Well, I planted my beloved Magic extra at the Memphis Pro Bro this last weekend. I had just finished recovering everything but the wing and bottom of the tail feathers. The covering was coming off everwhere else, so I used new covering to hold down the blue/white stripes and just added a simple white jaggy on the fuse.

It flew great Friday and Sat morning. The wind was about 13mph with gusts to 19 so it was pretty rugged at times. I was just playing with harriers and such down on the far end of the runway away from all the hovering. As I came around in the pattern from one end to the other at 1/2 throttle level flight at about 40ft, the plane made two sudden jerk/dips (sorts of like the start of a snap roll) then went straight into the ground before I could even think about saving it. It happened so fast I was still trying to correct it when I realized it had already crashed lol.

I'm not really sure what the cause was... I wish I could say it was dumb thumbs - I've been there done that and have the splinters to prove it. This time I really don't know what happend? There were 45 registered pilots and only one other on my channel. All the radios were in impound unless you had the pin so I doubt I was shot down by him. I guess truly not knowing what happened is worse than knowing you did it. Now I have to wonder if I need to send in the radio, receiver etc. I checked the wreckage for any clues but everything seemed fine.

And yes, as my plane laid there dead, several loving bro's were happy to violate my planes carcass by hovering over it for several minutes lol. Gotta love em!



The first two pics are the before. Naturally it's the red one next to my Stinger and 4*.
The third was from the flight line and the fourth was what I saw when I walked up to it.

Couple more...

The first one here is what it looked like after I moved the wing and took the engine out of the hole in the ground. It's a little blurry but you can see the hole to the upper right of the engine.

The last one is it all laid out back in the pits. I didn't get any pics of it being hovered over though... they were doing that while I was getting my camera lol.

The plane was equipped with standard 537's, R700 reciever, 4.8 volt 1100mah battery. Irvine .53 w/ mac pipe. The pipe was bent a little but other than that, the plane was the only real damage. The engine went on a profile I bought there and still runs great but I set the reciever and batt aside to be checked further.

Ouch! Is it repairable?

No, the wing might be, but everything forward of the rear of the canopy disentigrated. Aft of that it looks good, but it's not worth the time or trouble trying to rebuild a wing saddle, cockpit, firewall etc. The wing has 5 broken bays, the leading is toast and one of the ailerons is shattered. For a $120 ARF, I spent too much time recovering it already lol.

Ouch!!!

By what you're describing happened could it have been dead air that caused the crash? I noticed you have trees around the field and more times than not the wind rolls off them and creates turbulance thus causing dead air pockets. Just a guess but something to think about. Sorry for your loss.

Well, I hadn't heard of the dead air thing before but if that's a reality, it's a possibility. There were no particular inputs being given at the time of the crash. It really was like something just sucked it out of the air lol. It was replaced with a Sudokhoi the next day so no hard feelings about it, just lots of wasted time and Ultrcote lol.

Whether or not this is the reason, this happened to me 3 or 4 times right over the trees. The first time I only my 2nd or 3rd solo flight and it rolled my over on my back, I couldn't respond fast enough, went right in. Hit reeds in a swamp and cushioned it. Lucked out. Minor danage. Happened a few times after that, not as severe. The other day, I was flying my Funtana, passed over the trees, and it almost flipped me over, I was able to hit left aileron quick enough but it was close. Luckily the Funtana rolls fast. Anyway, I'm not sure about the dead air thing, but the turbulance over trees is real. If a sheer wind hits under one wing before the other, it's gonna snap or roll fast.

There are some trees around and the winds that day were 13-15mph with gusts to 19mph. I crashed right over the runway in the wide open. There's corn on all sides ofthe field that was about 10" tall. I might have caught a swirl or crosswind maybe. THe only thing that truly bothers me about it is not being able to call it dumb thumbs. I'm good with that one and it's easy to explain. This one I just really don't know for sure.