Today there was a mishap at the field. a new pilot (soloed a few weeks ago) was practicing landing, and on an aborted landing, over sticked the plane almost losing it in the over run. as he was trying to recover he got disoriented and the plane flew head level, straight into the pits. I yelled "heads up" as a few guys scattered just as the plane hit the shade severing an aileron and removing 1/2 of the horizontal stab, then continuing into the parking lot barely missing a few cars before planting a balsa tree inches from the bumper of a parked truck. this could've been bad, he was clearly rattled by what happened. I'm not sure if anything could've been done to prevent this, but it should be a lesson to be aware of whats going on around you.

It is good no one was hurt.

I have been there when a mid air happened and one plane landed in the pits. The other one headed out to the trees. I have been around a couple times when planes entered the pits. One was on the run way and he was standing over the tail with the horizontal stab against his ankles like we all do. This time one side let go and at full throttle the plane rocketed into the pits. It was over the fence before he could kill the engine.

I have hit the catch fence by an inch or two. I got a hard bounce and the plane did a 90 degree turn before I could correct it. I just cut throttle and held the stick in the lower left corners. Hoping to snap it into the ground.

Dru.

Sorry to hear about this. I know what was going on in his mind, I had a similar thing happen to me just after I soloed. I was flying a 4*60 and got really screwed up on landing. I think I was even inverted at one point. I was trying to go around and had kicked full throttle. After a wild 3d free stile show that lasted just a couple seconds, I got the plane back only to see it was flying staight at the sun awning with 5 guys setting under it. Last panic move was full throttle and full up. Aswome half loop, but it got no where near the other guys. It could have been bad, same as your mishap.

Imfortunatly, those things happen. Sometimes to very experienced flyers, not just the new guy. My instructor, about a year after my crash, got screwed up on approach and kind of froze on the sticks. He flew over the pits wobbling like a wonded duck and made a 180 still fighting a stall and finally crunched the hilside. Just a little throttle would have prevented it., but some times the mind and fingers just arn't on the same page.

Don

Things happen...a couple of years ago I was at Bealton Va annaul fly in.....the flight line paralleled the runway of course.....I was talking with a gentleman behind the line. I caught a guy out of the corner of my eye walking down the line looking at all the aircraft. the next thing I see is an airplane swing way wide and descending. heading right for the side of the neck of the guy I saw out of the corner of my eye. I yelled look out and the guy hit the deck......the wayward airplane flew over the guy and hit a couple of airplanes further down the flight line.....funny thing I was talking about Casey Rowes accident when this all took place, and the guy that almost got hit didn't even say thanks

Almost exactly a year ago, I was at a Fly-in. It was a pretty big event for giant scale planes flown by excellent pilots. There was even a turbine driven Python Pitts and a 50% Yak (i think) boring holes in the sky. Even considering the complexity and time spent flying these huge birds, the trouble came when they planned a fun little thing for the crowd. Some of the pilots gathered at the end of the runway and acted as if they need to trim the grass in the runoff area. They unveiled a flying lawnmower that they had fired up, that had a measly .30-.40 sized motor. Someone was walking behind it as if they were mowing, then let it go to take to the air. The plane (lawnmower) made it about halfway down the runway, and apparently hadn't built up enough speed when the pilot pulled up. It stalled and turned directly into the grandstand area and whack! It ended up flying between the grandstand and the awning, ripping through the security fence, and landing between 2 giant planes, without harming anything but itself. A big sign of relief came over the crowd as they revealed that no one was injured. A couple of feet and it would have been a gloomy story.

It just goes to show that no matter what size plane, they are all dangerous at some point. We must all pay attention at all times, no matter where we are at the field.

The poor guy was after toilet paper!!!

It is dangerous everywhere inside any field; it is only that we get comfortable with those spinning knives and heavy projectiles flying around our bodies and cars.

I try to keep my eyes and ears open for any mishap; however, I never feel more vulnerable than when flying from one station and not being able to follow what the other members are doing, at the flying line and behind.

Fortunately, our Safety Officer is alert most of the time and voices up any dangerous situation as soon as it develops.
We are all grateful for his voluntary work; however, he des not have opportunity to fly much.

First training lesson should be: How to kill the engine as soon as something goes wrong!

I guy powered up for take off with his 60 size mustang and for some reason his rudder servo quit on him at the same time. It veered straight for all of us, going between the pilot gaurd stations, and was headed right at a couple guys before he nosed it over to stop it. It hadn't gotten off the ground so it really only hurt the prop and his pride.

As a kid I " landed " my Ugly Stick on the hood of our Torino wagon trying to get out of the Sun rays; could have been the windshield. My dad was sitting in the car. The thing is, it can happen any time at the field. You can get a face full of plane by skill or luck and I dont want to find out about either. I always gauge the fliers and when some are up I sit down or land. Some are just new and some are reckless. I am not opposed to hiding behind my car and have.

You have to keep an EYE on these things because you can not always hear the spotter or pilot call out. Most of the time you never here them any way[:@] Been there Done that. For Fun a few years ago.

We've had a few of these at our fields. Last year a guy lost control of a combat plane - I had to dive away from it while in the pits and it hit a scale bird on one of the start-up stands. Same guy had a flying wing which I was doing the maiden that was basically out of control just after he launched it - it was tail heavy and the mfg gave the wrong CG, so I can't blame the owner. I decided to plant that one off the runway before anybody got hurt.

This past spring we had a 3-pole pylon race and one of the guys flying (a very experienced pilot too) became disoriented when the plane was rounding pylon 1 (only 465 ft. away) and flew right over the center of the start pad that had two of us standing there. I was facing pylon 3 when it passed over my head by 30' at 125+mph and I never knew it was coming. ...and some people wonder why we wear hard hat out there....[sm=spinnyeyes.gif]

It's been happening since people started flying models (look at all the old FF videos), and will as long as people fly model airplanes. When ever a plane is flying, everybody needs to vigilant about what is happening, and we as flyers have to be even more so for spectators and new flyers who don't really understand some of the dangers our aircraft can present.

Hogflyer

Our flying field has been turned back into a WW1 RFC base. One of our club members was landing his Zero when..."Whoosh" right in front of him, an Auster AOP7 lands. The wing wash totalled his model.
He hadn't heard it because it was well throttled back and the wind was strong.He hadn't seen it because.....well, you know.
When he remonstrated with the Auster pilot the answer he got was, "Well you can fix the small ones easier than the big ones".
Idiot.
It's the blue one at www.stowmaries.com/gallery/visitorsgallery9/image1.asp

wow I had to look that one up[sm=spinnyeyes.gif] see now if anyone tells me this forum is a waste of my time I can say it's increased my vocabulary