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Old 08-20-2010, 06:08 PM
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Luchnia
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Default Crashing - a part of the hobby?

A crash is basically defined as sudden damage or destruction to something (in our case RC planes).

In a recent thread in the beginners' section I questioned crashing as being an intregal part of this hobby and here are some thoughts on this. I really think too many have the mentality that they are doomed at some point to crash. I believe it is illogical to think that "beginners crash more than others" or "all RC flyers are going to crash" or that anyone would even have such a mindset. Let me qualify my statements some. I believe this thinking is more along the lines of "you will crash like it or not if you fly." I think those that fly recklessly or don't check their planes crash the most at least what I see at our field.

What is the standard by which beginners must crash and what are the percentages of beginner crashes if trained thoroughly and properly? Is there an instructor issue, a mechanical failure, etc.? If a mechanical failure did the instructor fail to teach the student proper pre-flight checks?

How many times should intermediate pilots crash, 5%, 10%, 40%? How about experienced pilots? Almost without doubt the majority of the crashes at our field have been because of equipment malfunction or flying in rather adverse conditions with the occasional "mess up" on the radio sticks.

First I think the term crash has to be defined. If we use the definition above then our crashing is not part (an expected part I might imply) of the hobby because many beginners have went through the training process and not crashed and there are intermediate pilots that rarely if ever crash. As a matter of fact I have seen our instructors train several guys since I joined and only one crashed and that was because he came in to nose-down in extremely windy conditions.

We have one pattern flyer that has only had one plane go down in the past year and a half that I have known him (or at least one that I know of) and he managed to not crash the plane. So his flying skills and wisdom keep his planes flying very well with rarely (if ever) a mishap. I think I heard him say he has flown around 1700 flights to date (Not totally positive of the number here). He logs every flight.

Now if a bad landing, or bending a nose wheel, breaking a prop, a short landing, a tip over, a wing scrape, or something like that is considered a crash then we have all had crashes and I would have to imply that crashing is to be considered a high percentage of the hobby.

Also, if we go at flying with reckless abandon and take planes beyond their designed limits then we would certainly experience the circumstances of gravity more often. However if we fly the planes as designed and don't have equipment failures then how often should we be crashing?

If anyone has any thoughts on this subject please chime in. Do you think crashing is part of RC flying and if so, just how much is to be expected? I think if we are not careful we build in expectations that crashing is a large part of this hobby and must be expected. [8D]