I here you on that one but in the past 4 years I have had only a half-dozen episodes of contact with the ground (yes, I do feel very fortunate that it is only 6 - I fly a lot of hours and lot of different planes) One crash was shear stupidity (forgot a servo screw on the ailerons) and ended back with a kit on its first flight after spending the better part of a month putting it together. Needless to say that will never happen again.

The others were during harriers and hovers very close to the runway, mostly while I was learning 3D with my U Can Do and Magic. The impacts, while causing some signifcant damage, were all repairable mostly due to the wing separating after a cartwheel or some other uncontrolled landing. Had I used steel I am sure all 4 crashes would have been fatal.

I guess the replies are going to be about what I expect, some will swear by steel bolts, others are going to curse them. All I want to make sure is that there was no REASON to use steel (i.e. in-flight stress too much for nylon, etc). My guess is that either will work fine in this model, we aren't talking turbine here.

I fly at a fairly windy field, seems there is always a crosswind. Just last week a guy caught a gust and his P-40 veered off the runway into the pit fence during a hot landing. The fence post caught the outboard wing tip and tore the wing from the fuse. Nylon bolts sheered and only damage to the wing was the tip. few bruised ribs and some torn monokote. Not sure what would have happend if the wing could not have separated.




If you were wondering what happened to the sixth ground contact - it was when I was flying inverted 4 feet off the runway at high speed when another plane got a little too close my reflexes weren't fast enough. Instead of giving down elevator, I pulled up.. BAM!


In any contest in which an aircraft is pitted against the ground, the ground always wins!