Yikes.... well today the Trainer nosed in bad. Not much left but splinters.

Went up to the field by myself (a first) and was so excited to do it alone and first flight was sensational except i heard some fluttering and when i brought it to the pits i noticed that out of 6 elevator hinges 5 were broken ... have no idea how it stayed up there so well? After a little ca and tape... i took it up again and seemed fine. Had to re-trim it and as i was making final approach for landing, the radio or something just stopped working... i honestly have no clue? All controls stopped. Engine was running fine. But about 30-40 feet up it wouldn't pull out of the turn and just augered its way straight into the ground. Was kind of anti-climatic, a big thud.

Picked up the pieces and thought maybe my receiver batter had died for some strange reason but it had over 5volts... i tried all the servos and they worked... receiver was working. I have absolutely no idea and that's a pisser. There were some occational gusts blowing in different directions and i'm just wondering if for some reason a wind blew with the plane fast enough to stall it? I am shaking my head cause i really have no clue. Interference maybe??? Should i only buy a pcm receiver from now on?

Anyway. I'm getting another trainer at Tower tonight and give another go at it. So far i've had nothing but really rotten luck - non-running engines w/ mysterious stops, stupid mistakes, like not pulling out the antenna - Doh! and flying out of range. And now this....

These planes are sorta like women... you sure do put a lot into for what you get back... but man is it worth it!

I feel your pain. My trainer did the same thing yesterday. I had made two beatiful flights earlier at a different field. Then went out to another field. Was flying around fine, having a really good flight, went to turn base for some touch and goes, and it just rolled into the wind and buried itself. My first though was that I got shot down, but i also considered that going downwind, a gust might have stalled the right wing. But as it was falling I pulled the throttle back and got no response. Rx battery was fine under load, Tx battery was still good, I was still within range. It's just one of mysteries that will never be solved.

If I had to guess, ranchpig, I'd say your crash was caused by a control surface failure due to a return of flutter or a linkage problem that was casued by the earlier flutter but not corrected.

It's amazing how the brain works. If you loose just one flight control, it actually feels like you have no control at all, unless you take the time to verify each control by itself to see what is going on. In most cases, you don't have that time, so you think you have no control.

Just yesterday, I was instructing a student. I took over for a moment after he said something was odd, and it felt like I had no control. Fortunatly, the plane was in level flight at the time. The elevator didn't respond, but I found that the ailerons, rudder, and throttle were fine. But it did take a few moments of stick wiggleing to get my brain to register that everything except the elevator was fine. Oh, I managed to "firebird" it down, made a couple of flat turns around the field and aimed for some tall grass. Only broke the wood prop, if it had been a MAS, it wouldn't have broken either. Turned out the screw holding the elevator arm on the servo had backed out, and the arm came off in flight.

A few weeks back, I had one of my planes fly in to violent aileron flutter that stripped out the aileron servo. Again, no aileron control, but everything else worked. It was a 3-channel combat plane, with no rudder. A bit of intersting use of the elevator and throttle and I was able to ditch in the tall grass with no damage to the plane. But again there was a long moment of "I have no control, oh wait, I have some control, but not what I expect".

In both of those, it happend high enough off the ground that I had time to figure out what was going on. If it had happened lower, the results would have been much messier.

You know... after reading some posts and replaying the whole thing in my mind (over and over) i bet it was tip stall. I was banking hard down wind. The only thing i can't figure out is i throttled up to pull out and nothing seemed to work. In any event it was too low to do much about it

Called tower hobbies and am getting a Hobbistar 60. It's a lot like my wrecked trainer and i don't have to build anything. Can't wait!

Just a general statement here, not directed at anyone, but don't be quick to assume interference. It happens much less frequently than you'd expect.

In my eight years and hundreds upon hundreds of flights, I can only claim one time that MIGHT have been interference. Other than that, I can be relatively sure all problems were with my equipment, or my control.

Out of thousands of witnessed flights, at two different clubs, I can truthfully say I've seen ONE positive case of interference. And then only because someone owned up to turning on a transmitter while someone else was flying.
Dennis-

I agree... the more i think about it, it had to be my fault somewhere along the line. I'm just too new. I either overlooked something or blew it in flight. I guess it's our natural reaction to "blame" something else other than us.

I guess i'll never really know. Unless i can repeat it! lol Which i hope not

Ranchpig,

If your trainer augured in, be sure you have all of your on-board electronics checked. Servos for stripped gears, battery for damaged cells, switch, wiring and especially your receiver. I personally replace the crystal in the receiver if it has been subjected to even a minor crash. If the crash was as you said, I would probably send the receiver in for service, explaining that it was in a plane that crashed.

A friend of mine had me repair a crashed Goldberg Extra 300. I told him to send the receiver in for service. He didn't and I had to repair the plane again when the receiver failed during the first flight.

Remember, replacing or repairing broken parts before installing them into a new plane is cheaper than having to replace or repair the new plane, etc.