Last year, i was donated a trainer. I mastered it and moved onto a GP Easy Sport. I felt really ocnfident in it until today.

I was coming in for a landing, when suddenly a gust of wind blew my plane to the right heading straight for the flight line, and possible people, (i didnt check because i couldnt keep my eyes of the plane). So i cut the engine (bad thing to do) and tried to land in the minimum amount of space before the fence, totaled. The plane... just died. However, this isnt a post to actually express my feelings over my crash, i just want to let other beginners know that a first crash is like a stepping stone in this hobby. If you dont pass it, you will give up forever. You will crash, its coming, no body knows when, but when it does, be ready to take the pain and just move on. It was at that moment i was really thankful that i kept my trainer in ARF condition after stripping it of its engine and radio. Turns out, that the crash harmed none of those, so for the last few hours, i was doing some operations here and there and got my trainer all fixed up and ready to go. So know i have my traienr and my tiger moth to keep me happy. Also, this experience taught me to be a real RC modeler. First, you crash, then you yap about what happened with your club mates, then you go home, take all the crap out of the plane, and put it on a new one and go fly. What a great feeling it is now.

To tell you the truth, i felt much better after writing this post.


Samolot

A pic explaining how it happened, and a last pic of plane on its table. RIP Easy Sport, we had some good times, hope your enjoying the trash can.

PS: After i looked around the field after my crash, it turned out people with helicopters were on that side of the flight line, if i didnt cut my engine and tried to fly out passing through the flight line, who knows what might have happened...

Actually I commend you on the quick thinking and killing to engine and basically destroying the plane so as not to harm any people. Nice move, really, I do mean that in a good way [sm=thumbup.gif]

At the same time I am sorry it did happen but as you said so well, that is one hump any new pilot must get over and always have a backup if at all possible

The same sort of thing has happened to me, in my case I could see the people at the flight line and I actually nosed it in to make sure I didn't hit them.
That plane was repaired and flew many more flights before what appeared to be a broken clevis pin on the elevator sent it to its demise.
When I have crashed an ARF I have mostly looked at it as an opportunity to get a new plane, its when a kit built plane goes in that I feel the pain.

yep every plane has an expiration date on it only nobody knows where it is or when it is, you did the right thing , better to loose a plane than to hurt some one. still it really bites the big one when you crash . Make sure to get back into the air as soon as posible, I dumped a plane when I was first off the buddy box with my instructor watching, I was ready to give it up, but the instructor basicly made me fly again that day. It got me over the shock that I wasnt near as good as I thought I was and made me a better pilot

This plane was totaled. NOthing you could do about it. Club mates were just giving pep talks after that. They were like, its realy not worht working your ass off for a hundred dollar plane. Just get another one like the super sports or a chipmunk, all up to me. Thats the good thing about ARFS, cheap, it works, ad its not a pain in in the ass to crash.

Samolot

Sam, sorry for your loss, but you`ve got the right attitude. Actually, it`s really the only one you can have and still stay in this game. This is a hobby where you break things. Nobody wants to or likes to but it just comes with the territory. By the way, this is another example, IMHO, that illustrates the value of keeping your trainer. Kept my Avistar and been very glad I did.

I had the EXACT same thing happen to me on Thursday. Coming in for a landing in a gusty cross wind, huge gust hits my wing and l have to go full aileron to correct. However after the correction the plane was heading straight for the pits and flight line. I had no room to land or correct so I chopped throttle and nosed it in. Fortunately there was minimal damage to my plane as I was going fairly slow with minimal altitude. Much rather my plane gets damaged than someone else's plane or God forbid hurt someone.

Much better to kill the plane than to injure one of your friends in the smallest way. Ya did good.[sm=thumbup.gif]

Yeah but its to bad we can't get our enemies to line up at the end of the runway ..... just kidding ... sort of :-)

Sorry to hear that Sam. But as said above it is one hurdle that every pilot must get over sooner or later. The first one can sting hard, but believe me when I tell you they do get easier to accept after the first one. (voice of experience here, on crashing). It allways sucks, but ya just got to get over it & keep going. Good luck with your next plane. Well done choosing other's safety over your own plane![sm=thumbup.gif][sm=thumbup.gif][sm=thumbup.gif]

For other new pilots.
As soon as you know you are hooked on RC,,, save up and get you a second plane... I mean a second plane that you can handle, even if its a replica of your 1st trainer. That way if something bad happens you have another plane that allows you to hop right back on the horse as soon as your broken heart heals. The worst thing that can happen is to demolish your only plane and be forced to sit and watch for weeks or months until you get another plane in the air.
Also, Learning to fly on the buddy box with a compotant intructor almost gives a 100% chance of this not happening. I cannot think of a single new club member that has crashed due to dumb thumbs in the last couple of years. Most of them have not crashed yet period. Maybe a hard landing, but major crashes are rare at our field because we teach pilots to know how to make a thorough preflight check to aviod equipment failures and recognize their limits as a pilot. We encourage them to progress slowly into aerobatics so they never really get into a position they arent comfortable with.

I realize that we dont all have the money to do this,,, but if you can afford it it sure makes it better.

I couldn't agree more! That is exactly what eventually got me soloed, after loosing two Instructors do to some serious medical problems (cancer) with both of them, they just were'nt able to continue Instructing or even flying at all for a long time. So they had to cut me loose & told me to try & practice on the sim as much as I could. Which I did but I was too scared to crash my only Trainer, The Tower Trainer MKII RTF. So I bought a NexStar RTF as well. I liked the idea of having the sim for the exact Trainer I would be trying to solo on as opposed to the PT 40 that was on G2-Lite the only sim I had at the time. It flew on the sim much differently than my Tower did IMO. Based on the little buddy box time I did get on the Tower before loosing my Instructors. So I practice & practiced as much as I could with the NexStar sim. After I got pretty good with it on the sim I then started turning up the wind speed, direction, & gusts to ridiculously adverse conditions because where I live, if you can't fly in the wind then you will not be flying very often, maybe for the few dog-days of summer & that would be it. Anyway it was the fact of knowing I still had the Tower as a spare that gave me the courage to go out and solo the NexStar after I felt I had pretty much mastered it on the sim in 20 to 25 mph winds & 50 mph gusts, (just for fun) So that's how I did it & after turning off the AFS which is junk by the way, I did just fine. It was one of funnest days I have had all by myself in many years. I since then have realized the possible dangers of flying alone & no longer do that. I did want that first solo attempt to be alone though with no-one else there just me & the plane either I was gonna fly it or crash it. Both the NexStar & the Tower are still alive & well today.

I have beeen guilty of wanting to move up to hotter planes sometimes too early, I think most of us are just a little bit. Knowing I had that spare plane ready to go if I crashed got me over the hurdle of being afraid if I crash this thing I'm out of the game for God only knows how long. So I wasn't nearly as nervous & shaking about giving it a try.

I crashed my Cap the other day due to a poor build on my part to begin with, no CA hinge experienced when I assembled it well over a year ago, got about 10 great flights out of it before the elevator halves decided to seperate themselves from the stab in the middle of a move that was above my head & skill level to begin with & we all know what happened after that. The dreaded death spiral. After a few moments of solemn silence for my favorite plane, my pride & joy to be quite honest. I went right back to Airborne our local WM distibutor & came home with a WM Ultimate 40S yesterday. The point being, if I don't get right back in the saddle I could spend the next few months months mourning the loss of my beloved Cap, but I'm never gonna learn to fly 3D crying over the loss of my plane, so I just got another one, & I'll keep doing it till I get it right! I have much better assembling skills now than I did a year & half ago. Skills that I've learned here in RCU. If I crash the Ultimate, it will definitely be due to dumb-thumbs, but I guarantee you it won't be due to any kind of assembly failure.[sm=idea.gif] So grab anothe plane & get right back out there!

Thats the reason why i kept my trainer. THe only problem is, weather. Right now, its saturday, and a perfect oppotrunity awaits me to go flying, escept, its raining. I have finished building my eletric tiger moth so ill have two planes to fool around with. About the crash, well, once it went for the flight line, i did what every newb would do, panick. So then i guess i made some mistakes but all in all, couldnt get it out of its heading, so i put her in. The speed was minimal but unfortunately, it cartwheeled in, killing anything in the plane except radio and engine thank god. I guess i have the right attitude because, i do have other planes to fly, and my dad even mentioned that hes happy i got rid of the easy sport; he thinks its really ugly anyway. I still feel a little bummer because that was my only "slightly" aerobatic plane, i really dont want to fly the trainer anymore because it would be boring, but until then the trainer it is. I think i might get the super sports from WM. Looks nice and its cheap.

Thanks alot guys,

Samolot

Hold up a minute on the Super Sports Sam & consider the LA Racer. It's the same price & a much nicer looking plane IMO & probably your Dad's too. It sounds like we have similar tastes in airplanes. This little guy has pretty sharp looking lines, it's a Tail-Dragger & considered to be an Aerobatic Trainer with a fully symetrical airfoil. It even has a little cowl. You can have this little bird up & ready in a weekend with the salvaged gear & engine from your Easy Sport no problem. Actually it looks to be a simple & quick assembling airplane that could be done in a day, but after rushing to get my Cap done when I originally assembled it last year, then loosing it this week do to a bad CA hinging job on my part (elevators came out of the stab) I've learned to slow down & not be in such a hurry to get it done. This one could be assembled well & right in two days at an un-hurried pace. It comes in four different color schemes as well. I was gonna buy it so that I too would still have another aerobatic plane to practice on, but my flying buddy told me they should still have an Ultimate 40S left that was a scratch & dent with basicly no real damage just a couple dimples in the covering on the bottom side of the wing. Sure enough when I got there he still had it & gave it to me for $90 so I couldn't pass that up. But I think you'll like the LA Racer. I'll put up a link of it for you to see it in all for colors. This link is from Airborne Models because they are within 20 minutes of my house I just go there to pick up what I need. Since you're back east it might be cheaper for you to order from Hobby Warehouse out of Kentucky. Unless you know of another WM distributor that's closer to where you live. I originally ordered my Cap from them & paid another twenty something bucks in shipping to get it out here.When it arrived I opened the shipping box & first thing I see on the Model box is a sticker reading Airborne Models Livermore, Ca.[&:] So I paid them all that money to ship me an airplane that they got from a place 20 minutes from my house. Lol. check it out & see if you like it before you buyanother Trike gear plane for the same price.

http://www.airborne-models.com/html/...p?ProductID=91


Good luck & chin up, it's all just part of the process to get us to the kind of planes we want to be able to fly.

elenasgrumpy, are you talking about the super sports form World models? THats also considerd to be an aerobatics trainer and it was recommneded to me by my club mates. BUt you know what, that la racer is also a very good looking plane. Guess ill have to play the picking game. Thanks for the tip!

Samolot