visioneer_one
Posts: 2414
Joined: 12/12/2001
From: St. Thomas, VIRGIN ISLANDS (USA)
Status: offline
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Ten years worth!
(links are fixed now.)
Olympic 650 2M sailplane. My first plane! 100% scratchbuilt from 1/8" balsa sheet and wood glue. LOTS of wood glue. Weighed a ton. Stalled / spun it in, obliterating the fuse. I still have the wing!
NSP Kestrel 2M. My first kitbuilt plane. Weighed less than the Olympic 650, thank goodness. While diving for a speed pass on the slope the wing fluttered and tore off. Nothing left, RIP.
HL Skimmer 600 ARC. Was originally designed as a lightweight thermal soarer... someone took the plans, cut the nose flat, added a motor & battery compartment then advertised it as "the PERFECT electric soarer." Bollocks  It flew nicely, but didn't turn well under power (the rudder was undersized.) Stalled and spun it into the swamp once, or so we thought. (story posted here) Hit a tree while on final one day. Broke everything. RIP.
CR Renegade. Built it using Harley Micaelis' RDS adapters on the wing surfaces - no drag from exposed aileron linkages. A bullet! Pulled at the end of a smokin' fast inverted pass. RIP.
NSP Sparrow #1. My Favorite Heavy-Air Sloper. Snagged the wing on a bush during a smokin' fast (upright!) pass one wintry day. Fuse snapped wing snapped innards scattered into the snow. The recovery effort was more of a treasure hunt - all the gear made holes in the snow, so it was a matter of digging the stuff out while not disturbing the rest of the holes. Look its a servo, look its a battery, etc. What fun. RIP.
DJ Aerotech Wizard HLG #1. My Favorite HLG, and later My Favorite Light-Air Sloper. Slid into a cement curb after a downwind landing. RIP.
Robbe Arcus hotliner. Had an Astro 15 FAI in this one. While making a moderate speed pass the front latch of the canopy let go. The canopy then popped up, like a huge speed brake... the plane stalled and dove vertically into the ground. The wing was OK, the fuse smashed. RIP.
Combat Gremlin #1. I was low, and inverted, and being hotly pursued. Pulled when I should have pushed. Into the swamp @ WOT. Fump! RIP.
Combat Gremlin #2. T-bone attack. Nothing left but a (splintered) fuse pod and a cloud of styro-confetti. RIP.
Combat Gremlin #3. "Lockout!" Vertical dive, then styro-confetti. Total loss, RIP. (Note. Later discovered that the old JR Century 7 PCM tx I was using had a defect - its output went to -0- when it was held at a certain angle! Ohhh the pain.)
Combat Gremlin #4 & #5. Hold, enough!  Gave these away untouched.
Lanier Stinger .10. Had a Magnum .15 on it. My First Taildragger! Groundloop groundloop groundloop. It eventually fell apart due to fuel residue soaking the wood. This was the first plane I ever retired more-or less intact! 
Modeltech Sonic 500. Had a hot piped OS .46VF. Too much plane for my skill level at the time! After 4 flights I punched it deep into the ground @ WOT. Broke everything, had to dig the engine out of the ground, etc. Blah. RIP.
Lasoar 650. Had an Aveox F7LMR in it. This one was a knockoff of the old Airt Falcon 550, with stretched wings - which abruptly clapped together one day while spiralling up in a thermal. Turns out there was no spar in the wing, just obeechi over white foam. Nothing left. RIP.
Weston Magic #1. Beautifully handcrafted by Frank himself. Launched it one day down at the Point of the Mountain site and flew and flew and flew and flew and flew and flew... that's odd. Why won't it come out of this thermal turn? 'cos the rx batteries are dead, you goof! The plane held its turn, spiralling gracefully upward. It drifted high and to the east... went over the mountains, and was gone. Never saw it again.
Global Aviator .40 ARF. Had a Saito .50 on this one. Let one of my flying buddies fly this one... he crashed it while attempting a touch and go. Broke *everything* but the landing gear - even snapped the cylinder off the motor. RIP.
TT Champion .45S ARF. I let the same guy that crashed the Aviator fly this one... he rolled it inverted and flew it into the bush @ WOT. Kaboom! Broke everything. RIP. Need I mention that I don't let that fellow fly my planes anymore? 
Global Sukhoi .40 ARF. Good looking, but overweight. Never liked this one. It tried to kill me once. (story posted here) Clipped a Tree on a deadstick landing and broke the firewall off. (story posted here) Stripped and retired it; one of the neighbor kids later took the carcass.
F5B Hybrid. Created from the wing of the Arcus and an old T-tail Limit fuselage, with an Aveox F10. I set the CG at 30% of MAC... too far back. Instant figure-9 on launch, smashing the fuse. It was repairable, so I stuck the wing under the car and flew my other planes for the rest of the day. I later ran over the wing (forgot to pull it from under the car before driving off!) RIP.
Morris Top Cap ARF. Inverted loop figure-9... broke the fuse in half, shattered one wing (+ the rx battery tore loose and smashed up the innards of the other wing.) RIP.
DJ Aerotech Wizard HLG #2. Blew up the wings due to a super-aggressive handlaunch. RIP.
Zagi-EPP #1. Stalled/spun it in while flying from a cliff over the sea. RIP.
Ultrastick .40. #1. Had a Saito .72 on it. Engine backfired on a WOT full-flap blastoff... 5 feet in the air and zero airspeed. Demolished the fuse, wing was OK.
Ultrastick .40 #2. Engine flamed out in a bad area of the field. Came up short on landing and hit a tree stump. Demolished the fuse, wing was OK. Again.
Durastick .40. Picked it up as a cheap combat plane. Hit a stump on an emergency landing (in nearly the same spot as Ultrastick #2, and on the same day!) and mangled the gear. Repaired it and gave it away.
Ultrastick .40 #3. Finally swapped out the balky Saito for a dead-reliable YS .63. It survived (unscathed!) a wingtip-to-wingtip midair (posted here) Did *not* survive a high-speed low-altitude inverted pass! Demolished the wing and knocked off the rudder. Replaced the wing with the spare one from US #2, repaired the fuse and gave it away.
TuffFlight Predator. Had an OS .25FX on it. T-boned near the end of a combat match. (posted here) 25% of the wing was torn off in the impact, the remainder gently flatspun into the bush. Recovered all the gear except for the engine's RNV. RIP.
Global Blue Max. Last time I trust a MAN review! The plane flew OK, but had ridiculously weak landing gear which would break if you sneezed on it. Removed the gear and replaced it with the gear off one of the broken Ultra Sticks. Finally retired the plane, as it was a terribly dull flyer. Wanted to give it away but no-one would take it! Stripped out the gear then threw the plane away.
GP U-Can-Do-3D ARF #1. Killed it > 9 seconds into the maiden flight - I took off with reversed ailerons. Posted the flight report here. Was going to dumpster the remains, but a clubmate requested them and is pretty far along in rebuilding it.
** Addendum: the UCD lives again!**
Modeltech ME-109 .40. Neglected the pre-flight check one day. Took off, realized I had no aileron control. Tried to save it with the rudder, but didn't have enough to counteract the engine torque. Rolled to knifeedge then smesh. It was repairable, but I decided against doing so. RIP.
GP Giles 202. Planned to take off short, pull the nose up 30 degrees, roll to knife-egde then pull |
Printable Version
All Forums >> RC Airplanes >> Crash & Rebuild >> How long was it before you crashed for the first time? 
How long was it before you crashed for the first time? - 
i did a low pass and a few barrel rolls had a brain fart and sent her to her death 
. I had a friend towing it up for me by running full tilt across the local football field with a length of nylon line attached to the tow hook. Worked great, except that I had the switch in the worst possible position......right under where my thumb went when I was holding onto it before takeoff. I also had it around the wrong way, so 'back' was 'off' 
I got set up, gave him the 'thumbs up' to start running, but as the plane left my hand, my thumb ran across the switch and turned it off 
. When I realised it wasn't responding to my inputs on the way up, I yelled at him to stop, but he thought I was trying to tell him to run faster 
.
full DISCLOSURE. - 