James Goss

What is the most unearthly and or embarrassing thing that has happened to you at the flying field? Let me get it started, this happened to me only yesterday at the field. We were having a fun fly day and everything had gone well and the field was opened for flying again. I was flying my new round disk plane and had flown it several times already. This time I cranked the engine and I noticed it was a little high on the throttle so I let it roll forward with the intension of throttling it down after it rolled forward. I brought the trim down but nothing happened, the plane just kept going and getting faster and faster. I began to run after the plane, but the disk was going too fast for me to catch up with. It was heading toward a fence and I just knew it would be damaged. It is hard to run while you are reaching down to grab your plane and at about two thirds distance across our field my feet got tangled and I began to roll like a barrel. I only had one thought in mind while I was rolling across the field and that was to protect my radio! When I stopped rolling the plane also stopped on its own. When I checked the plane I found the switch to be off. It must have gotten bumped when I picked the disk up to set it in front of my safety stops. With over thirty years of experience this just goes to show that anything can happen at the field to anybody at anytime. Now lets hear your story. James Goss

GrnBrt

My Feedback: (5)

My friend was having problems landing his Hog Bipe and was bringing it in to slow. He flew a lot of fun fly's and forgot that he needed a bit more speed with the Bipe. He asked me to fly it though to see if it was the plane. We fueled it up and started it and had it on the side of the runway. I wanted to run the engine up one more time while he was holding it and motioned to me my intentions, well he misunderstood me. I went to full throttle and he let go of the plane and it leaped into the air like a scalded cat. The torque from the OS .91 flipped it over on the left side, it barely cleared the fence and flew right next to the flag pole inverted, barely missed the play ground and everyone is diving for cover. I got the plane right side up and did a hard 1/2 loop back to inverted, went right past that pole again and right over the fence and back out over the runway finally. Well this happened in just a few seconds and once I got it back out where it belonged I climbed for altitude so I could quit shaking. Needless to say no one let me forget about that flight, and by the way the Hog lands just fine, just need to keep the speed up a bit more then a funfly

RC_Eflyer-RCU

This incedent didn't happen to me, it actually happened to the guy on here called Foamguy, but it started when he was chasing me.

I was doing a nice high speed pass over the runway with my Twinstar (Multiplex T-star twin speed 400 electric, not Hobbico)
Foamguy was doing touch and goes with a Fun Tiger Slowfly Mustang going the opposite direction, so when I go by he takes off and kicks the plane around with all controls to turn around and chase me. Then all of a sudden he yells "Radio Failure, I have radio failure, clear the area."

The plane was stuck in nice banked tight circles about 30 feet in the air with the engine stuck at about 3/4 throttle. Its slowing getting lower and lower and the wings are leveling out a bit, but the rudder which is stuck keeps it nice and tight. All this is going on over the runway, a few feet of the pits, and the swamp on the other side of the runway. Well finally it gets low enough that it basically landed on the runway.

The only damage was a scuffed wing tip (took off a small piece of covering) and the tail wheel got ripped out. Everything else was fine.

We took it apart and thought it was a bad RX or bad battery. Come to find out the CRYSTAL HAD FALLEN OUT, thats why the plane didn't bug out like it would have with radio or battery failure. Kinda embarassing, but funny. Don't you guys worry the plane is still with us today, except its sitting in my basement, with the wing tip still showing the scar.

--Paul

rcav8or

My Feedback: (5)

Had a Sig Kadet MKII...K&B .45, couldn't get more than 5 minutes EVER out of that engine, landed the Kadet 2 years, NEVER under power!

Changed to a ST .45, 2nd flight, buddy went into a loop. Told me he didn't have it. Each time it looped, it gained a little altitude, going over the top. For 22 minutes!!!! got to where we could hear it, but couldn't even see it. If it had the K&B, would have been down a long time before!

Drove up about 4 miles away, parked, and looked for it...couldn't see it. Put ad in the paper on Monday. Thursday get a call, I identified the plane. Guy said he had it, only damage he could see was the wing was crooked (rubber bands!) and leading edge damage.

Picked it up - found that the battery had come loose (when I changed engine pushrod for ST), and fallen to the back of the fuse, pulling out the connector. Since it was trimmed for a loop, i.e. full up elevator, wings straight and level, when the motor died, it went into a big round circle, hit a tower in the Power station, went into a tight flat spin, and landed on all three wheels! He found it in the power station. Flew it the next day, after replacing the battery, and the leading edge wood in one rib bay.

The funny thing is, we had parked at the Power Station, when we were looking for it! So it had landed about 50 feet from where we were.

Wart Hog

My Feedback: (22)

We were watching a friend of mine fly his U.S. Aircore Knighthawk for the first time when he called out " I don't have it."
It climbed to about 800 feet, turned toward the East and flew away.We lost sight of it due to the thick trees in our area.
My friend and his wife packed all of his stuff in the truck and called it a day.
Not expecting to ever see the plane again, they drove home.

About 3 miles from our field, his wife looked out the window and noticed the plane flying the same direction they were driving, still crusing at 800 feet. They followed it for a bit until the plane flew over a large open field and started to bank to the left. It ran out of fuel and started decending in a large circle.

They stood on the side of the field watching the plane slowly decend and make a perfect three point landing.
He returned the next day with the plane in perfect condition and we never found a reason for the fly away.

Scotty740

The wirdest thing that happened to me was last spring at our field. Our runway runs north and south with a full scale grass runway off the south end that runs east to west.

I was flying my helicopter over our runway and was at the field by myself. I flew off to my left (north) and did a stall turn and came back towards myself and the center of the field. I did a couple rolls before the heli got to my position and about that time I heard a roar. I got the heli straightend out and glanced to my right as a plane was making a high speed pass over the main full size runway about 25' off the ground. The wind was at my back so I didn't hear it comming and my eyes were on the heli and away from the direction it came in from. If he had been anouther couple seconds later on his pass I'd have had my heli in the same airspace as his plane.

visioneer_one

My Feedback: (506)

I'm generally the first person out th the field on Sundays. I generally uset this time to tweak and test-fly my planes - it's easier for me to concentrate when I'm the only one flying.

I had my .40-sized Global Sukhoi out that day. engine changes the day before, and was conducting a shakdown flight. This revealed either too much elevator at full and mid throw, or the CG was too far forward... it was snapping on uplines. Rudder was real touchy, too. Weird, cause I haven't changed the CG or the control throws. Grr. Flip to low rates, continue flying.

After a couple minutes, some of the guys showed up, started unpacking. I decided to land and shoot the breeze for a bit.

Flew downwind, turned, stabilized airspeed. Lined up with the Gap, looking good.

(Background info: we fly out of a school's athletic field. It's about 250 yards long, 80 wide. There is a Gymnasium at the upwind end, which gives us all sorts of lovely turbulence on windy days. At the downwind end, there are a pair of bleachers approx. 100 feet apart. We also share the field with a local Cricket league, who have placed their furshlugginer scoreboard almost in the center of this space. It is through the remaining Gap that the real He-Men fly inverted at full throttle. Oh, and land.)

(I generally set up my landings by standing where I have line-of-sight with the center of the Gap. I fly the plane directly towards me; once it clears the scoreboard area I steer for the center of the field and touch down. It's easier to do than it sounds.)

Where was I? Ah. Bringing in the Sukhoi in. It was carrying a little more speed than I liked, so I pull a tad more up-elevator and slightly cross the rudder and ailerons. Slowing up nicely... looks like I'll touch down just past myself. With an audience. Sweet.

Clearing the scoreboard... center ailerons, use rudder to push the nose left. Hmf. Not much response. OK, ease off elevator pressure, hold rudder. Still not turning... and it's aimed right for my face. Crikey!

In one motion, I dropped into a crouch, punched full throttle and pulled elevator. The little YS sprang to life; I felt the propblast on the back of my neck as the planes roared by my head.

I got up quickly, reoriented the plane and climbed back to altitude. Where I orbited for a minute - I was shaking too badly to even think about landing.

After I calmed down a bit, I realized my mistake - I was still at low rates on the rudder, which dropped its low-speed authority to nearly nothing. Flipped back to medium rates and executed an uneventful, if bumpy landing.

The guys watching informed me that the Sukhoi's landing gear cleared my head by mere inches.

I have only flown the Sukhoi once since then. It still doesn't feel right - it's very stall-prone and doesn't have the greatest roll rate. I think I need to retire it before it tries to "whack" me again!

rcav8or

My Feedback: (5)

Wow!! If there EVER was a reason for NEVER flying alone, this is it!!!

Another three inches lower, into the neck and alone??? It's just possible that the Suke would have retired you!!

I hope that's the lesson you learned from this...

Dave Barrow-RCU

Our Club was putting on a flying demo, and we thought we would show them some combat action. Three of us took our planes up, only one had a streamer on it, the other two took turns trying to cut it. There was a mid-air collision between two planes, the one that had the atreamer went down, without the streamer, it had gotten tangled on the gear of the other plane. People were kidding about them passing the streamer. We went on combating with the two remaining planes, they then mid-aired also. My plane went down with only half of a wing, and that streamer was waving from my tail section as it did. We had played pass the streamer, AGAIN.

*Even stranger - I once took three flyable airplanes to the field, and after a day of flying, went home with ALL THREE STILL FLYABLE !!! AMAZING!!! LOL

Mike Bell

My Feedback: (6)

My wife was perfecting take offs and was free from the buddy box by now.
Had a little cross wind, the plane lifted fine and banked left hard. 50 ft or so from the runway is a full scale hanger. The plane disappeared behind and below the roof line of the hanger, went between 2 trees, the outhouse, a storage shed and a 172 Cessna setting beside the hanger.
Pretty much made a blind trip thru a high $ obstacle course 10 ft high and hit nothing.

Best we can figure is the rudder finger froze when the plane headed for the hanger after the cross wind take off.

I could tell you about the guy who was bragging to me and others on his skills and fancy radio with the 2 way snap roll switch. When he took his plane off a while back, lost his bearings, got it over the pits and had guys climbing under trucks before he plowed it in full throttle behind the pits but I won't.

Mike

Stuck

My dormroom mate came back one weekend with a gentle lady. I had always wanted to fly rc airplanes but my parents thought I would break it (much too true). He took me to a local battlefeild park. We used a high start to get the plane about 200-300 ft up. He flew around a couple of flights and asked me if I wanted to try. He showed me how the controls worked and I flew around about 2 min. We then started talking with him telling me how well I was doing. All of a sudden the g.l. started heading strait for the ground, all the while my room mate was telling me to "give it some up". During the praise I forgot that pushing the stick down would make the plane go up. Well, it had rained for about 3 days strait and when the plane hit (full speed, vertical) it sunk into the mud and just stopped, makeing a sound that got me my nick-name. We went and recoverd the plane with no damage except muddy fuse and muddy feet.

visioneer_one

My Feedback: (506)

I know, I know. Flying alone isn't the best plan. I did a lot of sailplane flying before I moved here - much of the time all by my lonesome after hiking to the top of some Godforsaken hill. Old habits die hard, I guess.

The real danger isn't the freak occurences (see above), it lies in the more mundane things. What if I slipped and broke a bone while climbing the (previously mentioned) hill? What if I was attacked by a mountain lion, or if I stepped on a snake? As far as power planes, a nasty cut from a spinning prop can absolutely ruin your day.

I won't even discuss the implications for heli flyers.

Yah, that close encounter with the Sukhoi got my attention. The only thing I'll be flying solo is my Zagi. The prop is on the back, so I'll be safe.