CGRetired

My Feedback: (1)

I built the Goldberg Protege after Minnflyer did a review on this plane, I thought I would like it, so I picked one up. The only difference was I used an OS .75 AX instead of the OS .55 AX that Minnflyer used.

Move forward about a year. I went out to the field to fly the Protege. Well, the wind was blowing pretty hard and I was debating flying it or not, but I really wanted to fly. The wind was going right down the runway so, this was a 'good' wind. So, up it went. I flew it for the full tank and landed it. Landing was a real breeze (pun intended). So, after a real greaser landing, I put it down on the ground behind the work bench and went to help one of the other guys with his plane.

Well, no sooner did I walk away, did I hear a loud crash. I turned around and saw my Protege upside down about 10 feet from where I set it.

The wing was ripped off and the formers from the firewall to the wing saddle were broken away from the fuselage. What a mess... but repairable.

Today is a cold and windy day, with a promise of snow, so I decided to take a vacation from chores and get to the Progege and see exactly what the damage was. Well, as I said, the formers were broken away from the fuselage sides.. but they are actually not broken, but the glue that was supposed to hold the thing together just failed to do it's job.

Everything actually snapped together on the fuselage so I mixed up some 30 minute epoxy and put it together again. It's now sitting there on the floor, with the epoxy setting up. I applied some epoxy to all the edges of the firewall and pushed it in with an exacto knife blade so it penetrated into the space between the firewall and the ply covering along the sides and bottom.

Next will be to put the wing back together. That will be a tad bit more chalenging because there are some broken wood parts that I will have to fabricate. Not a problem, I will get that done this afternoon too.

The right wing has a broken length of balsa right at the bolt on spot. The left wing is ok. I will have to fabricate a piece of tapered balsa, perhaps I will get myself a piece of aileron stock from the LHS and just carve out the part where it is broken on the wing, replace it, then "shore" it up with a length of light ply.

All that remains is to fabricate a cover for over the tank out of thin ply and glue it in place, clean up the engine, then take it out to test fly it.

Oh, I left the darned power switch on.. so that battery is pretty much drained.. I will put it on the cycler to see if it will recover, but I have a spare if it does not. It's a Venim 1200 mah 5 cell (6 volt) NiMh pack and I've had some pretty good luck with them.

The moral of this story, for you beginners is this. The wind can be your friend and you can learn a lot when flying in it. I've flown in most types of wind, crosswinds, gusts, wind that goes right down the runway centerline, and so on.. and I've learned a lot about my techniques when flying in the wind. But, one thing you have to consider is that the wind can do damage even when you are not flying. In my case, I should have known better, but learned a valuable lesson. The plane was damaged, but not badly, and it will fly again. But, take a moment and either tie it down, or put it in a place where the wind won't bother it when sitting on the ground.

Pictures to follow as soon as I can format them for RCU.

CGr.

pkevinb

Something similar happened to me about a month ago. Took the trainer with floats out to fly in the snow. I was re-fueling it in a snow covered picnic table. I turned my back for a second and the wind blew it off the table.

Fortunately for me it only tore the covering on the wing.

CGRetired

My Feedback: (1)

Yeah.. sometimes you get lucky. I was lucky, enough, I guess, minimum damage. Here's some pictures.

CGr.

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

Bummer!

That'll teach you to fly when i can't

skyraider71

I like the clamps you are using. Do you feel there was a quality issue with your arf?
What is opinion of the original glue joints? Just curious.......Dan.

CGRetired

My Feedback: (1)

The glue joints were terrible. I hate to castigate Goldberg, because this is a very nice flying model. It meets all of what I would expect of it, and more. The quality is just what you would expect from an ARF. If I took some time to attend to some of the vulnerable points I may not have had as much damage.. but it was, in fact, minimal, so I really can't complain. I fixed what I thought was a problem, good old Epoxy.. and took it from there.

Those clamps are generally available at Home Depot, Lowes, and Ace Hardware (which is where I got mine). I just took them off the fuselage after making the repairs and it looks solid as a rock.

More pictures will follow momentarily.

Ha Minn.. yeah, but it happened about 6 months ago.. so it didn't just happen. I am just now getting to fixing it. It's still to cold for these old tender coast guard fingers..

Ignore the dirt on the engine head... that's next to get cleaned off.
CGr.

skyraider71

I just got some small clamps at harbor freight that I have yet to try.
I understand about Goldberg, I have an EagleII arf, the covering on the
fuse wasn't properly overlapped at the corners. Easily fixed, but I shouldn't
have to. At least it's an nice flying model.

Sourkraut

Now would be a great time to reinforce that firewall too

Curt

FILE IFR

CGRetired,

Just an observation and trying to help... I see you have an awful lot of sawdust packed onto your engine head heatsink fins. Cover your carb or get the dust off of it, you don't want that junk getting in the carb.

MasterAlex

Good advice for everyone ... however in this particular case, I think CGR said that was dirt in one of the prior posts.

w8ye

My Feedback: (16)

Seems like it is often windy out at the field and I gripe to myself and wish for a windless day.

Then some early morning or late afternoon when there is no wind I don't like it because I am accustomed to the wind as long as the gust are under 20.

A friend brought three planes to the field and had one on the stand and the other two nearby on the ground. A puff of wind came along and blew the model off the stand and down onto the other two models. It disabled all three planes, Needless to say he went home.

CGRetired

My Feedback: (1)

I just added the final fix, put a ply covering on the top of the fuselage over the fuel tank. I already reinforced the firewall, by the way, I did that yesterday.

Ok.. I cleaned the engine, file-ifr. It was dirt, by the way. I used a vacuum cleaner and an acid brush. It looks fine, as you can see by the picture.

The next thing to do is to do the covering. Whatever Goldberg used on this plane, it does not go back on very well. I may have to recover everything I fixed with somthing else. I have some white monocoat so I will most likely use that.

So, once the covering is done, it will be ready to fly. Hopefully, we will get some weather that will allow that []

CGr

PS. I just noticed that the prop has a pretty big chip out of one of the blades. That is my last Bolly prop! I guess it's back to APC.

CGr

Villa

Hi CGRetired
Good report and nice photos. Yesterday was our annual Chili Fly-In. We had a surprisingly very large turnout. A lot of people we had never seen came out to see model airplanes fly. The wind was terrible. The direction kept changing, and the gust were from zero to about 30MPH. I only had my SPAD Biplane with me
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_8007330/tm.htm Every time I parked it on the ground I placed it against the leg of one of our many benches or tables to keep it from blowing away. Once in the air my plane was OK but the take-offs were very tricky. The lower wing is very close to the ground so the wing tips will touch the ground in crosswinds. With the wind direction constantly changing I let the plane go in what ever direction it wanted. Had to abort more than a few times. As usual, the landings were the real challenge. I usually landed more like a bird than a plane. Hardly any roll out since the ground speeds were low to near zero. Only once in about 8 landings did the engine stop due to a prop ground strike. Since few people were flying I was forced to be up more that usual. The SPAD plane is the perfect plane for that type of day.

rgm762

My Feedback: (4)

just wondering, the LHS sells these "air filters" for glow engines. do they work or more for looks?

rgm762

My Feedback: (4)

something like these

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXBZ80&P=0

CGRetired

My Feedback: (1)

I can see filters for cars/trucks, and even maybe boats, but for aircraft? The thing doesn't spend an awful lot of time on the ground, where it could "injest" dirt or dust.

CGr.

2slow2matter

My Feedback: (1)

What this an ARF? Sounds like maybe the thing wasn't glued together very well to begin with. So in this case, the wind may have actually done you a favor by showing you some weaknesses in construction without completely destroying the plane. That is a fairly stressed area in aerobatic maneuvers, so the thing could have came apart in the air, in which case you could have lost everything, engine, electronics, plane, etc. Look at it as you're lucky you got to fix what was wrong before it cost you a lot of money!!!

FILE IFR

I won't get off the topic, but I'll repond to RGM's question.
They do work, I have them on a couple of my 2 cycle powered planes. You MAY need to LEAN the high speed needle if used. The one pictured is on a heli engine that I opted not to use.


**EDITED** to "lean"

rgm762

My Feedback: (4)

thanks FILE, that as one of my concerns, if i affected the mixture rate

FILE IFR

[:@]Opps! Sorry Ray, I meant to say LEAN mixture, but it's only slight adjustment if needed though.

CGRetired

My Feedback: (1)

Well, I've finished the repairs and it appears ready to fly. It got colder and the wind picked up quite a bit, so it won't happen today. Perhaps during the week, we will see. I will take my camera along and get more pictures up.

CGr.

F4U Corsair

My Feedback: (22)

Nice repair job and thanks for sharing your story! I would suggest reinforcing the firewall as another gent mentioned. I can't believe CG didn't even put some tri stock behind it to give it some support. I usually drill and pin the firewall from the sides and bottom as well. That's my only gripe with ARF's, poor glue joints and weak construction on lots of the planes. I usually spend about 2 hours reinforcing them before I ever fly them. DG