Well, I know others have confessed their stupidity here, so I will too. Yesterday I did the big no-no. I've flown my plane 6 of 7 times with an umbilical cord to my instructor.
With weather being on my mind and wishing to get as much flying time as possible. I was really bum-ed to not be able to fly this weekend. My instructor was not going to be available. I spent most of the morning working in my home office. But, as the day went on, I decided to load up and go to the airfield. Maybe, if I was real lucky, my instructor may have gotten away. But mostly, I was just planning to practice driving it on the ground and take-off rolls. My instructor had advised me to practice that in an open area. When I got to the field, no one was there and the gate was locked.
I decided to go out to a wildlife/shooting club I belong to. I spend lot of time there and have plans to fly there when I get more time under my belt. When I got there I sat around talking to friends. They were really pushing me to fly it. Well I had no intentions of doing that, but I did decide to practice driving and take-off rolls. And I did for over an hour, Refueled a couple of times, got myself a little more familiar to the engine operations, tuning it.
Mean while, several friends had gathered and were giving me H-E-double-tooth-picks.
I was practicing more take-off rolls. Well, the long and short of it, they finally got their wish, it lifted off perfectly. But I knew then, "I had to get it back down in one piece". Well, that made me nervous. I decide to make it a very short flight and started lining it up to land. Actually, I had it lined up pretty good. The problem came when my depth perception got distorted. I pulled the throttle back to let it settle in, it was coming in good, until it smacked the top of a pine tree. A friend and I both said to each other, we could have sworn it was this side of the tree.
Well the wing pull loose and it was stuck in the top of the tree. One of the fellows giving me heck to fly it said he felt so bad, he'd get his tree stand and climb up and get it. He climbed as high as he could with the stand, then he climbed to the top by the limbs. He was able to get it (all of it) down, lowering it with nylon cord.
Some structural damage and one hole in the wing. and a broken blade on the prop. I've order the parts and I wont fly again with out my instructor until its time for me to solo.



Stupid......stupid......stupid......stupid.....stu pid.......stupid!!!!!

I would say that it sounds like you did relatively well- Except for the tree..

Do you think you would have landed if you didn't hit the tree.....?

At least you have a good story now. I landed in a tree once after my engine cut out while I was in a torque roll. The tree landing is still my favorite rc story.

It looks like you got off pretty easy and it sounds like you are almost ready for solo. Get back on the buddy box for a bit and you will be on your own before you know it.

Been there, done it. Your experience almost exactly mirrors mine.

The single most difficult thing to learn when flying is depth perception. Once you have a little more experience, start to practice basic pattern flying and you will quickly improve your depth perception.

Practice, practice and practice some more.

Safe flying!

Most people have had a similar experience...

e.g. Can't fly becuase of etc etc etc... Look at the Airplane, Start the engine...

Next thing you know your in the air without your instructor...

The only difference is how it ends... For me I got down safe 3 or 4 times but that was as much luck as it was bad luck that you hit the tree... I had also Solo'd by that stage...

I think the worse thing will be explaining to your instructor... [:@]

Matt

Ws that you on Ameircas Funniest Videos the other night, flying into a pole?

"I could have SWORN I was on this side of the trees!"

That's what I told my dad the day I plowed MY first plane through the pines.

Consider yourself lucky, mine was demolished!

The point is, it happens to all of us. Like blikseme said, depth perseption is tricky. Chalk it up to a valuable lesson learned!

When i learned how to fly our field was completely surrounded by trees. We had to circle inside the field with some of the low powered trainers to get enough altitude to climb out! (ever fly a duraplane witha 25fp?) Those trees claimed alot of planes. Larger planes had to shoot through gaps in the trees to land. Man i am glad we have a new field now. Those trees can jump quite a ways to get a plane if they want to!

As others have said already, don't feel too bad.

I remember my first flight with a 60 size plane, it was quite a bit larger than what I was used to, and yes I swear I was on THIS side of the trees. I didn't get off as lucky as you either.
Dennis-

I have thought about flying in my local park before i had lessons. And all the times i have thought baout something held me back. I think those things now...

bbell,
Just tell everybody you experienced an "arborial vortex". That's when a tree just sucks your plane right into it. It's happened to me a number of times. They strike without warning and have a greater range than you think. Kind of like old Charlie Brown's "kite-eating tree"

papermache

I too thought I was on THIS side of......................

I had learned to fly at a public park in Portland Oregon. I moved away, and several years later, I visited there with some friends, and brought a plane. They had started the construction of a hotel downwind of the runway. Setting up for landing, I checked with my friend that my plane had passed the building: "Yeah, come down and land".
That's when the plane dissapeared!
I ran to the other side of the building, expecting to find a pile of rubbish. Nothing!!! I searched the floors under contruction, and ended up finding my chipmunk landed on the roof, just with dammaged wings from rebars sticking out of the concrete........

I guess I was grabbed by some constructional vortex!!!

I flew with my instructor today and had a crash as well. all is good cause the plastic screws sheared off saving the wing (cheap easy fix vs. time intensive and dificult repairs) and the motor mount saved the prop and engine.
Plane spent about 3 sec. in the air. LOL then it fliped over and nosed in. every thing looks ok cept the afore mentioned parts. will check over the plane in more detail tomarow as every thing is crazy at my house right now. lol, little bros school is hostin B-ball games tonight so its not safe for rc stuff to be on carpet.

Thanks for all the support and stories of experience. Makes me feel a little better........, but still have to tell my instructor about the "arborial vortex".

My damages are moderate. I'm not very knowledgeable with recovering, but I guess I'll learn. I also have some structural damage to both the fuse and the wings. The leading edge of the wing (I assume to be thin balsa rolled around the skeleton) is busted on both sides of the wing. I went ahead and ordered a new wing and a couple of props. That cost me $110.00, Stupid........Stupid......Stupid! The fuse (at the wing bolt down area) has some split ply. I think some epoxy and clamps will fix that.

We all will make a stupid mistake sometime or another your not the first and i know you will not be the last. the good thing is that your plane can be repaired and i guess you have learned a valuable lesson from it. also by posting it here you have shared your experience and hopefully someone else will not make the same mistake as you did.
good luck with the repairs
paul

Sorry to hear that. I'll join the list of people who did the same thing.

I was flying a fairly new (6 flights) on my Seagull 66inch extra and enjoying ever minute of it. I was at our other field that no one really flies at since it's kinda rough, well anyway I was out pretty far along the tree line and over the trees. I was lining up on base from downwind and as soon as I rolled level, whack. I caught the right wing with the very top of a really small branch and watched it tumble down through the tree all the way to the ground.

The weird thing was I saw the hit and thought to myself that doesn't look good and about then the sound of the impact got to me.

What made matter worse was I was just telling one of the guys how proud of myself I felt after 400+ flights without even tearing the landing gear out of any of my planes and the really ironic thing was that person was my instructor.

Oh Well my dad always told me that if I was going to do anything to always do it right. Well my first crash was done as best as I could do as there was nothing left but the front of the fuse from the canopy forward. It did not even scratch the tru-turn spinner.

bubba, haha good story, but isnt a seagull a sea plane?

Welcome to the lumberjacks club!!!

I hit a couple of trees learning too, and one of the hardest things I found was depth perception, but only one of the hard things. It always looks closer than it is.

Don`t feel too bad about it though, a couple of French pilots drove an Airbus A320 into pine trees whilst `giving a show` about 15 years ago. No restrictions on who can do it. Your damage was probably only about a hundred bucks; theirs was $40 million!