reaperofsoulz

Good thing I did all this reinforcing of The Wing Commander because I decided to go out and play at lunch today in the wind. She was soaring great, even on takeoff there was no dip down(i guess cause it was so windy) but the wind didnt really bother the 30oz. beast to much when i was in control but if it went into a dive it was some real work to save it. I had to set the trim on my TX all the way up because the plane was lifting so much because of the wind and i needed to keep the nose down.

Well it must have been a combination of the hieght and distance because i started to lose signal and the plane just kept on flying straight away from me...now that scared me. I started to walk forward to try and get a hold of her and she finally started to respond to my deserate pulls on the stick curving around to the left out of the wind and back towards me. This was good until shortly after i realised i once again had no control and heading away from the wind i lost lift and it started to spiral dive. I was pulling back on the stick like a mad man as i watch my newly painted, hours of work speeding towards the marshiest reed filled part of the lake near where i fly... CRUNCH is all i here and then silence. In front of me where i fly is over a mile of cow land (this is where the planes usually stay)but behind where i stand about 400 feet away is a lake, 100 feet away from me is swampy reeds and mud leading out to the lake....this is where it crashed. This is also the one place that all the time i've been flying in this area that I did not want to land in.

What could i do but start my trek into the icy murky waters, full clothed shoes and jeans im stomping myself waist high trying to make my way through what looks to me like what i see on the discovery channel as alligator nests, luckily im in california and dont think theres much worse than a fish or 2 in this lake. At least 80 feet from the shore now im cold, wet and have no idea where this plane landed....then I realise I have the radio in my hand still ( i thought about setting it on the shore). I hit the throttle and maybe 10 feet away i hear the sounds of a struggling engine, i burst over this stack of reeds taller than me into an open area of water where my Stryker lays right on the edge of the reeds nose first about a foot from 5 foot deep water. The holes i drilled in the bottom let some water into the battery area but other than that everything else looks good. I have to bench test to find out what went wrong but it may have been that i had the trim set to bring the nose down and it did just that when it was facing away from the high wind. Soaking wet but happy to have my plane I went home to shower and change before having to go back to work. Only damage to the Wing Commander after at least a 50 foot nose dive into watery reeds is about a 1/2" round 1/4" deep hole on one wing edge where a reed rammed straight in between where the kevlar meets the fiberglass.Without reinforcments I would have lost the wing hit by the reed as well as the nose and most the front end which would have made it sink further into the water and would have destroyed most if not all my components....maybe i should stick to the decathlon trainer plane [X(]