Great Planes Extra 330L
Hey guys,
The aircraft was built over the course of about nine months, and being my first Giant Scale IMAC plane, was given a LOT of TLC and time to be built straight, strong, and true. A ZDZ 80cc single was used for power and Hitec 5945 servos were used all around (two on each aileron) except for the rudder which used a 5735 mounted up front with pull-pull so that proper CG could be achieved without dead-weight on the firewall. Countless trips to the local Hobbytown USA (at one point we had completely bought out their insignia blue and white MonoKote) later, she was ready for the maiden flight. It was even taken up to a larger field so there would be no surprises.
On the first flight I was just blown away with this aircraft. It was so exact in every one of its maneuvers that I was "at one" with it after about two minutes of flight. Ten minutes later it was landed and some exponential and throw adjustments were made on the 8UAS transmitter. Three additional flights were made before it was disassembled and packed away.
The next night at our local field I was really falling in love with the aircraft. Sequences were so easy to do with amazing precision. On the seventh flight, I was starting to try some 3D. Torque rolls were incredibly easy and that little elevator was amazingly effective. Even the rudder was powerful enough to do 45-degree nose-up knife-edge at an incredibly slow airspeed.
I was finishing up my sequences and decided to work on my 3D repertoire a little bit. I pulled out of an idle power down down-line (with a 26-10 prop, downline braking was amazing), advanced the throttle to about 1/3, and then chopped it and popped in full-up on high rate for a wall. The plane pivotted up abruptly and with a sickening crack the right wing folded up, ripped off, and floated down. The fuselage continued in knife-edge and landed without a sound beyond view (it might have made a sound; I was too numb to hear it anyway). I was absolutely shocked. The walk to the wreckage is still a haze in my memory. I remember finding the wing and the fuselage completely destroyed. The full impact didn't really hit me until the ride home. On closer inspection it could be seen that the spars and sheet balsa ribs were completely shattered. The leading edge sheeting still had bits of the ribs glued to them as well as to the phenolic tube, so it could be seen that faulty glue joints were not the cause of the incident. Nine months of building and attention to detail gone because of poor wood selection. The aircraft was under pretty heavy g-load but nothing that could be called extreme. The aircraft would have pulled harder had the flier goofed up in a sequence and pulled out too hard.
It should be duly noted that AnnMarie Cross at Great Planes has agreed to look over the damage.