I got to the field today to find out it was entierly to windy for me to fly the foamy that I took out. When I got there there were only 2 other people. The one guy that was there flys a very nice composite 35% extra. He is a really nice guy and has helped me a alot as I have been learning so I decided to hang a bit and watch him fly and give him a hand with anything if he needed. Walkin over to him I almost said "Nice its still in one piece" but stoped my self at the last second being the supersticous person I am. I thought to myself dont ever say some stuff like that cause the first time you do he is gonna take off and end up crashing or something crazy. Well I go over and start talking to him and he tells me how he finaly got his engine all broke in and tunned right and he was really happy with his plane. He fires it up takes off and all goes great for the first couple minutes, it really was running good. He comes down the runway full speed inverted about 30' up and had a brain fart and pulled back on the stick instead of pushing up to climb. In less then a second it went from straight level flight to in the ground. I felt so bad I couldnt believe what I just saw. I have seen some small planes destroyed before but never anything like this. He wasn't doing anything out of the normal he was just overly tired and stoped concentraiting for a split second at the wrong time. This was a big reality check for me. Even someone that expierenced can crash that easly just by small lax in concentration. It will deffinatly force me to focus more on what I am doing while flying. I can get pretty lax at times esp since I have been pretty board with the trainer I have been flying.

There hasn't been aa single day at the field where I haven't witnessed a major crash. Everybody crashes from time to time even if he has excellent skills (e.g. faulty servo, strong breeze, radio interference). At least with foam models this isn't a big disappointment!

No kidding. Every time I go to the field and there's more than five people there I see a crash. I don't know what it is, but I hope my turn doesn't come too quickly. [:@]

Eh...they ALL have expiration dates...it just isn't printed on them anywhere.

All model airplanes come with an expiration date we just don't know when it is. If you fly them sooner or later you'll crash for one reason or another. Some birds can be repaired which extends the final date. Hanger queens don't get crashed.

Looks like we had the same thoughts gboulton!

I will buy the "all airplanes have an experation date" statement but not because they all get crashed. That is just simply not true at all.Many airplanes get retired when it starts to get raggy or the owner just puts it on a shelf to fly something else. I have given away 4 airplanes now and traded 2 others, one of them a trainer that is over 25 years old and going to be flown by another new student pilot in the next couple of weeks.
We have had one crash at our field so far this year and that airplane is repairable.

Yeah, but that's cheating. It's like saying a 2 year old gallon of milk hasn't expired because nobody's drinking it.

Great minds think alike....

I'm not sure WHAT explains US doing so though.

No, not at all. I just didn't want the new guys thinking we crash all of our planes. That statement is often spoken when a crash thread come along inferring that all planes are going to crash, not a pretty thought for someone new to the hobby and not true at all.

*heh*

You certainly have a valid point. We DO, in general, tend to have a pretty fatalistic attitude about our planes.

Of course, one MIGHT suggest that inferring they'll all go in EVENTUALLY actually HELPS the new guy stay in the hobby...rather than thinking he must not be cut out for it because he crashed a plane.

Being the new guy, I can honestly say I would have just walked away had I bought into the idea that all planes will crash, that would make this hobby WAY too expensive for my budget. (Family of five, income less than 30K per year)

Fortunately, I know from my first instructor, in my first go around, that this is just not true. His attitude was he was going to teach me how not to crash. Even though I backed away for 5 years, and ultimately soloed with different teachers, I like to think that his school of thought is the right one.

With good preflight practices and piloting skills you can really minimize crashes (one per five or so years). There's no reason for this hobby to be expensive unless you want it to be.

WOW!
At our field we have our share of crashes, but, there are lots of days where everyone takes them home in the same condition as they arrived.

I think this all also depends on what you consider a crash. I know one or two guys who consider anything you can't taxi back a crash of some sort. Personally, I don't consider it a crash unless the plane has to go home for repairs.
As for the plane expiration date, I do think they all have them if you fly them long enough. It may not occur while you have it but if it gets flown,something will eventually fail. In my case it used to be my piloting ability most of the time. Now I know enough to fly within the plane's and my limits. Doesn't keep things like a servo failure or dropping a cell in your Rx battery from happening, but that and a good preflight will go a long way in reducing the number of crashes you do have. I haven't totaled an airframe in several years if you don't count my electric 3D foamie stuff. But those are just for all the low slow dumb stuff that would be costly do screw up on with a built up plane.
I think our field averages about one crash a week. I think I have seen 4 or 5 in one day though

Only one of two things can happen when you fly:
1. One day you will take off knowing it's your last flight.
2. One day you will take off not knowing it's your last flight.

This was originally written about pilots. But I guess it applies to Airplanes as well.

Deadly statement: "I'm gonna have one last flight"

I always like going to the warbird events. They take the cake for both quality and quantity of crashes.

The sad part is that there is no reason for warbirds to crash so often. []

Yes there is, poor piloting.

Exactly, but just because it's a warbird doesn't mean it's destined to crash.

We had a two day fun-fly with 50 pilots and two crashes of a "complete destruction" nature last August. One of those was a gut wrenching deliberate ditch when a twin engine 1/5 scale Broncho lost the starboard engine on approach and veered toward the crowd. That's valour on the pilot's part. The other was a giant-scale Gee Bee. You're not flying scale if you don't crash a Gee Bee 15% of the time. Aside from that our club of 35 had four crashes all of last year that I know of (one was yours truly trying to do a full throttle roll at eye level . . . hot dogs, or at least hot dogging, can be poison). Some days there are no mishaps, even minor ones. Some months there are no "reported" crashes. But then there are only two guys in the club who could be considered true "3-D" fliers.

When the angels pee in your carburator and the gremlins kick your thumb you just have to gather the pieces and keep at it.

Well, I've never heard it put quite that way before. [X(]

This is my first post, just started in this adictive hobby last Dec. The club I fly with has very few crashes, most of the guys are veterans. I started flying with a Nexstar, soloed and crashed it, stalled on landing. One of our members gave me a 25 yr old trainer to put my engine on and I really learned on it. It was much better to learn on than the Nexstar. A couple of weeks ago I was flying it and was doing very well after making well over a dozen take offs and successful landings, went up one too many times, got too far out and panic set in and I lost it in the woods next to our field, took about 6 or 7 trips back to the wood to find but am now repairing, amazing how tough that old bird is, also amazing how far they really can go.

I too would not have started into this flying thing if I thought crashes were all that common.

You know, I crashed a plane today but I class it as a good day at the field.

Let me explain

Took my leccy cub up, (e-flite 60" wing jobby) and it was flying nice after I sorted that bad undercarriage RoG drift I have, then in a low turn (40 ft) coming in on final I lose all signal to the plane Spektrum 2.4????), can't pull out the turn, throttle, nothing.

So in it goes. I lose a prop, that's it.VERY lucky!!

It 'landed' in some young crops, bout 2-3 ft high. The plane will be fine.

That hurts my confidence (I've not been flying to long) but I had my 100 Saito powered Hellcat with me and I didn't bring it to look at. I fuel her up and have some great flights, guy at the field takes some low pass photo's for me and everything was great.

The crash, while annoying was not my fault and I brought my £450 ($900+) Hellcat back home.

So, I class that as a great days flying [8D]

Bit pi&%$! about that signal loss though.