wsmalley

My Feedback: (6)

Crashed one Altech 'Tamecat' awhile back. It had been a great flyer, then, one day got really squirlly! Got it on the ground went home and checked everything-well, almost. Chalked it up to a bad thumb day, bad JuJu, wind....whatever. Went back out a week or so later, gassed up, checked controls-the usual pre-flight. Took off, squirrly as hel..., climbs like a rocket, back off throttle dives like a bomber! Making a turn, coming back at myself-POW- muffler comes off, cute little thingy dangling in the wind. Somehow lost control, veered off headed toward the hanger-I fly at a private airfield-, disappears over the roof. I try to 'fly' it guessing where it is! Pretty soon, here it comes back parallel to the hanger, 15' off the wall, and about 8' off the ground-like it was sneaking up on me( I have two witnesses)! At this time, I'm still trying to fly it, come off the power, stalls, and comes in tail first-cleaning the aft end of all control surfaces. Noted on picking up the pieces, it was minus one main gear, guess it's still up on the hanger roof! Finally got the nerve to start rebuilding it and noted the engine bolts were loose, allowing the engine to move up and down a good 1/8"! I guess it was allowing the engine to change the up/downthrust considerably. I was running an inverted .40 with a remote glo so didn't get the engine in my hands often-apparently enough!

bbbair

You were lucky to get it back!

This is a great example of why you should use lock nuts on the engine bolts!

However; regular inspections really do help...

drunkenbushman

heindsight is a great thing.

Sorry to hear of your little incident, lucky it didnt wanna have a go at you and bite the hand/ body that feeds it.

itspuddingtime00

You got really lucky on that one.

multicasting

I thought the tame cat was a cool aircraft. I buit one some time back. It got a little boring so I dropped in a 60 engine and doubled the size of the control surfaces. I could do some of the most wicked moves with it including tail slides, flat spins and waterfalls. Alas, it was never built for this. During straight and level flight after some rough flying, the wing departed the airframe.

multicasting

Here are some before and after photos from some years back.

wsmalley

My Feedback: (6)

Ouch! And, I thought I had a major rebuild on my hands. Nah, mine's a pieceo'cake by comparison. They really are -or were- a fun airplane. Mine will live to fly another day-with tighened engine bolts though! But if you want a thrill, loosen em up and go fly!

Flak

My Feedback: (1)

Preventive Maintenance is a must with any machine, including our frail human bodies. The more planes you own and fly, the more PM you must perform. Otherwise, BAD things can and probably will happen. Good luck.