victorzamora

That definitely wasn't meant as a burn, I'm just pointing out that rookies can be of any age....and that age doesn't always bring maturity along with it.

We have a guy at our field that has soloed his trainer MAYBE 6 times, yet still has a DA in every size....and a plane to fit it, plus several more planes. His first radio was a converted XP9303 (72MHz to 2.4GHz). Worst of all, he honestly thinks that nitro is called "Al-key-hall" and pronounces it that way regardless of what we tell him. He knows that Al-key-hall has alcohol in it, but it's the type of alcohol, the nitro and the oil that makes it Al-key-hall. And this guy must be in his 70s.

TraxxasTrucks

I feel sorry for the kid, but he got what he deserved in my opinion. This is an expensive hobby and he just cost his parents a lot of money because of his lack of concern from an experienced flyer. i would have laughed too.

Teenage Pilot 14

Once a few months ago I was at a local park without any planes or helis and this older guy (50's or so) shows up with his Multiplex EasyStar. He plops his gear right at the edge of the field and as soon as I saw him struggling with the battery connector I knew he wasn't exactly Quique Somenzini. (By the way, how IS that guy's name pronounced? Please excuse my ignorance..) Well, he finally gets it all set up, tosses it off and whaddaya know- it glides toward the ground nice and smooth. The radio wasn't on. He figures it out and tries again. This time he gives it some throttle and fires it out over the grass and then he pulls full up and tries to turn at the same time, and stall turns straight into the ground. Finally after several incident similar to this I waltz over and calmly show him that the transmitter is proportional and that you don't need to slam the sticks around like that. The plane goes up again and immediately the trimming needed is clear. He says "Why won't it fly straight ya think?" Like I'm some dumb kid or something. I say "Don't look, just bring her down." He cranks the elevator all the way down then pulls out at the last second and almost smashes the plane. I show him the trims and how they work and then he says "You look like you know what you're doing. Why don't you fly it once or twice?" I tell him to give it another shot and this time he does the whole "New pilot panic" thing, then says "Man, these are a lot harder to fly than they look, eh? Maybe you shouldn't try it because you've never flown one before and this one's real tricky." Right.... I just say "Launch for me" He gives the plane a nice chuck and I take her around the field maybe 7 or 8 times with some figure-8s and simple things like that. Then I bring the plane in for a nice, smooth power-off belly landing. Never have I seen an adult so shocked by anything. After 3 more batts and a lot of coaching, he finally managed to fly through some basic flight patterns and didn't crash much. The moral here is: Regardless of age, don't underestimate somones flying ability and if they've just taught you the basics of flying

psb667

no rookies no new planes no more hobbie(cause n effect)

ChillPhatCat

I've seen a lot of rookies over the years... myself, I can't say I was too cocky, but we had some good instructors at the field at the time. I guess I wanted to just be respected as a pilot, so I listened to what they had to say and solo'd in 17 flights on my Aerostar 20. Anyway, a couple incidents stick out in my mind as far as inexperienced pilots overflying the plane goes...

At one of our open houses we had a buddy box set up on an Aircore trainer for the general public to try their hands on flying... well inevitably one of the people to sign up was this little 6 year old kid. He just was so excited about flying a plane... they take the plane into the air and they're maybe 50 feet off the trees on the other side of the runway. The kid hit full down and the instructor takes the sticks back and puts him back into level flight... still at the same altitude. So they do a few more circuits wrestling back and forth and they come back around over the trees... the kid does the same thing, full down elevator, this time the instructor took the sticks just as it's dissapearing behind the tree line... a second later we see it emerge vertically out of the brush and the instructor is now just pissed at this kid, he brings it back in for the landing and ther's half of a small branch stuck to the leading edge of one of the wings... he says he can't teach that kid and tells his parents he should probably wait a few years if he actually wants to persue the hobby.

On another occasion... probably 9-10 years ago, one of the new guys who was basically just trying to have some fun in his newfound retirement had been with the club for a few months and just graduated up to a low wing sport plane, I think it was a Super Sportster 20. Well he's been flying inverted for a good 10 flights with this thing, trying to get used to it and has been doing this about 100 feet off the deck. Well one flight he starts bringing it down lower, doing inverted passes maybe 30-40 feet over the runway... nearing the end of his tank of fuel the crowd is chearing him on "Lower! Lower! Lower!" so of course he obliges and hes doing passes like 10 feet off the deck... well, on the last pass he comes in about 5 feet off the deck... about halfway down the runway he just puts it in upside down. He runs out to retreive it and as he brings it back we can see there's absulutely no damage... not even a busted prop. As he's explaining that he just accidentally landed it upside down, him and the rest of us just bust out laughing. He forever got the title in our club for the lowest inverted pass.

Tech Head

Here is my miserable story!

17 years young, i spent my first 10 pay packets on a plane kit and nitro engine.

It took me 2 months a bit at a time to build it. I could only afford a two chanel radio as i had lost my job, so the only control i had over the plane was tail and rudder "NO ENGINE THROTTLE CONTROL". still makes me cringe thinking about it 30 years later!

Anyway, I am at the local park with a dozen or so friends to witness the maiden flight. I am using a concrete cricket pitch as a runway.
I start the engine, it's screeming to go and almost pulled out of my hand. I get a mate to hold it while i get my TX.
Ready, set, go. He lets go and the plane screams down the runway, starts to climb itself. I go to control it but nothing happens.
Forgot to turn the RX on! [X(]
We all watch as it climbs higher and higher, did a complete loop and came down head first into the concrete runway.

Anyone familiar with the term "Smithereens"? There was nothing in the plane that was salvageable, even the crank on the motor pushed out the back crankcase cover!

I have'nt had another plane since. Some people just should'nt fly and i'm on of them!

Cheers, Brett.

Bass1

..NAH.. This is where it starts getting fun[8D]

lousyflyer

I was the only kid in my neighbor hood that successfully flew Cox airplanes that others had obliterated or just gave up on after Chritstmas every year. I never received a ready-to-fly plane from anyone, be it family or friends. I got parts or fuel or propellers for gifts. I was the neightborhood flight instructor for those that chose not to smoke cigarettes, chase girls, ride motorcycles, etc. I was what we now call a nerd or geek. When I graduated, I got a job and started flying R/C. Actually it was more like trying to fly R/C. I figured that if I could build and fly control-line, then I could teach myself to fly R/C. I got a second hand E-K Logictrol radio and a Bridi PT 40(Yea, I'm THAT OLD). I put a carb on my Enya35, built the plane, covered it in that new stuff called "Monokote", and headed out to Chennault Air Base which had been shut down after WWII. Having been a bomber base, the runway was around 5,000 feet long. Just enough, I figured. I advanced the throttle to full, waited as it gained speed, then pulled back on the stick. The symmetrical winged (not a good first choice) plane leapt straight up, climbed 20 feet, stalled and came straight back down. I ran over to the pile and STOMPED it repeatedly. I'm glad no one was with me. I've never spoken of this to anyone....Now I approach any person young or old who needs help, and diplomatically offer my advice. That's all you can do for some people.-Lousyflyer)-

scratchbildr

These are great!
How's about a CSI?
We arrived at our field one day. We have several 55 gal. used oil drums for trash. We regularly inspect them for newbie or dumb thumb debris. One of us spots what appeared to be an engine head among some confetti covering and balsa. We dived into the can and retrieved multiple pieces of a bad crash. Engine head, crank, 3 pieces of case, spinner, what was left of the prop and lots of confetti.
WOW! this must have been brutal! We pieced together the engine and plane parts. By the way it was torn up, we could determine how it came in! So, out to the runway for a little search for the impact site. Found it! A 1"x 4" crater in the asphalt, with a directional pattern.
We matched up the engine with the crater and determined how it finally met it's demise. Wide open, inverted at about 75 degrees angle. It took us a few days to find out who it was. This guy tries sooo hard to learn how to fly, by manages to go out by himself to "solo". 4 planes later he finally let us help him.
He was very curious how we knew how he crashed when we weren't even there.