RE: Worst Thing You've Ever Crashed?
I stuffed a 8' span 1950 Fleet Bipe. Worst part was I was test flying it. It belonged to another club member. To this day we still don't know why it went in. It took off fine and made 5 passes with no problem. I was flying about 200' up at 1/2 power. The plane started to go right. I corrected with aile but the right turn got stronger until I had full left in it. Unable to level the wings I added a touch of rudder. It snapped hard and started going in. I pushed it out doing half an outside loop from inverted. At this point I cut the power back to 1/4 and started flying it toward the landing area. It flew straight and level for about 2 seconds and started the same process. This time I tried rudder only. As soon as I touched the rudder it snapped. Again it was inverted at about a 45 degree down angle. I was able to push it out again and get it flying right. This time I cut the power to just enough to stay airborn. This might have been a mistake. As I got closer to the landing area it started again. Again it snapped inverted and this time I did not have enough alt to save it. It went straight in. This was a scratch built and fabric covered plane. The back of the fuse was 1/4" stringers. The tail kept going when the nose hit dirt and stopped. The plane was a total loss including bending the crank on the big gasser.
Looking back I should have tried a landing where it was. This was at our old site though and that would mean landing it in cotton stalks. Landing in cotton stalks is like flying through a shreader. The fabric and paint would have been gone but the balsa would have survived. The owner of the plane took it better than I did. I offered to help with the loss but he would not hear of it. I still felt 2" tall.
This was 10 years ago and Leroy past on in Jan. He gave me everything in his shop before he left. I guess this proves he had no hard feelings. I hope he has it flying again in that big RC field in the sky.
David