate's Yamamoto when he was trying aerial photography. Never found it.

More recently, I learned that it's a good idea to threadlock the screws holding the rear of an outrunner to its x-mount. Said motor launched itself from the front of my SE5a, but luckily stayed plugged in to the esc so the cg stayed managable. The prop ate some of the nose before I could close the throttle, but I managed to land it without further damage.

This photo was taken about 2 seconds before it happened.

[Brian Cooper]

Many years ago, a club buddy asked me to give his model a good "work out".

At the bottom of a loop, the Rx battery fell through the floor of the fuselage and could be seen dangling on its wires. . Obviously there was an urgency to get it down, but the rest of the flight was exceedingly gentle. Happily, it survived to fly another day.

[Brian Cooper]

Not an in-flight one, but I watched a chap restraining his model by standing astride the tailplane. He opened the throttle to give the engine a max revs check, and................. the tail broke off and stayed behind while the rest of the model shot forwards..

It took us all about half an hour to stop laughing.

Edited By Brian Cooper on 11/06/2020 22:57:55

[Brian Cooper]

I had one side of the tailplane fall off an Xtra Wot during some negative G flick rolls.

The trim became "interesting" but got it back down without further incident.

Having a servo on each elevator saved the day.

[Devcon1]

Do these count.

[Chris Walby]

Sorry to say Devcon1 and Martin, things that are intended to fall off don't count

I never cease getting that heart stopping moment when we launch the Vulcan just before the bungee line drops off having it lawn darted its self in due to non release.

Dolly the right way around helps as well,

[Mark H75]

A motor and firewall decided to consciously uncouple mid-loop

[leccyflyer]

Lost the battery hatch/canopy from my Esprit Models Supra-E some years ago - was flying quite high at the time, probably >200ft - we saw it come off and I landed the model without incident. Despite some hours searching, we never found the canopy. Then some months later I received an email from a local farmer who had found the canopy/hatch in her hay field, having read the attached label, bearing my email address and old telephone number.

The hayfield was 5 miles from our flying field, as the crow flies.or, as the canopy is carried aloft.

[Peter Miller]

A recent one.

My Moon Dancer 2 has the battery hatch under the nose and I was relying on the velcro and hatch latch.

The battery fell out at about 50 feet over a bare field that had been cultivated and rolled. The model carried on for about another three hundfed yards down into a valley.

When I got to it, it was sitting perfectly upright and unmarked on the ground.

I went back and decided that finding the battery in the vast expanse of field would be too tiring.

Two club members went looking for it and actually found it, un damaged. THanks Stuart and Michael!!

The battery is now firmly strapped in!!!

[FlyinBrian]

On my first ever electric model in c92/93 - 7 cell Nicad and a buggy motor - I was just coming out of a loop when the battery exited via the hatch located on the fus bottom. Trying to watch where the battery was heading and attempting to fly a now very tail heavy glider was fun. I eventually found model and battery in a hay field adjacent to our site both in good order but I never found the battery hatch.

Some time later the wing decided to go free flight and the model darted into the recently ploughed field hitting a lump of Kent flint which won the argument. Wing was OK!

In the winter in the late 60s probably 69 - with a crisp coating of snow all around I was flying a Veron Robot on two channels, I was using the old Runway at the disused Gravesend RAF station. I let the model go too far away and hit some power cables and the ( rubber banded on) undercart fell off.

The model was fine and I landed and trudged across the snow and found the errant u/c sticking out of the snow under the 132KV cables.

Edited By FlyinBrian on 12/06/2020 08:26:38