Well it had to happen, today I did the first damage to my plane. Everything started out well enough. After burning off my first flight jitters I was really starting to get into a groove. On my third flight I had a bad landing. A really high bounce, and a nose in that bent the front landing gear really bad, but that was it. Not even a spec of dirt on the engine. I straightened the gear back out, threw the RX battery on the charger, and waited for my next flight.

After the battery was charged I fueled up, and got ready for my 4th flight. I taxied out, and noticed that it was tracking a little off, but nothing too bad at first. Well once I got up to speed it took a hard left, and wouldn't turn back to the right. I pulled the throttle to idle, but noticed I was headed towards one the of work tables (nobody was anywhere near it thankfully). I hit the throttle cut switch, and tried my best to turn away from the table. As hard as I tried the plane wouldn't turn hard enough to get away. Although it had mostly stopped it rammed the left wing into the corner of the table leg crushing a 3" section of the leading edge and destroying the sheeting about 2-3" back from the leading edge. The repair will be simple, but that doesn't help the sting.

As my wife put it, it is like the first scratch on a new car. Once you get it over with you can finally relax and really drive the car (fly the plane).

Anyway, I thought I would share the pictures of the damaged wing.

and noticed that it was tracking a little off,

And the moral of this story is...

If it ain't right, stop and fix it.

The lesson learned is easy (minor damage). If it sticks with you, there won't be major damage next time.

Dr.1

Well I started on the "rebuild". I cut away the Monokote, and removed the broken pieces. Overall the damage wasn't too bad at all.

One of the ribs was cracked a little, other than that all damage was to the sheeting and leading edge. I cleared everything back so I can reattach the new leading edge stock, and sheeting. I put some thin CA on the cracked rib to see if that would hold. Something interesting happened when I did this. I am not sure what caused it, but as I poured CA onto the crack a very faint puff of steam like vapor rose out of the wing. I know that CA has some terrible vapors, but this was actually visible. Of course this vapor wafted up and was immediately inhaled. It smelled like CA, but it was definitely odd. It doesn't look like they used CA to build the plane (Avistar Select RTF). The glue in the joints is "rubber like". I wonder if steam/vapor was the result of a chemical reaction with the adhesive they used. Very odd no matter what.

Anyway, once I get the replacement balsa and covering I expect it to be an easy repair.

See below for updated pics...

You will get the smoke from CA when it is combined with CA Kicker. You may have also noticed that it heated up, that too is part of the chemical reaction. Just wondering why is there a picnic table on your runway? Were you that far off of it that it came into play?

I've noticed that CA on cloth can also produce these fumes (I thought I set my shorts on fire when I accidentally spilled some CA on them). I think its basically a result of a quick chemical reaction of a large quantity of CA since I haven't seen small amounts do the same thing. Just my $.02

It is not in the runway, it is actually 15-20' or so feet back from the flight line. The plane just went that far off track. I have gone over it many times since it happened, I really don't know what I could have done outside of stopping as soon as I noticed it was tracking off at low speed. However our runway is pretty rough and I generally have to do slight corrections until I get close to take off speed. Everything was going pretty well, I had gone almost 25' going nearly dead straight before it veered almost 90 degrees to the left. I killed everything as quickly as I could, so much so that it was going just barely over taxi speed when it hit. Even if it had been a person I hit I doubt it would have hurt. It just happened to hit at just the right spot.

I know this though, before the plane goes in the air again I will be doing quite a bit of taxiing around the runway to make sure I have resolved the front wheel issue.

Some people don't realize that once these things get moving the only way they stop is when they hit some thing or some body and you don't always have a choice. Once some thing fails you do your best to avoid any thing that could happen. There is not much you can do is wait till it stops and take the flack from some one that was not ever around.
Yes I am asking for it but things happen that we have no control of[] and some times never find out the cause. To bad but that is part of this and any other hobby or sport[:@]

This is the downside to ARFs. To build them quickly the 9 year old sweat shop workers have "hot glue" guns and whip these things out on an assembly line. Using propper glues will get you a much stronger airframe. This "rubber like" glue is my #1 argument for building your own planes. Don't get me wrong. I have some ARFs too. But I know my built planes will out live them all.

Felix, is there a possibility that after the hard landing the nose gear arm was loose, and during that takeoff roll
the gear hit a bump and was knocked off center? Also check the rudder / nosegear servo to make sure the
impact didn't damage anything or strip the servo.

Don't beat yourself up over a mistake we all made them and still do, You learned from it now finish the repair
give the plane the twice over and get back up there.

I had some problems with my front gear on my trainer, I found it easier to push the plane around when testing
instead of taxiing with the engine running. That way if anything was wrong I didn't have a chance to get nervous
do anything stupid. (It took me some time to realize that the ailerons don't affect ground steering)

Stuff happens. My Alpha 40 crashed yesterday, due to the RX battery failing. I had it charged, but either left the switch on sometime and didn't know it, or it is getting week. My major failing was not checking it at the field before flying. LIVE AND LEARN. The damage is mainly in the nose as it went straight into a steep dive. But, it is fixable with some new wood and ultracote. And, yes, the glue used to assemble it is mostly hot glue of some type as it is rubbery.

on the CA smoke note... i often use balsa dust to fill gaps and then apply some thin CA. that stuff gets very hard and it always smokes... it also makes a faint sizzling sound.

Well I finished the repairs (see attached pictures). They are not beautiful, but this is a trainer so I wasn't really motivated to make it perfect. It looks good enough for me. Actually a friend of mine had the idea to make a Band-Aid out of Monokote to cover the damaged piece. I loved the idea, but my LHS didn't really have a good color to use.

As far as additional damage I gave the airframe a good once over (actually a twice over). I didn't see any structural damage. The firewall wasn't damaged either. I notice that the nose wheel still had some bend in it. Again my LHS didn't have a new one so I pulled it off and straightened it as much as I could. I put it all back together, and after a few pushes down my driveway, and repeated linkage adjustments, it is tracking straight again. I am half tempted to throw the wings on it an run it up and down the street just to make sure

All in all it has been a "fun" experience. I made a structurally sound repair that doesn't look too bad (from just a few feet away you can't even see it). Although mostly I am proud of myself for not just saying "I'm Done" and pulling out my upgrade plane (Big Stick) and flying it.

Thanks for all the advice and support!