thailazer

Usually when I go out flying it’s a normal day without many surprises. Last week was different: My trainer burst a wheel on a landing (that cheap worn foam tire on the plastic wheel had seen thousands of landings), a mating bird attacked the plane on final, and my Tiger II showed me it had aileron flutter. Other than that I guess it was a normal day, but it left me wondering what unexpected things happen to other RC flyers?

Edwin

My Feedback: (2)

Wing separating on a students plane and post holed the fuse in the ground. Took a shovel to get the engine out of the ground. He's repairing the fuse, I repaired his engine for him.

Sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug!
Edwin

gboulton

My Feedback: (15)

Had an OS .61 quit on me once. Couldn't immagine what could have happened; This engine had bene bulletproof for several seasons.

Deadsticked in with no damage, brought the airplane over to the pits, and started looking at the motor. Found the problem right away.

The prop had, apparently, made short work of a bumble bee...whose body had lodged in the carb!

fireman7875

My Feedback: (7)

Haaaa. That is funny! I get the image of seeing a fat bee's arse barely sticking out of the carb. Too funny.

Brian

crossman

I had a dead stick once that when I started to check the plane I realized that the glowplug had come out in flight.

gboulton

My Feedback: (15)

That is PRECISELY what it looked like. *lol*

804

My Feedback: (1)

With apologies to my friend, Carey, I have to tell this story on him.
One day last summer, we were both in the air at the same time, he was flying his still new GP Super Stearman, the red and white one.
As I came around to center field, to my left I heard this giant, "twangggg..anggg...anggg", (it sounded like a 'G' note-in more ways than one) and then a string of foul, but very colorful, language.
I knew instantly what had happened. The large grain elevator that is the West boundary of our field. Oops, caught a guy-wire.[&o]

So then, as I was getting ready to land to go help him pick up the pieces, I hear his truck door slam, engine start, and... CRUNCH. And pretty much the same language as before.
And again, I knew exactly what that sound was... the tail end of his Stik .60 he just backed over.[:@]

I kept my mouth shut.

maukaonyx

The incident that comes to mind first is one that happened about 40 years ago when my cousin and I were slope soaring in Oahu. He had a new original design, and it was flying great, so he decided to do an outside loop. At the bottom of the loop, the nicad pack popped the canopy off, and disconnected, dropping to the underbrush on the slope below. The plane of course fluttered down like a dethermalizer had popped open. I don't recall there being any damage to the plane other than some poked Monokote. I actually found the battery pack hanging by its wire leads, as we walked UNDER the underbrush that covered the slope. It was pretty hilarious to me, THEN and NOW! Jon

el-John-o

Not me, but a guy at my field unexpectly deadsticked, now the plane was close, we saw nothing, heard nothing, it just quit.  The other issue is the nose gear wouldn't open, so he raised the gear and belly landed, nicely, I might add.

He took the cowl off and apparently, a small bird had, well most of it had, gotten lodged into the cowl, broke through the firewall and severed an airline that went to the front retract.  How NOBODY saw the birdor heard it's impact is beyond me.

thailazer

Had to stand down for a half hour this week as the Thai Army did some practice approaches. Was fun to watch!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlY7KSBT49M

red head

How about the guy that was busy talking and closed the hood on his electric plane sitting there charging. OOOPS ! ENJOY !!! RED

nogaard

Army ATC

My Feedback: (1)

Ilet my sister's fiance fly my trainer to get some practice and learn how to fly. I said turn left, he said no, I'm turning right. I said no turn left! He turned left and went into the trees about a 1/2 mile away........I wish he turned right.

hugger-4641

My Feedback: (6)

I was teaching a kid to fly a stock electric Hobby Zone Super Cub at my church one day. He took off on his own and was doing ok until he circle back around and the wind turned him towards the steeple of our church, which is about 60 feet high and has a small cross on top. I had either forgotten to turn off the ACT or he had turned it back on, in any case, before I could get the Tx out of his hand, he pulled up right in front of the cross and turned into the wind. The ACT killed the motor and the plane stalled and hung the landing gear over the right side of the cross as perfect as if you had placed it there by hand. Fortunately the battery was still fairly fresh, took me about 10 min of working the throttle on and off to wiggle the plane loose and land in the parking lot.

50+AirYears

Some years ago, I was flying a home brew 48" span job with a brand new Fox .15 Scnuerle engine. A couple gurus who'd flown it thought I needed a bit more nose weight, which I added. One day I was flying at the club field when I noticed the engine suddenly got very quiet and something falling from the model. I immediately went into dead stick procedure and brought the plane down on the field. Then I realized the plane, which handled just like a perfectly trimmed RC glider didn't have an engine.Luckily the only other member at the field had seen the dot falling from the plane. It only took us an hour to find the engine in the soy beans. Seems the engine popped all 4 4-40 mounting bolt heads. I got the stubs out of the mount, cleaned the engine, and remounted it using a higher grade 4-40. Took out 2.5 ounces of nose weight. Got another 2 years of flying till a switch failure let it free flight into a tree about a half mile away.

Then, last fall, I pulled out of a loop with a $150 .45 powered ARF. Just before reaching the bottom, the RH wing panel separated from the plane. I expected that the wing spar, LE, and TE had broken. That wasn't the cast. I recovered a wing panel almost intact, except for no root or 1st rib, or wing spar. There was a perfect socket in the wing for the two ribs. Without adequate gluing of the center sheeting to the ribs, or apparently to the spar, the outer panel just broke off the end grain of the center sheeting and then just slid off. The two ribs and the dihedral joiner and box were still with the remains of the fuse and left wing.