The saga continues . . .
The next day was our annual club open house, in this case our 50th anniversary. In addition to airshow-type demonstrations, we always volunteer to take any visitors up on the buddy box after they practice a little bit on simulators that we have set up.
We got there early and got one more training flight in with my father-in-law. Once the guests arrived, I began giving buddy box flights. I buddy boxed at least a half a dozen people, ranging in age from 7 to 50. Even the 7 year old girl was able to do pretty well. A couple of the guys were able to fly 5 minutes at a time without me taking over on their first flights ever! Again, this is a great trainer for an absolute beginner. I think we got a few guys hooked.
Then, catastrophe.[
] I was going to start another buddy box flight. I had my card on Ch. 41 on the frequency board. Turned the radio on, briefed the student and started it up. Took the plane out to the runway, and then waited a little bit because there were some other people landing. Another club member doing buddy box flights had just crashed and was headed of to the woods on the north side of the field, but I didn't think much about that as he was well away from the runway. I took off to the west, gained altitude and turned around to fly back east across the field. I was just about to give control to the student when the plane suddenly nosed forward and went straight in from about 100 feet up, leaving me staring in disbelief.
I went out to pick up the wreckage and couldn't figure out what had happened. Had I left my antenna down? Was there a clevis failure on the elevator (no)?
About 1/2 hour later, I found out what happened. The other club member giving the training flights had his card on 37. After his crash, he discovered that the buddy box he was using (without a crystal or antenna) was labeled 37, but his master transmiter was on 41. So when I turned mine on, I unknowingly shot him down. He still had his transmitter on when he went to get his plane, and shot me down. He is a good friend of mine and felt terrible about the new mistake. He immediately offered to replace the plane.
Because my father-in-law was just visiting for a short time, I wanted to send him back with a functioning plane. I called my LHS from the field and had them hold another Alpha 60 for me. We assembled it that night (did not have the same wrinkling problem and actually ran better) and flew it yesterday morning. Like the first, it flew great.