It was a gorgeous Saturday in Wisconsin and I finally had a day off without any projects, so I was able to enjoy my first flying of the year. In the morning I ran my engine, tuned it up and checked all of the control rods, servos, engine mount, etc. to make sure I would not have a problem. I was flying my Twist, nothing fancy, just some easy loops, rolls, and a little inverted flight. Well on my third flight I did a low fly by and noticed something did not look quite right. My landing gear was no longer perpendicular to the fuselage, but rather in line with it. Oh @#$&, now what am I going to do? I chopped the throttle and tried a harrier type landing, the wind was picking up when I took off, but of course died down as I tried to land. I got lucky, only damage was to the landing gear. (Didn't even break the prop) Apparently the screws were loose and one vibrated completely off, the other one was 1/2 way out. I did not use locktite (I will now) and I never bothered to check the landing gear in my checkout. It will certainly be on my check list from now on.

Rob