Crashed my Trainer
 

I crashed my Midwest Aerostar trainer today. I just started with RC planes. I've talked to a lot of the guys in my local club and read many posts on these forums before buying my trainer and gear.

This was the third day I had taken my plane out. I have a lot of experience on the Sim over the past 3 weeks, so I picked up flying the trainer pretty quickly. Yesterday I was doing rolls, Immelman's and loops. The members watching me yesterday said I was ready for my second plane.

I was out this morning and on my third flight of the day I was doing some similar maneuvers when I was coming around for another pass the wings (a one-piece that is rubberbanded on) snapped right in half. The plane, of course, came down like a brick into the tall weeds adjacent to the airfield.

When I came back to the pits with the pieces in hand, some of the regulars were like: "you flew it too hard for a trainer". Now they tell me. A day ago they were teaching me to do Immelman's and loops. I'm not mad at them at all though. I was the one flying. At least I'm ready to get a plane that can handle all that stuff... and a lot more. :)

The wife wasn't happy that I came home with a broken plane after my third trip out... but she's letting me get another plane. Maybe it's because I just bought her $4,500 in furniture. I can buy a lot more planes with that kind of credit!

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

Way to go, Joe! Sorry to hear of your loss. But, it's obvious that it'll move you on to a better plane.

Smooth move with your wife, by the way. Yeah, that should give you quite a number of planes worth of credit. :D

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

doesnt look too bad, put acouple hours and acouple bucks in balsa and superglue and it could be flying again

I did more than what you did to your to mine and its held together nicely... untill i ran the battery wire through the servos....

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

Is it an ARF?

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

Yeah, it was an ARF that took about 3 evenings of work.

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

Sorry to hear of your mis-fortune.. But it looks fixable!!...

Mine took to the ground also today:-( I lost radio signal... They say
it'll happens.. Hey, think of it this way... At least we now have that
out of our system... So now that will never happen again:-)

I know most people say it's unneeded.. But I know I push my planes
in flight... So I make it a habit to, use plenty of epoxy, and let sit to
completely dry for a day or two.. Then I remove the covering about
three inches wide and about the length of the wing at the joint and
glass it... I also did my 4*60 wings(both sides) And this wing has two
good size joiners... None the less it's glassed also:-)

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

Thats a classic wing failure. Probably used CA on the wing joint. Epoxy your next one....or that one if you want to rebuild it. And glass the wing joint as well. Its critical to do that.

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

Joe,
don't give up and let this failure demotivate you from further flying.
Keep in mind, there are alot of different people around at an airfield/club.
who may give you more or less worth of advice. Sort them out and watch them,
what they do and how they fly, you may see the most theoretical flight advisors crash
their planes due to some easy avoidable errors.
My instructor even tought me how to do rolls, Immelman's and loops on my pt-40 trainer
and assured me that it's ok to fly it like that. the plane loves it too.
Move on to your next plane, you are ready for it. the trainers get boring fast and you'll pick up
bad habits flying them too long. a stick would be perfect for a 2nd.
get your wife off the furniture and involve her with your flying and assist you to get the plane ready and
watch the activities while you are getting comfy with your plane. it's great to participate in each others hobby,
always good to have a trusty navigator on your side.
good luck and happy landings.

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

If it looks like it was the fault of the manufacturer give them a call. If it wasn't one of your glue joints but one that the ARF builders did they should replace it if it's under warranty. I've heard of other ARF manufactures replacing planes with failed glue joints or no glue at all!

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

sorta reminds me of my first plane, on my first flight i had it in the air and was doing great, or so i thought when i seen a electric wire jump right in front of my plane, ripped the wing clean off the plane and came down in some marsh, i went home rebuilt the wing and was back next day all bandaged up and in the air

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

The the President of the club I'm in says..."Well, they were'nt made to last."

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

Thanks for all the kind words. I wasn't too terrribly worried about it. I think I'm going to contact the distributor (they're actually made only about 10 miles from here) to see if I can buy just the fuselage already constructed. I saw the kit today at the local hobby shop, but I didn't want to build the fuse from scratch... mainly because I want to move onto my next plane. But I don't want to just scrap the trainer, because at worst it would only cost like $135 even if I bought the ARF again.

After all, I won't be able to use the engine or battery in my next plane. :)

I think I'm going to step up to the GP Extra 300S 1.60. I want to have something I can really grow into. I've just about maxed out what I could do with the trainer. I was obviously getting bored with it since I flew the wings off it.

Joe

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

Hey,

Sorry to hear about your plane!

One thing a guy told me at the field today was, Your second plane should be an open engine plane with no cowl as we are rookies and we will need to learn how to tune engines and if it has a cowl it is a ***** to tune because you do not have easy access to the needles!

For what its worth!

Michael

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

Split don't give up on the engine yet. It actually doesn't look bad. Clean the outside off. Do NOT turn the engine over. You could grind dirt into the engine parts. Remove the muffler, carburetor and backplate. Use some carb cleaner and flush the gunk out if there is any. Clean the carb out real good. Look in the exhaust port and see if there is any debris in there. If there is remove the cylinder head and flush it out. Make sure it is clean inside. Use some afterun oil and assemble it. Get a new prop and spinner. You should be able to run it then. I see it has a remote needle valve. Check it out thourougly for damage. You may need to replace the high speed needle. Clean it out and fix it up and you should be back on track with the engine. Good luck with it.

BTW the plane can be fixed fairly easily too. See if you can get some help. If you cannot get a replacement under warrenty I would fix it and continue on.

Mark Shuman

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

Why don't you try fixing your plane yourself? Don't get me wrong. I'm a newbie and wouldn't know where to start. But, I would ask the others at my club and find out how it is done - this kind of knowledge will come in useful in the future and it's better to practice on your trainer rather than your pride and joy aerobatic plane :)

I washed my engine out with water. Crtical thing is DONT TURN it! After you have washed it out you could take it apart to see of anything is bent inside etc. After you have washed it you can either run fuel through it or after run oil... to stop it rusting obviously.

Good luck

photoniq

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

Yes the correct course of action after crashing ones trainer:D:D

Sorry not a personal dig your comment just reminded me of myself 20 years ago

First plane - that I learned on CG Eaglet 50 Crashed after 20-30 flights:D
Second plane - Sig Kouger crashed on 3 flight[X(]
Third Plane - Eaglet 50 Learned the basics and got destoryed in a move (only plane I didn't kill at the field)

:D:D

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

same here with my avistar, crashed it wne tonto a 2nd plane (easy sport) great 2nd! can do aerobatics nicely especially on dual rate. Id fix it, and if you dont send it here i will! lol

~Matt

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

I dont know to much about rc planes but I do run trucks/cars and jsut bought a buggy. Do you guys all run fail safes? I was always wondering..... your batteries in your plane die out or cut out for some reason.... mid flight and your plane keeps sailing away.... you would have to chase it for like 6 miles before it dropped. How does that work?

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

i dont use a fail safe. If I could afford one I would get it. I dont think anybody at our club uses one.

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

After doing some more research, I didn't go as large as the 1.60. I did get a .40 Extra 300 to make use of my engine (also I couldn't quite get myself to spend another $800-$900 on a 2nd plane when I only had my trainer for three flying days). More of an appropriate move I think.

I talked to the guy at the local hobby shop and he said he'd talk to the manufacturer since the wing spar broke, even when I used epoxy on both wing halves, in the slot where the spar goes and on the spar itself.

Like I said, there was a LITTLE bit inside of me to see it happen because I moved up faster than I probably would have otherwise.

On a more happy note, I maidened my Extra 300 yesterday (on Father's day). It was a beautiful day for flying and the airfield was busy. The Extra flew like a champ. The .46 engine might be a little weak for the plane, but as a relative newbie I was still excited.

The Extra is a great plane to make use of my dual rates on my transmitter. I had the control surfaces up at around 80% on the first flight and boy was she responsive. After landing I quickly dialed things down to about 50% for the low and 80% for the high rates.

I love this hobby. I can't remember feeling so enthusiastic about a new hobby, especially at 33 years old.

RE: Crashed my Trainer
 

higher end rx's have built in fail safes, and of course you can add on that the car guys use, but other then that they aren't used much. first of all, check batteries often! know how long you can fly and don't push it longer. and finally, it is rare for a dead plane to travel very far without crashing itself, a dead battery will usually leave the servos exactly where they where last, which usually won't be perfectly straight and level.