Death of a 4*
 

I was doing great at the field today. Multiple TO's and Landings all done well, even an inadvertant dead stick. My instructor was playing around with it a little, nothing too extreme, when we heard a pop, and saw the plane snap to the left and nose straight into the ground at full power. The devestation was total, bobble-head Brendan Shanahan was wrenched from his seat and wedged about an inch into the ground. The engine was ripped from it mount, which was also ripped from the firewall. The biggest pieces were the wingtips, which were each about 1 foot long and the chord length. As unhappy as I am that she is totalled, It was actually kinda cool to watch, if only it had been someone elses plane.
Luckily my instructor has a cherokee that we can use for practice. and a bingo once he finishes the kit. He also offered to teach me a little on his jungmeister bipe, but I refused. Its much too pretty for me to mess it up.

RE: Death of a 4*
 

Sorry about the loss....

I wondered what Shanny was doing with his year off......[:o]

RE: Death of a 4*
 

So, what do you think the "pop" was? That seems to be what started the whole thing.

DaveB

RE: Death of a 4*
 

had one do that , cept it was inverted first. did you loose elevator, or did the olane just start breaking apart?

RE: Death of a 4*
 

Im not sure what the pop was, any ideas as to what could pop and cause a plane to snap to the left and dive. Maybe the wing joint came loose or something?

It didnt look like we lost elevator. It looked like something to do with the main wing because it was more of a roll into the dive.

RE: Death of a 4*
 

As a guess (and this is a newbie guess, so please take this for what it's worth...which is substantially less than $0.02)

Sounds as though possibly a control horn or pushrod on the rudder snapped off, or came out of a fitting....The 'snap' and then dive you describe makes me think rudder, and the popping sound just sorta seems like maybe a control rod 'popped' the inside of the airplane, or a control horn tore loose or something.

I'll be interested to read what the more experienced guys have to say.

RE: Death of a 4*
 

my bet would be on a control rod, or a torque rod ripping out......possibly the wing breaking. had to be something pretty durn good to be audible

RE: Death of a 4*
 

Go with a Stick of some sort. You will be amazed of how much better it flys compared to the 4 star.

RE: Death of a 4*
 

As of right now it looks like we are just gonna fly my friends Bingo and Cherokee, while I build another plane.

RE: Death of a 4*
 

Wasn't the rudder. You could fly all day without one if you want to. A little tricky on t/o & ldg but fly great. Most likely one of the spars and a wing started to fold.

RE: Death of a 4*
 

i hardly used rudder on to and landing anyways, thats what made out square field good, i could change my heading 45 degrees and still have plenty of room.