I had my first crash today with my Hangar 9 Corsair. It was a good wind right down the center of the runway and I thought the flight would be a breeze. I took off and everything seemed fine, as usual she flew smooth and very scale like. I was coming in for a landing and into the wind this plane really flies slow. So I made one gear pass, and on the second pass I was going to put her down. I had a perfect approach and I gave up elevator slightly to early, she floated and I gave some power to make a go around. On the next landing attempt, another good approach, this time however the wind switched and was pushing the plane in toward the pits. I was on the rudder bigtime, but she kept drifting. Like an idiot, I sort of paniced and gave full power very fast. Needless to say, at that low of a speed, the plane tipped over, I would think from motor torque, and went in nose first. I thought it was going to be a real bad result, however, the plane is not in too bad a shape. I need to due some gluing, and reapair the front of the wing assembly but all in all, looked way worse then it really was. I am not to bummed because this was my 10th flight on her. I have been flying since June and all the guys that fly at this field said I would not be able to fly this bird for two years. This plane is slightly harder to land then others but it really does not deserve the nasty reputation it has. I will rebuild it and hopefully get in at least one or two more fights this year. I would hate to end my first year flying on a bad note. The plus side was that I flew my Something Extra 10 times with no bad landings.

Tom

Most likely, Tom, it was not the engine torque that caused the crash. Rather, the plane stalled. You throttled up, but you did not wait for the air speed to increase before you climbed and turned. The wing stalled, the plane snap rolled into the ground.

Airplanes that have high power-to-weight ratio and low wing loading, like many aerobatics, can fly even when the wing is stalled, but just about any war bird will do the same thing your Corsair did.

Live and learn.

Sandy T
(been there, done that more than once)

Yeah, now that I think of it your probably right. As I snapped the power up, I turned because the plane was drifting in towards me. A case of the approach looking good and then at the last second the pilot screws up. I'm pretty bummed, [&o] however she will fly again.

Tom

I'm glad your bird wasn't too badly damaged. I'm with Sandyt on why it happened, it's easy to panic a little when things get bad. I've just been lucky enough in my 2 years of flying it hasn't happened to me yet. ( Your Eligible Too )

My Club had that same problem of underestimating my flight abilities. They ignored the fact that I had over 380 hours in a 1978 Cessna 150, 1947 Piper J-3 Cub, and a old 1938 Taylorcraft. Some of these smaller planes have the same handling as the full size ones. So when it was my time to Solo a Glow Plane, I passed the same day my lessons began. I'm just glad no one riped my shirt and put cold water on me. I was afraid I was going to get wet for a few hours, but I'm glad it didn't happen.

The Vice-President of our club told me he has seen pilots not be able to fly the small planes that well, do to them not being in the aircraft. That might have been true, however I didn't have a problem with it. I always had in the back of my head to treat planes like a lady... and planes fly fine without our help other than making a few adjustments when needed. In my opinion, if we are honest with ourselves... we know what we can handle.



Peter Dowling aka Luftwaffe Oberst
AMA District II # 865404
Aero Modelers Club
Pulaski, NY

Hey 1080Tommy

To have a bad landing and scratch the plane a little is no harm!!! All the wooden things get together again with not big hustle.
The fact that everybody went unharmed out of it is the good conclusion of that unlucky day.
As far as I have and still fly the TF 60size F4U, the CMPro 120 size F4U and the Hangar 9 F4U, I can tell you of one thing.
The Hangar 9 is the best of them in flying characteristics. But there are some tricky things for this bird you must know about.
First of all I think that you are overpowered. That is the reason for this specific model who doesn't have flaps; its dificulty in landings.
Try to put a smaller propeller.
You must face a long lasting flare that most of the times end up with bouncing in landings right?
Now the Corsair was never fully controllable rudderwise when I made takeoffs especially with the CMpro. The Fin is small and the movement on the rudder must tend to 90 deg. in order to obey. The F4U also have tendencies of "adverse yaw" so I would suggest you to solve this with the ailerons diferential. Now the trick that you must use in order to have better landings is that you should either trim your bird with down trim a little and try to land normally (forget 3 point landings) or you come with 2 or 3 clicks on your throttle centered and low on the runway and cut the throttle when you want to touch down. I hope that this helps. I also hope that you'll never face the same problems again.
Cheers
Johnnie

Looks like they were right eh, Flying a scale-like plane is not like those cheap sport planes.

...not really. They did say "fly", not land.

Besides, one will never know if one doesn't try. Good going Tom! If you are willing to stretch your skills (and you are safe and realistic about it) then don't let other people hold you back.