hookedonrc

Mine would have to be hitting a bird. It has been posted on RCU several times, but it's a great story. We were having Scouts Day at or club field, and I was flying my Avistar Trainer. It had been through the training mill and I had just spend 3 weeks replacing dented or broken LE sections and ribs in several places. I had just finished re-covering it and was one of the instructors on buddy boxes that day. I had in 10 flights (2 per scout) and was just finishing my 11 when the scout got out of the flying pattern. I told him I was taking over the plane to bring it back in and just as it did, we heard the loudest bang that I have heard in a long time. The right wing exploded and ripped the fuse to shreads on that side. The rest of the plane was a lawn dart into the bean field next to our flying area, while the right wing fluttered slowly to the ground. The bang was so loud that most of the people at the field thought I had hit another plane. It was shortly discovered that, no, all other planes were still in the air. Once we recovered the right wing we found a large concave dent in the leading edge 1 foot across and all the way back to the spar. Since I didn't hit any plane, and there were no other obstacles in the area, only a bird could have done it. Never saw it before the collision and never found it after.

The irony was that in a question and answer session in the morning, one of the Scouts had asked if anyone of us had hit a bird or ever seen it happen. The answer was no, until later that afternoon then we ammended our original answers.