I have just maidened my World Models SS40, well, for about 5 seconds.
I taxied in position and throttled up. She went as straight as an arrow down the runway. She lifted off perfectly into a gentle climb, but then the right wing tip started to drop, so I gave it a little left slick so I could continue to gain height This had no effect , the wing tip kept dropping even with full left rudder, and that was it, all over. Both engine and plane are totalled
I am self taught so I am looking for some possible reasons why she went in 5 seconds or so after clearing the runway.
The plane was put together exactly as per instructions, CG etc, all the control throws were set to the instructions, trims were centered, control surfaces neutral and pre-flight checks completed. Batteries were fully charged and I WAS TURNED ON AS WELL.

Gutted [&o][&o][&o]

Does the servo work now? have you checked the radio gear? i had a similar problem it was due to my Tx having a broken wire.

Pilot error. You need some help with such things until you are confident enough.

Quick to point the finger arnt you? To me it sounds like something else. Nowhere did I see a mention of being unconfident either. He obviously had enough time to think about his reactions. The plane was turning, he made a correction and got no response. Even with full rudder input.

Did you range check? Was the Rx recently in a crash previous to this plane. A bad crystal sometimes won't show itself until the enigne vibrations hit it. Did you not ANY glitching? Lets do this systematically and see if we can find out what brought the plane down.
Did you check the servo horns? even the best pilots have forgotten to screw down a horn. Put your battery on a load with a voltmeter. Sometimes a battery may seem fine, but when under load craps out.

goodluck

Sean

Sounds like a stall. Some planes need considerable speed before lifting and need to maintain air speed while climbing. If speed is too low, one or more of the control surfaces will not be effective.

DaveB

OK...I stand corrected. Perhaps this wasn't the problem here. However, since the engine is turning counter clockwise, if the airplane did stall, the right wing would drop as indicated.

The description is consistent with a reversed aileron senario, Just another possibility among many.

No, brysis was not there, but neither was ANY experienced pilot. None of us KNOW if his controls were rigged to run in the correct direction, if the plane was actually in balance, if he was climbing into a stall or what ACTUALLY happened. Under the best of conditions, there may still be some guessing here. THIS is why it is recommended that you get with an experienced pilot at the minimum for your first flight. I am truly sorry for your loss and hope you continue to fly but again STRONGLY urge you to seek competent assistance in learning. []
Best of luck in figuring out what went wrong.

Bruce

Could the ailerons have been reversed? Just a thought.

1. did you rembember to extend your antana
2. it may have been a stall , how long did it stay on the ground before it lifted off?
3. when you picked the mess was everthing still hooked and working?
4. sometimes if the aileron lead gets in the way of the servos they will un plug and then no control

Just a few thoughts

Was it a gradual roll or a quick roll? If it snapped in a stall the roll would be very quick and suprising. Can you safley say you had enough flying speed?

Sean

Well first he didnt say this was HIS first flight. He said it was the planes maiden. Even though he is self taught, doesnt tell you how long he has been flying. I am self taught and havent had a serious (knock on wood here please) crash yet and I have 4 planes and have been flying for over a year. He was just asking for suggestions on what to check for possible problems. I too agree with HOOKEDONRC, it sounds like he said the more he put in left it rolled right, (or thats how he remembered it). Under stress ppl remember the strangest things and forget a lot.

He said he used left rudder to attempt to correct. Is this a 3 channel plane? I am unfamiliar with this aircraft. Perhaps he had insufficient rudder throw.

Bruce

I just looked at a couple of his prior threads and he has flown several other planes before. He has in the past had an unusual tx setup. I recommend you read some of his other threads before commenting further. I withdraw my comments about his inexperience but he has gotten into some unusual habits you can read about. They should not have caused this crash however. I am back to not knowing what caused the problem, need more data.

I know this is off topic but i have to ask this guy how the BORO are doing. My home town was stockton-on-tees until i moved to the US. where do you fly? i did not know there were any flying fields in middlesbrough. next time i am home to visit family maybe we could fly together.
paul

Only thing that it looks to me to be without further info is that the ailerons were reveresed. Its easy to miss some things when you are anxious for a maiden flight. I missed some revered ailerons prior to the maiden flight on my Stuka. I was just checking that everything moved with the sticks. Another pilot was watching and noticed that they were backwards!! Owe him a few beers for that one! I put together an SS 40 last fall and managed to get in several flights on it before winter. No problems that I can see. Flys rock stable fast or slow!

It does sound as though the ailerons were reversed, or that they weren't plugged in at all, but it's really hard to tell from the brief decsription. (And yes, I took off once without plugging in the ailerons. Got distrated when setting up the plane, but managed to get it back in one piece. )

Can you give us any more info smoogy?
Dennis-

Again guys, he said he used the RUDDER!!!!!!!! which could indeed have been backward. Is this a taildragger or tri-cycle gear plane?

Bruce

SS40 is one of the nicest planes when it's slow I could imagine. You really have to be crawling along for it to stall. I noticed you said you used rudder, did you mean alieron? My first reaction would be that the alieron servo is backwards. BUT. If you were using rudder, it's possible on some planes to give a little too much rudder, and the plane will roll back the other way. Dosen't sound like it rolled opposite, so it's just a theory. What was the weather like? Our field gets burbles that will drop a plane 20 feet in a hearbeat, usually right on final.

Andy

This plane flys rock solid.
It is a tri gear, low wing, semi symmetrical with some dihedral.

Here is a pic.

I have had this plane for 3 years and love it.
Great second plane.

Bill

Even if it taxi'd correct, he still could have had the rudder itself reversed. It looks like a nice plane. Still waiting on more info from Smoggy.

Bruce

Well he is probably sleeping now if you see where he is from. We can all discuss what might have happened. But without more info from him directly (his only post is the first one) its impossible to tell.

BTW: He stated he "EVEN" used full rudder, which is another speculation that he was trying ail's and ele's.

If he is sleeping now he goes to bed earlier than my kids lol it is 1:45 in Iowa so it will be 7:45 pm in england

I think from his previous posts he's a Brit working in China

Terry

I am going with the reversed ailerons suggestion.

Jim C

I was thinking about this post in my accounting class tonight (I have my priorities straight, as you can tell), and I was thinking about spins. What makes an airplane spin? Stall + uncoordinated flight = Spin.

It could be that he pitched it up with insufficient speed, and stalled it. The counter clockwise rotation of the motor would cause the right wing to drop on the stall. Then, if he added rudder, that would have introduced the right conditions for a spin.

Considering that neither the airplane or the engine survived, it must have nosed in. This would be consistant with a spin as well. Obviously due to the brevity of the flight, the spin coulnd't have been very developed.

Just a thought.