RE: Parkzone Stinson Reliant SR-10
I guess it was inevitable.
I was out Saturday on a perfect Colorado flying day having an absolute grin-fest with the Stinson. A buddy was there to video a flight, one that I was going to mount my keychain cam so that I could have two points of view in the same video. He was still flying, so I took the SR-10 up for a warm up flight. Loops, rolls, vertical rolls, the Stinson was flying beautifully. I love the look of loops with the stinson flying towards me. The loop started maybe 50 yards away from me, and not more than 25' up. I must have got a little rudder into it causing it to corkscrew a little - making it come DIRECTLY at me. You can guess the result - yep, right over my head on the exit of the loop at full throttle, with all the energy of the downside of the loop. Lost orientation, and WHAM into the ditch with a sickening thud.
Broke the wing and a wing strut, broke the horizontal stab, totaled the gear, shattered the cowl, broke the motor into two pieces. Not a pretty sight, but at least the walk of shame was only 30'.
The good news is that this is one tough hunk of foam. 48 hours, a bunch of hammeringand $17 later, its back up on its gear and ready to be re-trimmed.
The motor was the odd part, and leads to a question. If you look at the 480, there is a front (bell), and a back section. The back is stationary, and is where it mounts to the motor mount. That is where mine separated. I figured I was in for a new motor, but decided to take it to the LHS and look at it beside a new one. A long story short, not being able to find any broken pieces, we literally hammered the two pieces together again. Surprisingly to me, it runs, and as smooth as ever. I dont think I could get them apart again without a hammer and a pry bar. Are the two parts sections really just a compression fitting? There doesnt seem to be a set screw... or anything else we could find. The LHS guys had never seen one separate like that.
Thoughts?
jc