Donnie7

I have never torn an airplain up where I couldn't fix it. I think I am pretty lucky.(Had a real good trainer) The worst happened when my fuel tank leaked on my reciever and I had to put my aerostar 40 in the weeds. It lived to fly another day. I have flipped, tossed and flopped every landing you can imagine. Many friend of mine were not so lucky. Anyone have some stories to tell? like to here.
Donnie

BALSA BANDIT

Here is a sad tail for you. I USED to have a 1/4 scale BANDIT BIPE, (80") powered with a Sachs 4.2. This plane was one of my first ventures into large scale planes. It was brite yellow with a red star burst pattern across the wings, very pretty. I had at least 200 flights on it and every once in a while I would bring it down a little too slow and drop in on the runway, thus tearing out the huge land gear. The gear was installed into a large 3/4" thick peice of pine in the belly of the plane so it was not a problem removing the block and reinstalling a replacement. On its last day of life, I arrived at the field at 10:00 am and removed the plane from our 40' long storage trailer where I kept it all assembled and field charged everything and waited for some of the other club members to show up. At 11:30 there were about 8 of us hanging around, I fired up the BANDIT and off I go, having a blast as is always the case. The wind was up to about 20MPH but that did not effect the bipe at all when suddenly while making the far side of the field pass we saw something falling from the sky. As I rounded the final turn and on approach we saw that I had lost my landing gear. Now I've got trouble, a 22 lb. plane and no gear. so we have to belly land it and here goes. I made another lap of the field and set up to kill the engine as I neared the grass runway. Just about ready to drop in on the ground and I changed my mind and powered up again. I think I'll stall it in the high grass instead. So around we go again, set up for landing again and stalled it nose high and killed in engine. We went out to collect the plane and the was not a single mark on the entire plane. This was a terrific save. We looked for the gear which had fallen off because the nylon bolt heads broke off and we were not able to locate it. So since I live very close to the field I put the Bipe back into the trailer and shot home for another set of landing gear. I returned in twenty min. and removed the plane from the trailer and placed it on its back on top of a picnic table. As I walked back to my van to get the new gear from inside the back door the wind picked up the entire plane into the air and fliped it 2 or 3 times and slapped it down on the ground on its belly so hard that it exploded in hundreds of peices. The force pushed the struts right thru the top wing and bent the wing spars, a total mess. It did not take to much thinking to dicide what to do so we removed the engine and all the gear within 15 min. DID YOU KNOW THAT WITH A LITTLE EFFORT YOU CAN FIT AN ENTIRE 80" BIPE INTO A BARBQUE PIT. Anybody want a monocoat flavored berger?

RCRAINMAN

Yikes!

I had just picked up a used Sukhoi from a friend of mine that needed to get rid of it. I did an extensive check of the entire plane and really did some work on the engine as it had not been run in a few years. The plane checked out fine, no cracks in the balsa, engine mount was sturdy and my new radio gear moved all the control surfaces like it was new. So off to the field!

Well not only is this my first time flying anything other than my high wing piper cub, but this thing is a low wing sport plane! Fortunately I flew the thing around just fine and even got a smile on my face about how well the thing performs aerobatics. This thing flew and landed like a dream. On about my 5th landing with this plane, I put it down in the grass just shy of the runway and wanted to just let it roll on to the pavement. All would have been good if I had known about the 3" rise from turf to concrete. Needless to say that the gear abruptly stopped at the transisiton between grass and pavement, and the plane just kept on crusing down the runway on its belly! It was a sight to see. Some of the local fliers looked up and said "Boy, why did you land it gear up?" They all got a kick out of it when I ran over and picked up the gear about 10 ft behind the plane!

The plane is fixed and ready to fly again after about 1 Oz of 30 min epoxy!

Good luck and safe flying!
RCRAINMAN

Falcon Jet

Several years ago a good friend of mine crashed his trainer smack into a tree trunk. He was quit bummed about it. When I heard about it I told him to bring me all the pieces and I'd see what I could do. That afternoon he showed up with what was left of it in his outstretched arms as if it was an offering, with his lower lip sticking out. There were lots of balsa and ply pieces, the tail section, and the wing which was snapped in half. I told him I'd see what I could do. Within a week it was ready for a test flight. When it was done I painted a tree on the nose of it and named it "Woody Woodpecker". I always take damaged planes as a challenge. Had he crashed it a second time I'm not sure if it could be rebuildable again though, used lots of epoxy and CA the first go around.

Chris.

trumpetjet

My Feedback: (12)

Well, I don't have any pics but its an interesting story nonetheless.

I took my cousin out to fly my Eagle II trainer on a nice sunny day in the central valley of California, I was teaching him to fly at the time. We had put a few tanks through the trusty OS .40fp when my cousin exclaimed to me "I cant make it turn". The first thought that went through my head was crap, the battery! But my cousin reminded me later that we had checked the voltage before the flight and it was fine. Anyway, my Eagle II with no RF link continued in a slow turn gaining altitude. Now here is the really crappy part, I installed a 24 OZ tank in that thing. It could fly for 35 minuets, and it did. We tried to chase it with the car but soon lost sight of it as it was gaining altitude. To this day I have no idea where that plane is, I can only imagine a bewildered farmer 20 miles away finding a RC plane in his cornfield!

Nathan

Falcon Jet

Oh that sucks, wonder how many RC's that are out there that have never been found! Reminds me when I lived in Georgia a friend of mine and I would wait until fall when all the leaves in the trees would fall, and then walk around the perimeter of the field looking for planes that were lost during the summer that were never found. We found a few, but knew who the owners were and let them know about it. Another guy I knew lost his plane when he forgot to pull his antenna out on his receiver. Did a beautiful takeoff, but kept on going! Before he realized what was wrong, it was way out of range. He never did find it! [&o]

Chris.

Donnie7

The wind was gusting high. I decided not to fly, but a friend did. He flew great with the conditions but he lost it on a turn down wind. Went face down. He cut the power thank god. The plane was a mes but he put it back together with 5 min epoxy and flew again the same day. Still talked about!! It calmed down later that day and I got a few flights in. Sometimes it makes since to wait the bad wind out!!
Donnie

trumpetjet

My Feedback: (12)

Ha Ha, I remember when I was still learning to fly 5 min epoxy was my best friend!

Nathan

trumpetjet

My Feedback: (12)

Ok, one more story.

Back in the dark ages of my flying career I remember my dad had this old Electric trainer, one of those 40' wing span jobs with the 400 motor. Well, I remember one day out at the Beale AFB field he had the idea of taking off the 400 and replacing it with a KB .45. Everything went fine until on a particularly fast approach the wing decided to "seek its own path". Upon separation from the fuselage the aileron servo yanked the radio tray back causing the engine to go full throttle. Needless to say the thing long darted into the ground, burying the engine and foreword fuselage in the ground. We could not pull out the motor because it was so deep and we did not have a shovel so we just filled in the crater. if you were diligent enough you could perform "RC Archeology" at Beale AFB and find it!

Thats the last story I'm willing to tell, the rest are far too embarrassing![sm=bananahead.gif]

Nathan

Love2FlyMN

I had just bought my new Nexstar. I took it out a couple days, everything went wonderful. I always heard stories on how people crash this and that. I thought, no way, this thing flies way too good for me to ever crash it. It has such good control.
So, i t was a windy day. I had 2 flights in, fueled up for the third and i noticed the wind picked up a little bit. I took off and gusts started to blow. I was coming around to land and a gust flipped it upside down so i was going to just pull up and do a half loop. I pulled up and it only did enough to send my baby FULL SPEED into a tree. After one profound word, i ran out to see the wreckage. The fuselage was snapped in half, the rudder nowhere to be found, the wing 30 yards away. It took me 2 trips to carry my prized toy back to my truck in pieces. []

Vallier Racing

see new cambat plane post in the crash section

hookedonrc

About 3 weeks ago one of our club members took his brand new Ultra Stick Lite with brand new G-26 out to the field for its maiden flight. As far as I know, no one else was there except him, so details are sketchy. Don't know if he made any turns, or manuevers, but the final result was that it simply flew away to the South East. Since it was early in the flight it had plenty of fuel. Several members have since looked for it using even ATV's to get around in the fields. As of today, it is still missing.

h-ray-RCA

one place I flew at a long time ago had a little 2 foot hill. the challenge-when we got REAL bored-was to fly behind it. youu'd see your a/c disappear then reapper, and the doppler shift was pretty cool.


then every so often someone would misjudge one. you'd hear rrrrrrrrrrrrrrzzzzzzt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and there would be silence as the pieces came flying out from behind the hill.

funniest damn thing I've still ever seen. Wish I had vids.

Mhale71

BALSA BANDIT

when i read your story i seriously had to leave the room and just shout F#*!%
i would seriously cry if that happened to me, those giant skale planse cost heaps and you went to all that effort to land it and you did! only to come home and have the god, damned door slam shut on it!