Ouiser

I am putting together my first plane, a hangar 9 arrow. I half expect to put a finger through the covering or for a control surface to come off in my hands. I realize that it has to be tougher than that, but lack of experience has made me cautious.

This thread is an invatation to share stories of abuse that you initially thought would be the undoing of your plane. Maybe it will make me feel better to read about how tough these planes can be rather than how delicate.

Razor-RCU

My Feedback: (50)

Well- they are not very tough actually... The most likely event is dropping something and it going through your covering (screwdriver-)

Most damage is easy to fix however, using stickers or decals to cover holes, fast ZAP comes in handy also- You don't have to baby the airplane just atch out for the covering-

FHHuber

I lost control of one plane and had it dive STRAIGHT down into a tree... When I found the plane it was wedged between branches and there was NO damage. (it hit at full throttle.) I didn't even have to patch holes in the covering... no holes.

I've seen planes do landings that looked fine to me... and the airplane virtually self destructed whent eh wheels touched. I've seen planes hit so hard you's swear that there was just going to be a pile of toothpicks left... and all the guy needed was a new prop.

Generally... when they do break, they can be fixed. You just about have to "strain it through a tree" to have it irreparable. (and then... sometimes you put it in the tree and the tree loses...)

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

While building a plane once (Back in the days when I didn't have a workshop) I put a wing panel on top of the entertainment center to get it off the kitchen table. Later that day, my girlfrien accidently knocked it down. Mind you, this is an uncovered, unsheeted wing panel. Nothing but a leading and trailing edge, ribs, spars, and shear webs. It landed on a hardwood floor and only got a few dings.

My girlfriend later commented that when she saw it falling, she could just imagine splinters all over the livingroom!

DBCherry

My Feedback: (4)

One thing to consider, these planes are MUCH more fragile if you're going to try to learn to fly on your own. They last a LOT longer if you have an instructor.
Dennis-

ifixairplanes

My Feedback: (9)

the planes can be very tuff. i know i put mine through some maneuvers that look like the tail is going to come off. But one thing to remember is while they can be pretty rugged, they are never as tuff as the dirt.

sean

BelIblis

Last winter I used slow CA to glue my two wings halfs together on my LT-40. During the spring as my Grandfather and I were preparing our first gas plane for Flight Lessons, we went to the local clubs Mall show. There I was talking to a kid who told me to NEVER glue wing halfs together with CA. He said that he had a freind who did that, and the first time he went up his wing broke in half and the fuse. was totaled as it fell to the ground. (I found out later that it was an ARF that had this wing) I was REALLY worried about my wing.

I was also worried about the tail section, which would wobble, no matter how much glue we put under it, and even though we had tail braces on.

I was also wondering about the servos: we had gotten a small amount of binding at the very end of the turn that could not be taken care of if the battery was low on the remote.

To make a long story short, we flew that plane the whole of last summer and never had a problem with it.

Here is a picture of it at this link: [link=http://www.geocities.com/atuckfield88/PlanePictures.html]Kadet Picture[/link]

It looks better if you save it to your computer and look at it in a picture viewer... than you can study in depth

BelIblis

btw, that is after a full year of flying

Crashem

The kid was right. General rule of thumb is high stress areas like wing halves and and firewalls should be glued with epoxy. Thats kinda why every instruction manual in all the ARFs and Kits I've every built say to use epoxy. Does this mean yours will fall apart? It hasn't yet so maybe you are ok... Then agian there is always this year!!!! Also as your flying stlye gets more agressive you might notice a problem!!

kerrydel

My Feedback: (2)

Think about this. If your plane does a loop that is 50 feet in diameter at 60 miles per hour, it experiences over 10 g's at the bottom of the loop.

How's that for tough.

Kerry

FHHuber

There are some maneuvers we o that put as much as 25 g's on the airframe. (and people wonder why I stress test wings with 10X the airplane's full load weight to see if they are strong enough...)

kerrydel

My Feedback: (2)

Yep. Pretty amazing what a little balsa and Monokote will do!

Kerry

Montague

Well designed planes are strong where they need to be, and fragile (light weight) where they can be. It does take a little experience to figure out where is were, but it's not that big of a deal.

Like the other guys, I've seen some "wow, no damage" and "wow, look at the size of the debris field" type things that you wouldn't have expected, sometimes it's just a matter of a small change in angle, or exactly where the force is applied.

As for hanger rash, you'll also find it's a lot of luck. I've dropped screwdrivers and had them bounce off of monokote on an open-structure, and I've had them go straight though the covering on both top and bottom as if it wasn't even there.

The good news is that a lot of stuff is really easy to fix. Holes in covering can be taped over with clear packing tape, it's light, strong, and actually will heat-shrink a little.

MikeMc

From what I've seen it's the tail or the fuse right in front of the tail that always breaks.

00000000000000

I agree all the way. I used a sim quite a bit. Then I got out there with my trainer and an instructor. The instructor was impressed with my turning ability, until he realized all I knew how to do was crazy hairpin turns that the sim let me get away with. When I got the plane down, even with 10 rubber bands on the wing it had shifted about an inch out of it's saddle. I'm still trying to do nice gentle turns that don't pull an ungodly ammount of G's.. What I was doing was a knife edge, then pull all the way back on the stick, then back to horizontal. Really ugly turning for a trainer, but fun on a sim! - Joe

ifixairplanes

My Feedback: (9)

That would be bank and yank syndrom! wait until you get a low wing, thats all I do with my funtana!!

sean

Montague

Then wait until you try to fly a large scale warbird, you'll do that exactly once .

Nebbie

Most of the damage done to my planes is during build/assembly. I put a pair of needle nose pliers down through the wing while trying to bend the control rods. Darn things slipped right out of my hands! That hole was big enough to let me try patching it with Ultracote. Got to use my new trim iron! But silly things like that I have to deal with before the first flight. I also keep a roll of packing tape in my flight box to fix all the other cuts in the covering that I either miss at home or the car inflicts on it.

zetor

My Feedback: (2)

Tougher than real scale planes I'm sure. Mine blew off a table and fell 4 feet with nothing more than scratched covering. I wonder what a cessna would look like after falling 4 feet onto the end of its wing.