Bad Mojo: my buddy crashed 3 planes in two days
Saturday I got to fly a glider that I share with my flying buddy. He had just finished putting it back together since his last crash. Although it was flyable, I complained that the elevator was not set up right since it moved twice as far down then it did up. He protested saying that it still loops and will now do upside down loops very well. I tried a looping it but being that there were no thermals could not get enough speed/altitude. To prove a point my buddy took it up and actually looped it twice just to show me and then right off the deck he attempted a 3rd loop which resulted in a very hard crash. I am still waiting for him to repair the sailplane so I can fly it some more.
Later that day he was explaining that it was much better to land our glow planes on the empty road instead of the adjacent field where we normally land. The bugs had been biting my legs really bad in the field so I gave it a try (landing in the closed road) and nearly hit a telephone pole on my first attempt, and then on my second landing I was not aligned well and bumped the curb at slow speed scratching the nose of my plane. Giving up on that idea as being too risky, I went back to landing in the unobstructed field, but to prove a point my buddy landed his trainer glow plane in the road a couple times, but in about 5 minutes he hit the telephone cable, knocking the wing loose and crashing his trainer. Except for a few scars he had the trainer repaired and flying the next day.
On Sunday he was flying his new Pulse and all was looking very well, but just after he lined up for a high-speed pass his beautiful Pulse went straight into the ground at full speed! He had laughed off the other crashes, but this one really got to him because it was so new and a very cool flying airplane. We later found that his battery was either defective or not charged and believe the battery had just enough power to fly a little bit but soon died causing the plane to crash. Thank goodness it happened to be pointing down when the battery died, because who knows what county it would have ended up in if it had not been pointed down when the battery died.