I built the Goldberg Protege after Minnflyer did a review on this plane, I thought I would like it, so I picked one up. The only difference was I used an OS .75 AX instead of the OS .55 AX that Minnflyer used.

Move forward about a year. I went out to the field to fly the Protege. Well, the wind was blowing pretty hard and I was debating flying it or not, but I really wanted to fly. The wind was going right down the runway so, this was a 'good' wind. So, up it went. I flew it for the full tank and landed it. Landing was a real breeze (pun intended). So, after a real greaser landing, I put it down on the ground behind the work bench and went to help one of the other guys with his plane.

Well, no sooner did I walk away, did I hear a loud crash. I turned around and saw my Protege upside down about 10 feet from where I set it.

The wing was ripped off and the formers from the firewall to the wing saddle were broken away from the fuselage. What a mess... but repairable.

Today is a cold and windy day, with a promise of snow, so I decided to take a vacation from chores and get to the Progege and see exactly what the damage was. Well, as I said, the formers were broken away from the fuselage sides.. but they are actually not broken, but the glue that was supposed to hold the thing together just failed to do it's job.

Everything actually snapped together on the fuselage so I mixed up some 30 minute epoxy and put it together again. It's now sitting there on the floor, with the epoxy setting up. I applied some epoxy to all the edges of the firewall and pushed it in with an exacto knife blade so it penetrated into the space between the firewall and the ply covering along the sides and bottom.

Next will be to put the wing back together. That will be a tad bit more chalenging because there are some broken wood parts that I will have to fabricate. Not a problem, I will get that done this afternoon too.

The right wing has a broken length of balsa right at the bolt on spot. The left wing is ok. I will have to fabricate a piece of tapered balsa, perhaps I will get myself a piece of aileron stock from the LHS and just carve out the part where it is broken on the wing, replace it, then "shore" it up with a length of light ply.

All that remains is to fabricate a cover for over the tank out of thin ply and glue it in place, clean up the engine, then take it out to test fly it.

Oh, I left the darned power switch on.. so that battery is pretty much drained.. I will put it on the cycler to see if it will recover, but I have a spare if it does not. It's a Venim 1200 mah 5 cell (6 volt) NiMh pack and I've had some pretty good luck with them.

The moral of this story, for you beginners is this. The wind can be your friend and you can learn a lot when flying in it. I've flown in most types of wind, crosswinds, gusts, wind that goes right down the runway centerline, and so on.. and I've learned a lot about my techniques when flying in the wind. But, one thing you have to consider is that the wind can do damage even when you are not flying. In my case, I should have known better, but learned a valuable lesson. The plane was damaged, but not badly, and it will fly again. But, take a moment and either tie it down, or put it in a place where the wind won't bother it when sitting on the ground.

Pictures to follow as soon as I can format them for RCU.

CGr.