jeffk464

I don't think I have ever retired an RC plane, they all eventually end up in a crash eventually.

kwik

Here is an early retirement;

charlie1960

i thought they retired themselves...........

Whistling Death

I have an H9 P-47 150 that took an early retirement. I was too sick to take pictures of it.

da Rock

It died fighting. Seems a fitting end, however.

Hope you got good use out of her before that. I've never really been broken hearted losing any warbird if I got some flying time out of them. Always figured they leave good memories and make room for the next one.

AmishWarlord

My Feedback: (5)

Yeah that's so true, how many people can say they lost their 13 foot Corsair in a dog fight with a Zero?

Lot better than saying my switch failed.

on_your_six

My Feedback: (11)

Don't let anyone here fool you... when the bird gets old and tired... it is taken to a swap meet and the buyer is assured that it was built but never flew. That it only has hangar rash.

FlyinDaddyO

My Feedback: (19)

There are old pilots. And, there are bold pilots. But,there are no old, bold pilots.

Ramstein44

My Feedback: (157)

Mine are retired when the pieces from a crashes are no longer recognizable or are too troublesome to rebuild

willig10

You fly them until the war is over. Then you have 2 options.

1. Sell it
2. Burn it, cause it is a mixed pile of never to fly again Balsa, hardwoodand glue that wont fix it this time.

My 2pennies worth.

Glenn Williams

Warbird Man

My Feedback: (95)

I retire mine when a fully flyable plane is suddenly turned back into a "kit" of unrecognizable pieces or when a damaged one has been sitting in the corner for the past 3 years taking up space and I've finally come to the conclusion that I'll never repair it.[sm=50_50.gif]

N419BH

That looks expensive...

I retired my P-51 when the receiver battery died base to final...

But I didn't really retire it since I got the ARF version and threw the old motor in the new fuse. Flies better than the first one.

And a bigger receiver battery + computerized charger means no false peaks!

GerKonig

You retire them for one of 4 reasons (the rest are not reasons, they are excuses...):

1) you sell it
2) you trade it
3) you crash it
4) you give it away (just kidding)

Gerry

simple

My Feedback: (9)

I agree with all 4!

Problem is I can't even give some of this cr..p away!!

I tried to retire planes once - until I ran out of room - then I started paying $300 a month for extra storage and then I ran out of room again.

That’s when I decided retirement is too expensive -

Fly'em till they die!! and hope the crash is spectacular and someone gets it on video!!!

Here is video of how I do it sometimes

Retired 1
http://www.youtube.com/user/AZRC001#p/u/20/6Cwgqxr_TtQ

retired 2
http://www.youtube.com/user/AZRC001#p/u/2/rk4CM_6FLE0

Retired 2 at the show
http://www.youtube.com/user/AZRC001#p/u/14/0IyUr8t1vCE

Ramstein44

My Feedback: (157)

Man.. That p39 crash looked intentional???? My wife once told me that if I wanted to buy another plane that I had to crash ome first...[>:]

GerKonig

Oooooh, you tried the old and proven landing inverted in a ditch crash..... Nice.... Will have to watch the other videos later

Gerry

AmishWarlord

My Feedback: (5)

I know a guy building a full Cub. He said in full-scale "real airplanes not toys like we fly :P" the airplane is the paper work.

His Cub was built in the 40's and crashed and burned in the 60's

He bought the paper work on it and is 100% "rebuilding" the 1940's Cub so when he's done it wont be a new plane but rather a re-built one.

Applying this to our models they can always be repaired even if we have to replace every part of the plane.


At least this is the BS I'm going to feed my wife.

"No honey, I didn't buy a new plane I just finished repairing the one I crashed last year".

GerKonig

I get all my airplanes dirt cheap at auctions or from people going out of the hobby, or that do not want them anymore... That's my story and I am sticking to it!

Gerry

scale only 4 me

My Feedback: (158)

When will you guys learn?? Repeate after me,,, "Honey,, I got that in a trade"

She doesn't need to know you traded cash

AmishWarlord

My Feedback: (5)

Inadequate fire control is a good way to retire a warbird.

GerKonig

It looks like he is blowing to increase the fire. Maybe attempting to dispose of the evidence...

Gerry

Ron101

My Feedback: (22)

I switched over to all electric 5 years ago, with little vibration and no fuel to soak wood.
My planes are lasting so much longer, I had nitro planes that were getting trashed after a season with all the wood getting soaked in fuel. I have a 60 sized hanger 9 miss america thats 5 years old and still looks like new, so it will be interesting to see how long they last. It will take a failure or a crash now.

I had a 1/5 scale P-51 and zero that always had parts shaking loose with gas engines, hard to keep up with the loc tite

Bad part is I used the planes getting soaked and worn out as an excuses to need a new one, now I have no good excuses for the wife

hsukaria

Ah, yes!!! The beauty and benefits of electrics. I'll stick to nitro, thanks.

The only warbird I have ever owned and flown was so bad that I retired it after 2 years of modifying it to make it fly. It finally started to fall apart in areas that were disturbing, like the wing mounting dowel falling off (ARF). All my other sports planes only got retired because of crashes.

I'll get me another warbird someday, but I'll make sure I pick a good one.

ramcfarland

My Feedback: (44)

They all have an expiration date. My GS P-47 came close the other day running out of petro low and slow...

dvs1

Great responses guys and some great but sad pics. I don't think I'll ever have a retired warbird hanging from my ceiling. I just keep flying them till they don't fly anymore. There was a time or two when I thought just one more flight it will be ok, which was alway the flight when a catastrophic failure happened.[:@] But as said in other posts its ok because that just means I get to buy a new toy now