rscarawa

I had an experiance this last weekend while flying my fairly new Balsa Nova 120, the engine came off in flight. This plane is not old nore had it been wrecked before. It is only the third time I had flown it.

My plane is a kit build and is running a Saito 150. I had been having issues with vibration due either to a cam timing issue or lean running. The issue was to the point that the engine would spit props off. At any rate, I did resolve the issue and while at 1/4 throttle the engine split the firewall and dropped from the sky.

The firewall on this plane is built from two 1/8 pieces of lite ply sandwiched together. As you can see from the photos, part of the firewall is still in tact. Using all of the down elevator I could muster, I was able to fly the plane into the weeds, but it was quite a challenge keeping from tip stalling.

I am guessing that the designer did not intend for that kind of power, but there are many people out there with this plane that have bigger motors than I. When I reassembled the plane, I used 1.4 birch ply and 5 oz cloth to glass it on to the fusalage. I ran the cloth about 1" down the sides. Hopefully, I will not see this happen again.

Hog Head

WOW!!! How did the engine and the rest of the plane do? Any other damage?

rscarawa

The engine was hanging by the throttle cable for a second or two. This caused the fuel line to disconnect and engine to go full power. The engine and prop hit the side of the plane before it dropped. The plane started acting tail heavy (go figure) and I put in as much down elevator as my low rate would give me. I was too nervous to reach for the d/r switch. The plane did circles and I tried to keep the wings level as it came down. It landed out of my site in weeds and the servo rails broke loose fromthe inside and that was it. I was pretty lucky all things considered.

Worst case would have been one minute earlier when I was doing engine tuning. It could have taken my hand off. This thing is a beast. I must say that is does fly well though. I have yet to get it to snap roll. I was hoping to try my 3d settings.

rscarawa

Oh yeah, the engine fell about 50-80 feet into the weeds and just needed cleaning. The f/g cowl has some cracks in it now.

Hog Head

I'll say you were lucky and thank God (or whoever/whatever you believe in) that it didn't come off while you were tuning it. Why would Balsa Nova use lit-ply for the firewall? It could be worse, you could have panicked and lost the entire plane! Good job!

jeffo

My Feedback: (68)

I have balsa nova 120,you know that balsa they use for the fuse sides mates to the f.w. with some 45 stk.
It looked dicey to me,I put 1/8th lite ply inside to reinforce it both sides with 3/4 45 stk. never had a problem.
The sides are 3/16 thk. ,and if you put a 150 4stroke tha vibrates bad your dam lucky you did not get hurt.

rscarawa

Trust me, I thank God that I still have my hands! This could have been ugly, real ugly. This was the best way for it to come apart though. Away from me and everyone else.

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

I kept looking at the photos and aggree with the Hog, lite-ply??????? The stuff just isn't cut out for that kind of power. A rough running engine didn't help but that shouldn't have ever happened. I think you better go out and buy A Loto ticket, you'r luck is running on A high note, then again, you could have just used it all up.