Crash of the Avistar
 

Well it finally happened on a nice Saturday afternoon. The bird only had about 15-20 flights on her and was really going well. I got the field, set all up and fired her up. Engine was having a few problems but I sorted it out by tuning it. The first fly of the day went ok but just needed some trimming to get her flying stable and level. All was good, landed her and refueled it for another flight.

Second flight was going ok, until half way through I could hear the engine making some odd noises. The RPM was increasing and decreasing and so on...until the engine finally just quit. So I tried my hardest to dead stick is before (have had no worries in the past), but she was coming in too fast and TOO low. I didnt realise that to the right side of me was all these trees, it touched down nicely but was going TOO quick on the ground to stop. Then the hard crunch of balsa wood rings in your ears... from a distance the plane looked fine, i was like "feww how lucky was that, hardly no damage", boy was I wrong.

Friend walked up to it first and said "Aww dude, you dont wanna know...dont look", the fuse has major damage to the firewall, front landing gear, servo horns and rods, stuffed the throttle servo, snapped prop, basically the whole front end of the plane was crushed. Luckily engine was fine, will post pics when I have time. At least this gives me an excuse to build a new plane using my new engine I just got. A brand new vintage 1975 OS FSR .40. I will look for a new kit this weekend.

RE: Crash of the Avistar
 

what kinda shape are your wings in? I am kinda interested in your crash peices. I am in the process of rebuilding an ava for a friend. If you are looking to get rid of the parts and not rebuild let me know.

RE: Crash of the Avistar
 

to be honest mate, im going for a second Avistar, since its such a good plane. Thankfully the main wings are in excellent condition, mite re-use them.

Sorry mate...

RE: Crash of the Avistar
 

rebuild it...........that's all i can say!!! my first avistar came home with me one faithful day in a plastic wal-mart bag....LOL after around 2 1/2 to 3 months of tinkering with it (i had another trainer to fly during this period) she was back air-worthy! still flies great today to my best memory, that plane has had 3 or 4 major crashes, and it still flies! when i rebuilt it, i trashed the trike gear and made it into a taildragger, best thing i ever did for this plane.

hate to hear about your loss but i'll tell you like it was told to me when i got into this hobby.

there's two kinds of planes, first there's those that HAVE crashed and then, there's those that ARE GOING TO crash. (still doesn't make it any easier!)

keep flying and if no one has told you yet, welcome to the addiction.......er hobby rather. LOL

RE: Crash of the Avistar
 

Sneasle - think about this a little. You can buy NEW wings a lot cheaper than it would cost to ship his USED wings from Australia. Pay attention to the locations. :D

RE: Crash of the Avistar
 

hitman45... Sorry for your loss....

I had almost the same thing happen to my Avistar/LA 46... It was my first dead stick
after soloing(plug went sour).. Anyway, I was just coming out of my turn heading for
a pass over the runway at speed when the engine quit, being my first dead stick I
went ahead and brought her down way too fast, but all came out good.. As I brought
the model back to the table, my trainer said, You know you had plenty of speed and
you were at the runway... Next time if the same conditions exist, make a circle or two
and bleed that speed off before landing, read what the model is doing, check your
location, and make the best choice to get her down safe.....

RE: Crash of the Avistar
 

I was on my 25th flight last month with my avistar. I did a right turn (downwind) towards my self and the pits. The cross wind pushed it over too far over to me, and across being down wind, it lost altitude quickly. I accidently hit the left aileron trim and rolled it into the ground. Fuselage is a mess, engine (supertigre 40 is ok). The right wing has only some sheeting cracked, the left wing needs some work. I'll repair it and build a new fusealge for it.

RE: Crash of the Avistar
 

One little "training stunt", as one of my former students called it, I do is to kill the engine when it's least expected and make them dead stick back to the runway. I'll unexpectedly take control on the master (with a buddy box system), reduce quickly to idle, kill the engine and give it back to my student. They have no choice but to learn to fly it down and land it. If I'm using only a single TX, I'll just reach over and do basically the same thing, but tell them to run the trim down to kill the engine. Its amazing when, under the control of an instructor, how well someone not only can pick up on flying and landing a plane deadstick (after realizing a trainer almost seems to fly better gliding w/o power), but also learn not to panic.

Learning to fly and land while dead stick is one of the most essential parts of flying a pilot needs to learn. Unfortunately deadstick flying and slow flight/stall series are often over looked.

Hogflyer

RE: Crash of the Avistar
 

Yeah I had no choice but to hope for the best, i could just see it hitting the trees but I could turn it, because it was flying TOO low to the ground and too fast. If I pulled up and turned, could of risked stalling it. Ohh well not to worry. Unfortutely I was upset and my friend thought it was "funny" to kick it and step on the stabalizer.[&o] which called more wreckage. I was fuming! but he will help me get a new kit.

Cheers guys!

RE: Crash of the Avistar
 

Hogflyer,

Thanks for your post. I'm an instructor but actually haven't tried that deadstick stunt yet. Thanks for the idea.

RE: Crash of the Avistar
 

Muzzle,
I do it all the time with my students.

Ken

RE: Crash of the Avistar
 

Ken,

Why the hell didn't I think of this? I do it all the time when "tricking" up howitzer crews during certifications just to make sure they know what they're doing, but for some reason this one didn't occur to me. Duh! Maybe it's time for me to retire finally.

RE: Crash of the Avistar
 

How the heck did you "accidentally" hit the aileron trim? I have trouble enough finding that sucker when I want to. :D