Rob2160

I agree, but a plane that flies 10 flights every week for 13 years is definately statement of longevity.. My next goal is to reach 1000 flights on one of my helis by the end of June... Currently on Flt 521... No crashes.. The funny part is.. this heli literally cost me $10 for the kit and $12 for 3 cyclic servos.. and it just keeps goin'....


My $10 heli.. 521 flights and counting..

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5AeH48c5Rg[/youtube]

ec121

My Feedback: (2)

Most of the time people are talking about a trainer when they say it is going to crash(mostly learning to land). Once you get proficient a plane will last as long as you want it too with an occasional patch or two from hangar rash.

pdm52956

My Feedback: (1)

Maybe I'm wrong here but personally I think that it's very dependent on your flying style as well as anything else. You can pre-flight and maintain all you want, but if your flying includes hard 3D for example, I think your chances go up that the plane isn't going to last as long as one that is just flown in circles. Not to say that flying 3D will be the death of a plane, just that I think the chances increase.

lkruse

My Feedback: (42)

I'm still flying a Tex Newman "Dragonfly" that I built from Model Builder plans in 1974, and I just recently sold a pristine-looking Sig "Seniorita" that I built and started flying in 1986. The caveat is that while there may not be an expiration date hidden in every plane, each one is subject to immediate recall due to faulty maintenance and pilot error.

armody

My Feedback: (10)

I'm really amazed with experiences and inputs. I'm certainly getting a lot of answers than I expected. Any kit or scratch built plane we know every crack and crevice, we can make sure at every angle that nothing goes bad, proper gluing and against all the odds, make it pristine. Yes it can be promised that it would be done, as we are doing it.

Lets talk about ARF's the price range from $100 to $400 range, once again I'd bring up the example of my Phoenix model Strega, just paid $120 or more for the ARF, how many flaws I found after it crashed, in fact only on half of a wing snapped and minor scratches, fuselage was perfect. While repairing I saw how aileron hinges were not properly glued, ribs were not glued to spar and many many more things, as now it's ready to go up in the air, my mentor taught me so hard and worked himself so hard and tried it to it's level best to eliminate all possible factors that may become a cause of crash. The 3D ARFs or those transcend $500 and staggering $1,000 buck ARF are different story as I asked my Mentor, he said those ARF's are different story and can't be compared with those ARF which are 10% of it's price. I have GP Revolver 40 ARF sitting at home, opened it checked it but have not worked on it, that's my other project as I have to complete 2 kits and honestly I'm enjoying it building, and think I wish I could have found somebody long time ago, who would have taught me a lot, but I'm getting there.

I think everybody knows Bill Hempel, and I love this video, this plane is I think Edge 540, won so many trophies over 1000 flight, it crashed, so what would y'all say about it. Pilot error or plane error?

Photo is posted and I pointed out in fact badly circled it with blue and red, that video I want y'all to look and tell me, I'm sure a lot of 'em have seen it so I'm sorry but what is the outcome of it?

Here's the link

http://www.billhempel.com/newsite/pages/videos.html

Mody

dalolyn

My Feedback: (7)

I have a Falcon 56 I have been flying for 15 years, On its third engine, second covering, one radio switch, started out flying with a Futaba AM and upgraded to a 6xa

CGRetired

My Feedback: (1)

Who knows what it was. Could have been either one or neither. Experience and longevity for the pilot does not prevent a crash from happening. A critical servo could have failed in flight, or a dead cell in the radio that was not detected before the flight, or a mid-air. None are the fault of the pilot nor of the aircraft.

CGr.

armody

My Feedback: (10)

So nothing can be predicted, plane's gonna last for 30 years, some won't make it to the maiden flight, is it merely luck??? It can not be probed what may have been the cause of the crash, millions of the factors, but not always pilot's fault. Electronic would fail eventually sooner or later, anything that is pushed hard as it's life. Crashes can be prevented, mitigated but not eliminated or avoided

The crash of hempel's plane as mentioned in the video is related to fuel mixture issue or carb issue as it's mentioned in the end of the video, correct me if I'm wrong or it's some other issue may be power related as he didn't get what he would have wanted.

If none are the fault of the pilot or of the aircraft then what's the FAULT?

cutaway

I have a Midwest Magician that's flown fairly regularly. I built it back around 1975. Its been recovered three times, rehinged, and had the controls replaced. Its never hit the ground hard...just routine maintenance due to normal wear and tear.

ec121

My Feedback: (2)

Crashes happen, but they aren't a certainty.

armody

My Feedback: (10)

I agree.

Nathan King

I owned a fiberglass airplane that was made in the '80's. It was flown a lot (competition airplane) and still had the original covering and paint. While fiberglass can fatigue, it takes a very long time (>30 years) with proper care.

RCER88

My Feedback: (25)

Over 95% of crashes are pilot error whether they admit it or not. Airframe failure is about 1%. Radio 3% and other is 1%.

I fly my planes hard. Spins, snaps, full power dives and quick pull outs. I try to rip the wings off them.

Arf's I have had really bad luck with, if they survive a season it is a miracle. I have mains fail on gentle landings. I have had wings break in half and not at the joining area.

My kit built models last. Maybe because I know where to reinforce and where I can cheat and lighten up. I have a Aeromaster Bipe that I bought several years ago. It was done with dope. A picture of it is here on RCU. It was built in the seventies. I have since replaced the engine because I wore it out. The plane gets flown regularly during the flying season and I treat it no different than my others. I put on 30 rubber bands top and bottom on the wings and end up with over half busted by the end of the flying session.

Proper preflights and proper maintenance including batteries can give you many years of satisfaction with your airplanes. I have recently quit using moneycote because I am sick of it falling off after a few years of hard flying. I am now doing fiberglass and epoxy paint with no significance in weight. I range check before every session and check batteries often during it. I know the capacities of each battery in each airplane which helps me keep track of flight times and when I should have to charge them. I cycle batteries every spring to insure they come back up to at least 80% of original capacity and at least twice during the season, if they don't they get thrown in a box to be used for setting up airplanes and testing servoes etc. IF you do everything possible to prevent a failure, odds are the plane will last a long time as you don't have a case of "Dumb Thumbs" You then can fall out of the 95% of the crashes.

Happy flying.

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

This is one of my pattern planes that was given to me by a friend. The plane was campaigned in the 80s. Glass fuse, foam core surfaces. I fly it pretty much every week. The fuse has stress cracks and the covering is held on in places by tape. It's a perfect flying machine, I really love flying it. The true age??? From my IMAA days I can tell you a lot of reasons for mystery crashes, I was the safety officer so I checked out most of the crashed planes. Most of the problems with these giant scale planes could have been prevented. Because they are so big they use a lot of long leads {extensions}. If these leads aren't pulled and cleaned they corrode, when that happens the servos start slowing down, jerking or just quit working. I no longer use extensions, I solder my servo wires to length. Batteries, just because a battery shows a full charge doesn't mean it's good. I just caught one in my Extra last week, it took a full charge but on cycle it only drew down 300Mah. As far as cycling batteries to check them I'm as bad as most people and don't do it enough.
I fly with a lot of 40% people that have big ARFs and cost high dollar. You still have to go into them and use glue in places the makers used hot glue. Some parts haven't even any hot glue on them. Price is no grantee, someone else or several someone elses built these planes and can miss things. There is no way to say how long a plane will last but as the pilots/owners if we do the maintance on them we can help them live for a very long time. As bad as I am about that I'm surprised I don't have planes falling out of the sky a lot more often then I do. I think I would be a lot better then I am about checking my planes if I lived in a place that had a real winter where you are grounded for months at a time. I have been grounded for a few weeks but I always find something else to do besides checking out my planes. My Bad!!!
Gene

crash1ace

One just nenevr knows the life span of our plans. With some of these newbie pilots who ruch out to fly some crazy warbird, and some of the crappy arf designs out there, sometimes the life span is very very short, especially when one of those dang trees deside to reach out and grab it,lol or forgetting to pull that TX antenna out.

vega406

My Feedback: (73)

From the time a plane is built it is constantly searching for the ground

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

Let us not speak of not pulling out the antenna!!![&o]

jessiej

I agree that the life of a plane can be practically indefinite Such longevity requires sound building with carefully selected materials, careful maintenance, and a bit of luck.

I have yet to find a covering material that will not eventually need to be replaced. I have a Chuck Cunningham Lazy Ace that I built in the early 80s that still has most of the original monocoat, but the covering has become a bit fragile. A couple of hinges look a bit suspect as well.

I also have a couple of CL precision aerobatic planes I built in 1958-60. They were flown heavily for a couple of years, then stored in my mother's attic. One is covered with silk and dope, the other silkspan and dope. The covering on both is very brittle, but otherwise I beleve they could be recovered and flown with little other attention. (I recently removed the 1954 vintage Fox .35 from one of them. It cranked instantly and ran perfectly.)

jess

armody

My Feedback: (10)

As much as pulling the Antenna out is concerned, I'm proud to say that this never happened to me in my short 6 years of flying, never and ever happened to me Knock on wood. Now Thank GOD I have Hitec Aurora 9 2.4 Ghz so Antenna does not need to be pulled out but it has to be 90 degree angle upwards that is what manual says. Ain't gonna talk about 2.4 GHz radio's antenna's position as I already posted a topic on it.

My mentor told me a guy was flying may be giant size scale models and crashed one or two of his planes, and he was told that if you wanna save the crash, balance your prop, he listened after 2 crash, as he started PROP BALANCING, which until now was not a major issue to me, he could have saved his 2 planes, ever since he balanced the prop, he didn't crash any plane.

I'm enjoying this thread and learning a lot here. Guys thank you for your great inputs again

Mody

Catalinaflyer

I was once told by an old timer at our club that every single airplane, helicopter etc has an expiration date stamped on it somewhere invisble to the human eye. I have had a couple that the expiration date was the same date as the maiden and others that in 25+ years of RC haven't reached it yet. With the exception of an overpowered cub that had a servo failure on the elevator I can say that every crash I have been involved in regarless of how extensive was caused in some part by the pilot.

Forgetting to check which airplane the radio is set for and just making a quick controll wiggle, yup its good to go, right off the runway into a vertical upline followed by an immediate snap into a vertical downline right into the center of the helicopter circle on the runway. I just turned around to the stares of disbelief and said with a straight face "I WON, I hit the center of the target."

Watching the egg fall all the way to the runway as the inverted plane I just dropped it from flies into the ground just beyond the end of the runway. (BTW, the egg was further from the aformentioned circle than the plane itself)

How many rubber bands did I you put on there as the wing helicopters to the gound right in front of us and the now wingless plane becomes a lawn dart at the other end of the flight line.

Remembering that to pull up after a WOT inverted pass requires pushing on the stick not pulling on it.

In the world of being a real airplane and/or helicopter pilot there comes a point when after all of your training you become such a good pilot that you do something so stupid from being over-confident that you scare yourself into the realization that you cannot ever take any aspect of flying for granted. For me it was realizing that the glue placed on the wingtips of a Piper Pawnee will hold that wing to the ground so tight that pushing on the stick with every ounce of adrenaline induced muscle you have will not change the ensuing ground-loop and nose over crash. I had been flying crop-dusters for about a year at that point and we were paid by the acre sprayed, not flying to and from the field, taxiing around the airport, mixing chemicals, loading the hopper, doing pre-flight and post-flight inspections. We were paid only when the acre counter was turning so instead of landing on the cross-wind runway all the way down at the other end of the airport resulting in an almost three mile taxi back to the loading pad I chose to land in a strong crosswind on the main runway right close to the hangar and save a few minutes. Well I saved a few minutes, damaged a beautiful airplane and got a serious ego check and arse chewing.

In the world of RC, that same type of thing usually happens with the exception of our own human mortality, we do something because of being over-confident that winds up costing us money and maybe a little bit of emotion depending on how attached we were to that flying machine. Some of us learn a little from that mistake and some of us repeat it over and over again. (I fall into both catagories depending on whether it was bought in a box and only needed adding radio and engine or if it was a set of rolled up plans and a semi load of balsa from Michigan)

All RC pilots crash but not all RC planes and most of those could have been prevented in some part by the pilots actions. Of course there will always be the unexplainable mystery crash, mid-air or fly-away but only 1 out of 1000 most likely are without some reason that could have been prevented.

Now that I got all that out of my system I'm headed back down to the workshop and finish the rebuilding of my 33% Extra that became a retractable aircraft the other night due to .......................... you guessed it, pilot error.

lopflyers

My Feedback: (12)

That is sad, one thing is to crash mid air due to your mistake but yet another different thing is to crash while in the ground.
I had two of those incidents, I left my Sig 40 trainer in the starting stand while I was holding a big 35% that was being started, a wind gust came and tip it off the stand, it broke the tail. Nothing that 15 min epoxy would not fix but it gets you mad.
The other time I was taking the wings off my Funtana S on a table and the wind blew the canopy and broke it

abacro

I'm not saying they do have experation dates on them,but it seams,some do last longer then others. I personally have 2 planes over 20 years in age.One is a Tiger tail 3 Pattern plane built in 1981. The other is a Sterling Model's Fledgling built in 1972 or 74,not sure,but they both still fly fantastic and a truly enjoy them both. The Fledgling is about due for it's 8th recover job though!

Just my input!

Art

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

Other then cutting down on vibration and saving engine bearings I fail to understand how it could save a crash? Maybe just be a bit more gentle on the electrical components? Probably what he was getting at. I was even balancing my props for 1/2A control line planes way back when so it's nothing new to me. And yes, every one I know with a big engine will balance there props. Well, most everyone. I'm more concerned with saving my engines though. I have no planes/engines that vibrate so I never worry about my gear getting shaken up. I only forgot the antenna the one time, to this day I'm not 100% sure I did forget. I just don't recall collapsing it down when I put my TX back in it's case before I walked out to pick up the pieces. The plane just lost signal and came in all by itself. That's the same plane I have on my bench right now. I almost never build the same plane twice but that was the smoothest planes I have ever built. I have saved the LG and canopy from that one for this new one. I knew at some point in time I was going to build another. The new one will be 2.4 also. I have the module for my radio but only one RX so I was waiting to buy more before I changed over. This new plane will use a 9ch RX. I plan on installing several little extra things in this one.

bubba153

Telemaster 40, going on 30 years now with only minor cosmetic rash.  It's on its 4th engine (and a couple of those were overhauled at least once prior to changing).  It's flown very often every season has been used for "intro flights" as well as a trainer for many newcomers.  Still flying strong, and goes to the field almost as often as I do.  The fuse has been recovered, but the wing still has the original covering, except for an aileron and flap which were replaced due to hanger damage, and the exact covering was no longer available.  Craft Air Firebird going on 25 years and another nearly daily flier during the season.  No crash damage, but the cheek and chin cowls were replaced several years ago due to oil-soaking (and inadequate fuelproofing).  Still has the original covering, and still flying the same obsolete receiver and servos.  On its 3rd engine, and is about ready for another.  CG Super Chipmunk going on 22 years and still flying with everything original except for the receiver which has been updated and now on its 3rd engine.  Cowl had to be replaced a few years ago due to the crappy ABS cracking to the point that it could no longer be repaired (fiberglass on top of fiberglass repairs), but everything else, including covering is original (although looking a little tired.  These birds have had a busy life at the field, and have never had the advantage of being hangar queens.  Good maintenance and preflight checks as well as adequate piloting skills, and most planes (at least non-BARFS) should be able to last most of a lifetime, at least barring midairs and the hopefully rare loss of concentration.

Oberst

This is a great topic!

I agree with most that not every plane eventually crashes. I have a plane that's going on 4 years old and only had 1 deadstick. I managed to land it in very tall weeds and there was no damage other than a blown motor in the first year I was flying the plane. ( Lost a Prop and was running a Evolution .61NX at the time.)

I've seen it go both ways, the young and foolish pilots can go through planes like water running through a faucet, and I've seen some "Ol timers" slow up in their reaction speed and have more mishaps. ( Some of the reasons why they like flying trainers again)

Some of us get planes that are not so "pilot friendly" and the odds are NOT in the pilots favor from preventing the plane from crashing eventually.

Then you have the good pilot- who becomes so good, they try to do the impossible and become complacent or bored. For instance, my friend and partner flyer is the best pilot I've ever seen. He can hover and knife edge like the pro's. However, he's had the most crashes at my club and we voted him as "Safety Officer" because of it. He's been flying R/C since the early 80's.

Then again I've seen the " Newbe " showing up with a Warbird or a advanced aircraft and crash it.

It's either a learnig curve, pilot error or build error that makes a plane crash from what I've seen or experienced myself. But I agree that when people treat their planes like full scale, less accidents will happen.

I only crash when I try to do something stupid, but when I fly responsibly I don't usually run into any problems.

It's my firm belief that when I crash a plane, It's alway my fault not the plane.

JMHO


Pete