An Oops story
Before I start, I am about three 10 minute lessons into glow aircraft training. I've flown the electric Hobbyzone Super Cub several times and a lot on simulators. Anyways, I've been having engine issues with my .40 trainer. Tonight I worked on it for about an hour and finally seemed to have it running right. So I took it out on the road to do some taxi testing. Now, just to explain, my house is on a dead end road and I have a couple acre lot in the middle of 1,400 acres of farm land. You can't see another house from mine. The road makes a nice runway with the exception of the 10' high corn stalks flanking each side of the road. I don't fly here because of the corn and I belong to a AMA club. Ok, so I start the engine and it sounds great, better than it ever has before. I decide to do a lean test and it purrs nicely. Well, now the dumb part. I set her down on the road, pulled out my antenna as a precaution, and I give it full throttle. She bolted down the road. Now, I still don't know why but instead of throtteling back and coasting to turn speed, like normal, I let it go and eased back on the elevator. Up she went. I flew up through the wide valley, heart pounding so hard my shirt was moving. I did a fly by and then out over the adjacent field. I then decided I better get this thing on the ground. I flew back over the other field and throttled full down. Uh Oh... She still sounded and moved like it was at a quarter throttle. I was on the road so approach was straight towards me. I could see right away she was too hot. I pulled back on the elevator and brought her back up, clipping the top of the corn. "Still climbing", I thought. In a slight fog, I completely forgot about using my trim to cut off a little throttle. I went back out over the field, throttled all the way down, and then lined up for approach. She was coming in very fast. I leveled the wings and went for broke. Now she was coming directly at me at a decent clip. About 25 yards in front of me I realized it was not going to sit down easily as she was still moving quickly. It passed me by at waist high. I turned and gave a little push on the elevator. SMACK. She hit on her nose gear and then rolled to a stop just off the road. I walked over and to my amazement, not a scratch. Very Lucky was I, said Yoda. Oh man, that was dumb but at the same time I felt pretty happy about not destroying my plane. Could have been bad though and I learned my lesson. I will call it an unofficial solo and save the flying for the club until I am ready, and the corn is picked.