rcjon

I remembered to take a photo of the Burrito before its maiden. It flew for about 60 seconds before encountering terra firma.

I think I had the CG wrong, cause all it would do was, loop, swoop, snap, slop, flop, before going in. Fortunately I was alone at the flying field - someone could have gotten hurt!

Mastaofcrashing

Ouch. Sorry for your loss...[]

mpower11

Hmmmm, i'll take your word about CG being off cause it can definatly cause those problems. Just one question, when was the pic taken. If it was right before your flight, you sure forgot to add fuel. That could also lead to the death of a plane. Anyways, sorry about your loss. Your plane looked great in the before picture with the sun and green grass and all.

mstroh3961

My Feedback: (4)

Im impresed! it take a hard hit to dent a burrito that bad!

rcjon

mpower,

Good observation, but I did add fuel between the time of the pic and take-off. Turned out that filling the tank was being overly optimistic - there was penty of fuel in the tank when the pic was made for the Burrito's first flight.

rcjon

It was your basic 45 degree down-line / right bank manuever, under power. My left thumb always freezes up during panic time.

This is two in a week. Last w/e I drove my Tiger Stick about 8 inches into the earth - but I lost comm with it. I think the crystal broke or I had interference. It went straight in at full power. Two servo arms were broken. One servo shaft was broken off. One servo had the gear stripped. The TT46 crankcase was broken. The wing was intact, but every rib was broken. The battery appeared to be undamaged.

mstroh3961

My Feedback: (4)

was the radio gear from the first crash used in the burrito? Did you do any bench flying with the radio gear after it was installed in the new air frame?

I tend to operate all new radio gear for at least an hour on the bench after install, in 10 min bursts with my 9C servo test mode. It weeds out any infant mortality issues.

antslake

My Feedback: (1)

I like that idea mstroh.

And rcjon do you use a simulator?

rcjon

>>was the radio gear from the first crash used in the burrito? Did you do any bench flying with the radio gear after it was installed in the new air frame?<<

Whole different set of gear. Radio worked fine.

rcjon

>> And rcjon do you use a simulator? <<

Not lately, why? If you are implying that I was incapable of flying this plane, I can assure you that wasn't the case.

antslake

My Feedback: (1)

You had said that your thumb freeze's up, some simulator flying might help that from happening again. That used to happen to me too, but not as I got more flying experience.

Sorry for the lose.

thewrap

By the way it was built it does not suprise me. I was traing this kid and the almost same result happend. Only i could have gotten sued.

cougar347

I'm also suspicious of a radio failure or some kind of interference or even a mechanical failure causing this crash. The flight characteristics that you describe are typical of a real tail heavy airplane, and I know from experience that it's really difficult to make these profiles that tail heavy, because there just isn't any place to put things aft of the CG. All of the radio gear gets mounted in one of the wing hatches. Unless you had your battery strapped to the stab or some real, real heavy servos in the back, I don't see that extreme tail heavy condition being possible. I really don't understand your comment about how you didn't seem to have the CG in the proper place before taking off. Swany's design's are stable, awesome flyers and he's usually pretty specific about where to set the CG for initial flights. Do you think something moved during the flight to change the CG, or didn't you have it right when you took off? I guess I'm having problems figuring out why you would take off with your brand new airplane if you felt it wasnt' right. Outside of the radio gear working properly, I would rate the position of the CG as one of those things that have to be right before you take off. Your Burrito was really nice, I just hate that you lost it that quickly. You're supposed to say that you stayed in the blender just a little too long and you hit the ground inverted before you could pull out. My instructor always told me "If it ain't right on the ground, it ain't going to get any better in the air-take it home and fix it before you try to fly it".

Secondly, and I want to preface this by saying that I don't think that this was the cause of the crash either, but I'm questioning the way you mounted your fuel tank. Please in no way take this as sarcasm, because we're here to help each other learn. I have a couple of profiles and I know it can be difficult to mount the tank. I'm looking at your Burrito and I don't see much room between the leading edge of the wing and the engine. On the other hand, I know that there are tons of these Burritos flying 3D all over the country, so it must be possible to mount a tank on there horizontally. From what I can see from your picture, mounting your tank in a vertical position like you did would seem to be destined for failure. Unless you have some kind of sophisticated internal plumbing in there, it seems to me that as soon as you got the plane inverted, the engine would be starving for fuel. In most cases, we plumb the fuel pickup to the rear of the tank and the clunk makes it flop around whether the plane is upright or inverted, always staying submerged in the fuel. With the tank setup that I see on your plane, once you got it inverted, it seems that the fuel pickup would be sucking air. Again, if I'm making an incorrect assupmption, I'm sorry.

Real sorry for your loss.