Well I had my first major crash today with my Concept 30 SR.
I've been hovering for about a month with a LMH Corona, and lately the Concept 30. Today I finally got some courage built up and threw it into foward flight. She flew just like an airplane at that point, and since I also fly planks, I was having a ball.
Made three beautiful circuits around the field, and was grinning ear to ear. I came around the far end of the field, and something mechanical happened.
My best guess is that one of the pitch linkages came loose. The engine sagged horribly all of a sudden, and after a few seconds a wild vibration crept in (vibrated the training gear off the chopper). It vibrated like this for another few seconds (probably wasn't that long, but my sense of time was skewed), and it seemed the blades just lost all their momentum. At that point the tail started spinning, and I just quit fighting it, and yelled to everyone to look out.
In the post-mortum inspection, I noticed one of the pitch linkages was nowhere to be found. At first I thought maybe the engine had sagged and let the headspeed drop, but after thinking about it that didn't explain the wild vibrations I was getting. This is why I think the linkage came off in-flight rather than during the impact. If my deductions are right, this would have caused the engine to sag, and would also account for the vibrations and the loss of headspeed towards the end. Anyone ever had a similar experience?
It hit pretty hard, but did much less damage than I thought it would. Total damage: 1 tail boom, 1 set of blades, 1 flybar, 1 canopy. I already had a set of blades, so it is all on it's way from Tower now for under $100.
Either way, I'm still tickled with the flights today. I got over the FFF hurdle, and can't wait to get it back in the air to burn a few more circuits. I guess I'll just have to practice in the front yard w/ the Corona until next weekend.
