Hi,

I just thought it would be fun to see what the "mortality" rate is for the sport. So, to qualify for the poll, the crash should be the first one after you have soloed. If you haven't crashed yet, please don't answer the poll unless you've been flying for at least one full season.

Hi all,me an my bro got into rc/plane back in 1989 an in our little community there is only me an him that flys,we never had an instructor to teach us.we dont have a nice runway,we fly on an old gravel road with tree's all over. sooo, we learned on our own,an yes im not shy of saying this,we both crash on our first flight.but man was it fun hehe
the planes we had was called a "Drifter 10" that weight only 2.75 pound,72 ws,powered by a .15.it was not a nice plane,it was a pusher type plane but was really ez to fix.
that was the good old days.

jeang

Ah...I remember it well...'cuz it happened today.

I'm happy to say it wasn't on the maiden flight of my new Avistar. The maiden flight went well. My instructor took off, trimmed it out and flew a few laps. He then asked if I wanted to give it a go. I flew a few more laps and decided to bring it down for a low pass. The first landing attempt turned into a "bounce and go" and I circled around for another try. This one was good! My first plane had survived its maiden flight!

We re-fueled and tuned the engine a little. I took off and noticed the engine didn't pull quite as well as the first flight. (Rookie mistakes begin here...) I decided that I could turn left, just inside of the tree line and have the entire length of the field to determine if a landing was necessary. (Insert major depth perception error here...) Well, "inside the tree line" quickly became "inside a tree"! [sm=disappointed.gif]

My instructor got a towing strap out of his truck and with the skill that only comes from experience, looped it around the branch about 25 feet up and with a few shakes was able to free the plane from its "perch". My eyesight did not fail me this time as I caught the plane by the LE of the wing right at the fuse. The only damage was a three covering punctures on the bottom of the wing and some light scratching. Nothing an hour with a roll of Monokote and the sealing iron won't cure. I also think one rubber band is MIA.

I'm eagerly looking forward to the next flight!

Well, it was several week after I started. I learned that trainers are not meant for inverted flight. Destroyed my engine, broke my wing in half and hurt my ego. She is waiting for new covering now.

mine was pure stupidity

my dad shown me the ropes and i took to it like a duck to water, nerver crashed my trainer and when to low wing (still have no idea what that was)

anyway 3 people crashed there planes in like a 3 week span and i was still going strong with my little sports plane, getting big headed as you do i did a low pass and a few barrel rolls had a brain fart and sent her to her death [sm=lol.gif]

it upset me for weeks LOL after that i damaged my trainer 3 times and thought i realy had lost the nack

rebuilt my sports plane and totaled it 3 weeks later into a BIG tree lol, had about 4 months of not flying HAHAHA then got back in the pilot seat after i realized most pilots were doing it and i just had got with me for those first few weeks

lets face it RC would get boring if no one ever crashed

i forgot to pull out my antena

15 feet should be one of the choices, stupid under powered skyscooter.
I had to go out immediatly and get a better motor.

I had 2 distinct periods of 'learning' with R/C. First was with 2 channel gliders, then with glow engined planes.

I remember the first crash of my first glider (an Aeroflyte Brolga), which pretty much demolished it[sm=angry.gif]. I had a friend towing it up for me by running full tilt across the local football field with a length of nylon line attached to the tow hook. Worked great, except that I had the switch in the worst possible position......right under where my thumb went when I was holding onto it before takeoff. I also had it around the wrong way, so 'back' was 'off'[sm=bananahead.gif]I got set up, gave him the 'thumbs up' to start running, but as the plane left my hand, my thumb ran across the switch and turned it off[sm=frown.gif]. When I realised it wasn't responding to my inputs on the way up, I yelled at him to stop, but he thought I was trying to tell him to run faster[sm=frown.gif]. When he finally got the message, it was already just about at the top of the line anyway, so when it came off the hook, it went into a series of larger and larger stalls, eventually lawn darting into the field nose first[sm=angry.gif]. Buried the nose about 6 inches into the field, broke the nose off just in front of the LE, ripped the wing joining wire and tubes out of the wing roots and demolished the tip LE's, *and* broke the fuse in half about an inch behind the TE of the wing. Broke the tail in several places too.

My first glow engined crash was with the Royal Air 40 trainer I used as a step into powered flight. The Magnum.40GP engine that I had on it was impossible to keep running for more than a few minutes at a time. No-one at the club could get it to keep going. I learned dead-stick landings before proper ones! Anyway, my luck finally ran out and I strained the model through the fence at the end of the field after the engine died on a go-around attempt. Came in too hot, tried to throttle up, engine died, I put the plane through the 3-wire barbed wire fence and demolished it. I've still got the Magnum.40GP actually.....runs like a top now.......turns out all it wanted a little nitro.....[sm=rolleyes.gif].

My first fixed wing model crash was when I had around 40 flights under my belt { just enough to get cocky }. I was flying my first low wing, a Spectrum on a stormy day, intermittent thunder showers, wind 18 gusting to 25 mph, but the wind was blowing strait down the runway.
Perfect for doing touch and goes right ? On my fourth flight of the afternoon it was gusting so bad that I could even taxi out due to weather veining of the plane. I placed the Spectrum on the center line of the RW, running at around 1/8 throttle so it would not roll backwards. Put the spurs to it and was off the ground instantly. I did a few passes, that plane bucked the wind real well.
Started doing touch and goes, after like the third touch and go I pulled up banked to the left to make a climbing turn to fly the patten at around 1/2 throttle I think. I made the down wind turn and the plane went ass over tea-kettle, I think a gust of wind stole all my air speed. It was a picture perfect tip stall at around 50 feet AKA Lawn Dart. The Spectrum went down like a Hamster shot with a Bazooka. The scream of the OS 46FX and tuned pipe was eclipsed by deafening silence broken only by the howl of the wind pummeling the wind sock.
The crash sent wreckage { balsa, engine parts, receiver { never located after crash} and plastic } up into a plume of imaginary dollar signs. The wreckage was scattered in a line about 150 feet down wind. . It was an awesome crash to watch, just wish it hadn't been my plane. Well live and learn, keep that air speed up on down wind turns. I wont forget that lesson.

How many minutes into flight 1 would be appropriate for us guys who started in the early sixties! No such thing as a buddy box on reeds!
My six channel (that was rudder, elevator, and throttle) Tri Square got off the ground, climed to 20', and did an inverted split-s (don't the Brits call that manuver a "bunt"?). Post mortem- stuck contact on the transmitter elevator switch. Wiped out two months of paper route savings : (
Jeez, we've come a long way!

Back in 1994 I built a SuperSportTrainer, My friend and instructor did the maiden flight without problems. Then he handed the Tx to me, taking it when I was in trouble.
The second weekend while I was turning for final the plane dived suddenly and crashed, destroying three servos and receiver.

I put it in a bag and tried to forget about it for a year until my brother insisted in rebuilding it.

After I bought a new Rx I realized tha my transmiter was completely dead, not the batteries but the system itself was faulty.

Then I reentered this hobby (with a new radio of course) and never stopped.

Ten years worth!
(links are fixed now.)
[*]Olympic 650 2M sailplane. My first plane! 100% scratchbuilt from 1/8" balsa sheet and wood glue. LOTS of wood glue. Weighed a ton. Stalled / spun it in, obliterating the fuse. I still have the wing!
[*]NSP Kestrel 2M. My first kitbuilt plane. Weighed less than the Olympic 650, thank goodness. While diving for a speed pass on the slope the wing fluttered and tore off. Nothing left, RIP.
[*]HL Skimmer 600 ARC. Was originally designed as a lightweight thermal soarer... someone took the plans, cut the nose flat, added a motor & battery compartment then advertised it as "the PERFECT electric soarer." Bollocks It flew nicely, but didn't turn well under power (the rudder was undersized.) Stalled and spun it into the swamp once, or so we thought. (story posted here) Hit a tree while on final one day. Broke everything. RIP.
[*]CR Renegade. Built it using Harley Micaelis' RDS adapters on the wing surfaces - no drag from exposed aileron linkages. A bullet! Pulled at the end of a smokin' fast inverted pass. RIP.
[*]NSP Sparrow #1. My Favorite Heavy-Air Sloper. Snagged the wing on a bush during a smokin' fast (upright!) pass one wintry day. Fuse snapped wing snapped innards scattered into the snow. The recovery effort was more of a treasure hunt - all the gear made holes in the snow, so it was a matter of digging the stuff out while not disturbing the rest of the holes. Look its a servo, look its a battery, etc. What fun. RIP.
[*]DJ Aerotech Wizard HLG #1. My Favorite HLG, and later My Favorite Light-Air Sloper. Slid into a cement curb after a downwind landing. RIP.
[*]Robbe Arcus hotliner. Had an Astro 15 FAI in this one. While making a moderate speed pass the front latch of the canopy let go. The canopy then popped up, like a huge speed brake... the plane stalled and dove vertically into the ground. The wing was OK, the fuse smashed. RIP.
[*]Combat Gremlin #1. I was low, and inverted, and being hotly pursued. Pulled when I should have pushed. Into the swamp @ WOT. Fump! RIP.
[*]Combat Gremlin #2. T-bone attack. Nothing left but a (splintered) fuse pod and a cloud of styro-confetti. RIP.
[*]Combat Gremlin #3. "Lockout!" Vertical dive, then styro-confetti. Total loss, RIP. (Note. Later discovered that the old JR Century 7 PCM tx I was using had a defect - its output went to -0- when it was held at a certain angle! Ohhh the pain.)
[*]Combat Gremlin #4 & #5. Hold, enough! Gave these away untouched.
[*]Lanier Stinger .10. Had a Magnum .15 on it. My First Taildragger! Groundloop groundloop groundloop. It eventually fell apart due to fuel residue soaking the wood. This was the first plane I ever retired more-or less intact!
[*]Modeltech Sonic 500. Had a hot piped OS .46VF. Too much plane for my skill level at the time! After 4 flights I punched it deep into the ground @ WOT. Broke everything, had to dig the engine out of the ground, etc. Blah. RIP.
[*]Lasoar 650. Had an Aveox F7LMR in it. This one was a knockoff of the old Airt Falcon 550, with stretched wings - which abruptly clapped together one day while spiralling up in a thermal. Turns out there was no spar in the wing, just obeechi over white foam. Nothing left. RIP.
[*]Weston Magic #1. Beautifully handcrafted by Frank himself. Launched it one day down at the Point of the Mountain site and flew and flew and flew and flew and flew and flew... that's odd. Why won't it come out of this thermal turn? 'cos the rx batteries are dead, you goof! The plane held its turn, spiralling gracefully upward. It drifted high and to the east... went over the mountains, and was gone. Never saw it again.
[*]Global Aviator .40 ARF. Had a Saito .50 on this one. Let one of my flying buddies fly this one... he crashed it while attempting a touch and go. Broke *everything* but the landing gear - even snapped the cylinder off the motor. RIP.
[*]TT Champion .45S ARF. I let the same guy that crashed the Aviator fly this one... he rolled it inverted and flew it into the bush @ WOT. Kaboom! Broke everything. RIP. Need I mention that I don't let that fellow fly my planes anymore?
[*]Global Sukhoi .40 ARF. Good looking, but overweight. Never liked this one. It tried to kill me once. (story posted here) Clipped a Tree on a deadstick landing and broke the firewall off. (story posted here) Stripped and retired it; one of the neighbor kids later took the carcass.
[*]F5B Hybrid. Created from the wing of the Arcus and an old T-tail Limit fuselage, with an Aveox F10. I set the CG at 30% of MAC... too far back. Instant figure-9 on launch, smashing the fuse. It was repairable, so I stuck the wing under the car and flew my other planes for the rest of the day. I later ran over the wing (forgot to pull it from under the car before driving off!) RIP.
[*]Morris Top Cap ARF. Inverted loop figure-9... broke the fuse in half, shattered one wing (+ the rx battery tore loose and smashed up the innards of the other wing.) RIP.
[*]DJ Aerotech Wizard HLG #2. Blew up the wings due to a super-aggressive handlaunch. RIP.
[*]Zagi-EPP #1. Stalled/spun it in while flying from a cliff over the sea. RIP.
[*]Ultrastick .40. #1. Had a Saito .72 on it. Engine backfired on a WOT full-flap blastoff... 5 feet in the air and zero airspeed. Demolished the fuse, wing was OK.
[*]Ultrastick .40 #2. Engine flamed out in a bad area of the field. Came up short on landing and hit a tree stump. Demolished the fuse, wing was OK. Again.
[*]Durastick .40. Picked it up as a cheap combat plane. Hit a stump on an emergency landing (in nearly the same spot as Ultrastick #2, and on the same day!) and mangled the gear. Repaired it and gave it away.
[*]Ultrastick .40 #3. Finally swapped out the balky Saito for a dead-reliable YS .63. It survived (unscathed!) a wingtip-to-wingtip midair (posted here) Did *not* survive a high-speed low-altitude inverted pass! Demolished the wing and knocked off the rudder. Replaced the wing with the spare one from US #2, repaired the fuse and gave it away.
[*]TuffFlight Predator. Had an OS .25FX on it. T-boned near the end of a combat match. (posted here) 25% of the wing was torn off in the impact, the remainder gently flatspun into the bush. Recovered all the gear except for the engine's RNV. RIP.
[*]Global Blue Max. Last time I trust a MAN review! The plane flew OK, but had ridiculously weak landing gear which would break if you sneezed on it. Removed the gear and replaced it with the gear off one of the broken Ultra Sticks. Finally retired the plane, as it was a terribly dull flyer. Wanted to give it away but no-one would take it! Stripped out the gear then threw the plane away.
[*]GP U-Can-Do-3D ARF #1. Killed it > 9 seconds into the maiden flight - I took off with reversed ailerons. Posted the flight report here. Was going to dumpster the remains, but a clubmate requested them and is pretty far along in rebuilding it.
** Addendum: the UCD lives again!**
[*]Modeltech ME-109 .40. Neglected the pre-flight check one day. Took off, realized I had no aileron control. Tried to save it with the rudder, but didn't have enough to counteract the engine torque. Rolled to knifeedge then smesh. It was repairable, but I decided against doing so. RIP.
[*]GP Giles 202. Planned to take off short, pull the nose up 30 degrees, roll to knife-egde then pull into a downwind-KE pass. The engine flamed out at "roll." Had enough airspeed to get it upright, but not enough to recover, and smesh. Broke off the nose and landing gear. I've decided against repairing it. The fellow that did the fix-job on the UCD wants the pieces, so it may fly again... ** Addendum: the Giles lives again! Its in the hands of one of our club's newer members. Its got a healthy(!) Moki 1.80 on it.
[*]WM P-51 "Miss America." It was a windy Sunday - 10+ knots straight down the field. I put my Speed Prop on. Attempted a low-altitude downwind inverted pass @ WOT, and couldn't quite get level in time. Merged with the ground and slid 90 yards in a *perfectly* straight line, shedding bits all the way. Fuse, wings and tailfeathers were a total loss; radio gear was intact. The Saito .91 was mounted inverted, so it didn't even suffer a scratch!
[*]DP Extra 330. Its maiden flight went well. Propped with too much pitch, so I couldn't slow it for an easy landing - had to slip it in. Had a case of Tunnel vision and got too close to the tall grass, which snatched the gear and flipped it onto its back. Broke the rudder, pretzeled the gear.
Fixed.
[*]Ultrastick 1.20. Bought the all-white version and painstakingly recovered it using the yellow/blue/black scheme from the .40-sized one. Lost sight of it behind a building while setting up for a WOT pass over the field... by the time I caught sight of it again it was Too Late.
RIP.

yak, yak, yak. Sorry, folks.

tx cystal died

My very first airplane was Cox Sportavia. I loved that plane and bought it as soon as I had saved enough money to get it- took a long time and a lot of lawns.

long story short - Alone and unassisted- I started, hand launched and watched it roll right into the ground- A billion pieces of foam.

Then I got professional help- learning to fly that is....

Crashed on first flight ever ... out in back of old grocery store with a Tower Trainer 40 ... not enough room, no experence, no brains. 20 feet into the air, rolled to knife & plowed in. Broke tail group off.

THEN I decided to get some help ...

2 years

1 and a half years because my rudder fell off. Since it was a cap It wanted to yaw uncontrolably. It dove down 100+ feet with no damage to the firewall because it fell in a stream. I lost 2 aieleron servos and had the leading edge broken from the tree it hit on the way down and of course a new rudder.

Not sure how serious of a crash you are looking for. My Avistar Trainer took a lot of damage through my training period last summer and kept on flying with minor repairs. It still flies today, in fact it is in the car and I plan to go to the field right after work to fly. We are getting ready to host a Boy Scout troop at our field this weekend and have 5 trainers and buddy boxes available so they get a chance to see what it is like.

If you are looking for my first full crash with pieces to pick up and rebuilding the only solution, I put in my Ultra Stick 60 on Memorial Day, about 1 year after I started. I was doing Aeleron Rolls and came out upside down. Well my thumb knew what to do so I pushed the elevator stick forward (which would have saved me), but my brain took over and pulled it back. If only my brain had better sense than my thumb I wouldn't be putting another one together like I am now.

First fuel plane, A Thunder Tiger 40 Trainer , had it a week been running in the engine every evening, Go to the local field, find someone to help me, Plane takes off with the assistance of the instructer, lands, refuel it take off,slight left bank climbing, goes into a LARGE circular climb, Tx does not control plane, instructor goes running across the field holding the Tx trying to recover it. Plane climbes almost out of sight then heads south, never to be seen again. NO WHERE IN THE INSTRUCTIONS DID IT SAYTO CHARGE THE BATTERY! Is that considered a crash?

About 10 seconds...

about 45 sec.,bought a tt slow flyer mustang from my cuz, who has been flying for 7 years and thought he might could train me to fly. all was going well until i lost all control of plane,we were on buddy boxes so i told him i didn't have it, he released the trainer switch and he didn't have it .plane does some amazing aerobactics and almost landed itself,when engine decides to go full bore and try to fly itself thru some trees,needless to say it didn't make it[r.i.p.].post crash inspections reveiled battery disconnected itself when i put radio gear in.being new to the hobby i put the battery as far back in the plane as possible to balanced the plane and didn't tie wrap the extension which happen to be stretched tight and got in a hurry to fly that we didn't do a pre-flight inspection to make sure everything was good to go.my cuz still does my maiden flights,but we make sure all planes get that pre-flight inspection.

After learning myself flying e-power planes for about 8 months i got my first glow plane a Brightstar. Man i loved that plane. After about 60 flights i was showing off when i put it into a full poweron nosedive 200 feet when all the sudden the ground hit my plane. Still my first and last real crash. I used to think there was nothing like the sound of crunching sheet metal(car racing). Now its a good solid hit with a bulsa plane.

Sometime around 1985 I bought 1& 1/2 Sig Colts with an Enya .15 and a Tower Hobbies radio from my older brothers best friend. After assembling it I tried to teach my self to fly. I snap rolled it trying to horse it off the ground. Several times. Tough Airplane. I eventually learned to take off but had little in the way of actual pilot ability. Landings consisted of cutting the throttle and searching the weeds. I eventually killed it trying to fly from the parking lot of my college dorm (stupid). I got it off the ground and was attempting to circle over a trailer park (more stupid). The turn got tighter and tighter until it did the classic stall spin and centerpunchd an open water meter. I still have the motor, the servos (still useful) and the transmitter case(filled with hitec guts after the gimbals crumbled). Shortly after that I discovered the local club and learned to fly an Eagle 63 on a buddybox. There were more crashed but I flew that airplane a lot over the next five years.

Back in 1970 or so I bought a Testor's Cherokee foam and plastic ARF with pulse rudder and powered by a Cox .049. Following my free flight and control line experience, knowing about glide characteristics, I hand launched it power off into the field of tall grass beside the house. The fuselage broke in two and the wing was damaged. I went on to an all balsa plane from magazine plans and with the radio system converted to Galloping Ghost pulse rudder and elevator (and a few survivable bounces) went on to teach myself to fly R/C!

Mine was related to a depth perception error... Guilty trees...