Sukhoi_Madness

Well it finally happened…

After two and a half years of flying I crashed for the first time today…

I was flying my 40 size Extra 300S, had two or three good flights under my belt and then had a flame out on take off…

The airplanes altitude was at a guess 30-40 ft when I lost the engine and being about 100 ft off the end of the runway there was no way I was going to be turning it around before I ran out of sky.

From take off to impact the flight probably lasted no more than 10-15 seconds although it seemed much longer with the engine seeming to take an age to die from the initial spluttering, all the time the inevitable looming.

I must say the glide characteristics of this airplane are non-existent… She pretty much took a nose down attitude (45 degrees) from the time the engine quit and adding even small amounts of elevator just induced the stall even quicker.

I knew she’d stall pretty quickly but this was really quick!

I decided the best thing to do was to keep her straight and put her down in the paddock north of the strip. I’d planned on using the airspeed gained from the small decent to flare the landing as best I could…

Worked OK too… The only problem was that the ground she landed on fell away and so my vision was block for probably the final two meters… Going blind I was guessing the final attitude of the airplane when it went in, and at which point applying up elevator would have been most beneficial.

Judging from the bent undercarriage and the lack of damage to the cowl and prop I think the first point of impact was the left wheel… If both wheels had hit first the damage would have probably been restricted, but unfortunately the wing dug into the soft ground ripping the mount out and snapping the fuselage. The fuse damage may have also been a result of the initial impact, I can’t be sure.

The engine, a Supertigre 45, has probably done 15-20 hours and I can count the dead sticks on one hand since I took it out of the box… A really nice motor normally. I’m guessing the reason for the flame out was one of two things…

1. The motor was not tuned exactly where I like it but I felt it was perfectly flyable, obviously not; or
2. The strip was absolutely sodden from torrential rain over the last few days and with the amount of spray the prop was throwing up I think the engine may have ingested some water.

The engine died much slower than other flameouts I’ve experienced.

Anyway as you can see from the photos the airplane is totally fixable and will fly again..

If I have time I’ll do a quick rebuild thread for those of you who have not had the umm… I won’t say pleasure… Maybe experience is a better term

I had to take the crash site photos with my cell phone hence the rubbish quality.

A flameout on take off has to be the most dangerous situation for any airplane!

Matt

Sukhoi_Madness

This will be the models second rebuild...

The pictures below are an illustration of how it reached me in the first place although sadly the original damage was caused in the mail rather than at the strip...

I'm looking forward to fixing it now... again...

wifpwcf

thats no good mate ,,,, but hey it means a new 1 or learn more building it again,,
ether way it makes u a better pilot
cg