I'm sure many of you have those days. Past weekend weren't much fun at all. 1st, I had bought a Multiplex Twin Jet off of an RC Groups member. This thing has two Permax 480 motors with 5x5 carbon fiber props. 1st flight, its okay but I expected a little more
"oomph". Was running an 8 cell 1800 nimh pack that will handle up to about 30 amps. Then, on 2nd flight, one of the motors quit.
After inspection, one wire came off the motor terminal. Okay...no big deal. Then took my Mavrick up. This thing is all fan fold foam.
E-flite 370 outrunner brushless with 11.1 volt lipoly's for power. I launched and forgot I had high rates on. Damn thing rocked side to side and then just landed in grass breaking the firewall (I had it glued).
Sunday, at club fun fly, I took my Space Walker 2 and a Pete 'n Poke. Previously, I had cut the fuel line so had to do a fix. Well you have to take off the spinner, the prop and the cowl and try and fish through 3 lines thru a smallish hole in firewall. And to make things interesting, the motor mount covers up alot of the hole. Put new fuel line in and fueled up. Fuel pours out of muffler line. I had the damn tank in upside down. So, take off all this crap and try again. Guess what? So "bleepin" thing!!!! So I do it again. All this time, its 93 degrees and humid. Then, after getting this junk done, I can't find the two white nylon wing bolts!!!! Arrggghhh!!!!!! After 15 minutes of swearing etc., I found them in my flight box. A towel got put over them in the box. Finally got it right. Started engine and the Thunder Tiger Pro .46 sounds like ****! Had to lean it out.
Flew 1st flight. Fine! 2nd flight, engine quits as I go from idle to full. DEADSTICK!!! So I'm gliding this thing to bring it down
and I have no control on right aileron. What the **** is goin on now???? I landed it fine. Upon inspection, the control rod keeper on the servo came off. Hmm...I thought these things never come off? Well, I am really ticked off now and go to fly the Poke. Turn on plane's system and got nothing. Take bottom cover off and find the positive wire had come off the connector!!! SOB!!! By this time I'm soaked with sweat and aint got nuthing to drink. Finally flew the poke after taking the rx batt out of my Space Walker. I also had
to lean out the Saito .56 in the poke as it wouldn't run worth crap in this heat. While flying the poke, the wind picks up making the plane a real handful. Because of the high and flat bottom wing, this plane don't like the wind at all. I landed, took apart the planes and loaded them into car. I was at the field from a little after 10 AM to about 5 PM and only flew 3 damn times!!! Two other club members dorked. One had the fuel line break on take off. He crashed into weeds. One of the club's instructor's, flew his Sig Rascal for a few flights and then upon landing, ground looped it and it flipped over breaking the rudder.
Epilogue.....fixed the space walker's aileron controls. Zee bends and threaded clevises. Twin Jet flies better now. I put on 5.5x4 MAS props.
Sorry for the winded message. Kinda funny now but I wasn't laughing sunday at the field!

Dave...

I had a day of rebiulding like that. Everything possible went wrong. Then the superstar and my foot got in a fight.


Guess who won?

Who won Chad? The plane is dead and you have no plane to fly. I see no winner.

Dave, don't you just hate days like that?

I had a couple of them. Took the PT-19 with the 41cc motor out, guys shows up and starts talking crap about loosing the field. I was trying to calm him down as I plugged the fuel line in. Started pumping while I was talking, and after a while I thought "this tank is not that big". I looked under it, no fuel, picked up the nose and felt the cg change. The wing was full of fuel. I had plugged into the smoke line, which is not connected at the time. Dumb!!! Cut all the covering off and drained it out. Pulled the heli out and flew it in the wind. When I landed, my antenna had 4 breaks in it. Clean, even cuts that were half way between each mounting point. I will never figure that one out. From now on, antenna on helis will be in a tube or a whip.

Last sunday, took them both out again, took off with the 19, flew 5 minutes and didn't like the way the engine was running so I landed it, took off with the heli for the first time 4 months, flew a while, did some loops and rolls, and the engine quits. Nothing like keeping you on your toes. Luckilly, got it down in one piece too.

Fun!

You're looking at it wrong. You over came a lot of adversity, managed to get three flights in, and went home with your planes intact.

I had a similar problem yesterday.. I run a Header tank setupin me Ultra Stick Lite1.2 as I was fueling (manual pump the uys waiting to watch me fly were beting on how many revolutions it would take to fill the tanks.. After 67 I knew somthing was wrong.. I looked under the plane and noticed fuel dripping near the LG.. After pulling the wwing and ripping out the bar holding in the tanks I found the 12 oz. main tank was full (thank god) and only 2 oz. (header) had leaked out. So after drying that out and putting on new lines and Stuffing the tanks back into the plane (Harder than it seems) I've now been at the fiel 1hour 30 minutes and havent started the engine.. Get everything back together and have to charge RX batts. So finally when everythings finished I taxi out and take off,. Turned out to be my best day flying yet.. Did my first rolling circles!

Ditto on post 5 - your sorry day of events would have put some out of the hobby. You kept plodding along! No matter how experienced, we all have our bad days at the flying field. Sometime they could have been avoided, othertimes not. The key is you identified all issues, fixed them, and you still have your planes and fingers. For a bad day, I'd say you faired fairly well overall. Hopefully your next day of flying will be trouble free. Cheers.

Yeah, glad I came home with all aircraft still in one piece. Especially the deadstick incident. Plane was low enough to not have to make circles plus, it was heading into the wind. I always thought horn keepers wouldn't come off. I have or should I say "Had" some in the tool box. They went out with the garbage.
Used to complain about wind and rain and not being able to fly. Now, its over 90, humid. Too hot for me.

Dave...

Bruce,
I will not say anything except that my foot beat that plane up pretty bad...

was that a girly foot

Man bubba, i hate to degrade you, but your one to talk.

That's dumb....

I guess you're smiling the whole time you're building a new one. How did Momma feel when you told her you needed more money to buy a new airplane because you stuck your foot through yours in a fit of rage? Or, did you leave that part out....

Please do explain what you mean...[sm=confused.gif]