Flying on Saturday, pretty strong winds 10-15, but right down the runway.
After much fooling around and many touch and goes, I had a gentle stall on final at the end of the runway.
So the plane nosed over some and boinked into the grass.

After a 5 minute going-over, the only thing I could see wrong was the busted propeller. So I gathered my thoughts, and refueled the plane. It started up with no drama, and I took my time checking control surfaces and what not. So I wheel it out to the center of the grass strip. I'm standing there with it between my feet, doing one final run up and checking control surfaces.

That's when the elevator went into a full-down position, and stopped responding altogether. Umm, BAD.. I killed the engine, drained the tank, and decided to call it a day. It was still windy anyway. Upon removing the wing, I spotted the problem right away: The servo wire had worked loose from the reciever. The stall was probably a contributing factor.

So the lesson I learned is that even with a MINOR mishap, check everything inside the plane as well as out. Don't be lazy and refuse to take the wing off and peek inside. I was about 5 seconds from sending this plane back into the air when the wire came out. I'm sure there are people that will say, "No kidding, you ding-dong."

But if this post saves someone an airplane, it's worth it to post it.
Have fun.

How true... you can never be too careful!

I found a loose aileron Y connector on one of my plane's rx. It would have been a problem had I not pushed it in. It's good to always push on those connectors on the rx. I think mine loosened from taking the wing off without disconnecting the Y connector first. Doh!!

Its so important to preflight your aircraft prior to take off each and every time you fly. Even if you didn't have a minor mishap. I always do a preflight on everything, tugging and pulling, and I try to make sure that I touch every bit of the aircraft. I check battery prior to every flight and range check prior to the first flight of the day. Of course I go through other means of checking my aircraft but there is a post already discussing preflight habits.

Once I was at the field and was going through the preflight and everything was going well. Once I started the engine and did my control checks one control surface was not responding. I cut the engine and was going over my preflight and I had failed to ensure that a servo wire was completely connected. I was really bothered by that infraction, so I disassembled the aircraft and went home. I just felt, and told myself, I was not ready to fly.

Even routine preflights can get you to sometimes overlook "a disaster waiting to happen". Preflight and preflight often, and don't neglect postflights.

After I saw connectors at the receiver coming lose, I did not just push them back in. I cut two bamboo sticks, about 1/8-inch diameter and about 1-1/2 inch long and laid them over the connectors on the receiver. I then used electrical tape to fix them in place. The connectors cannot back off. Period. On all extension connectors or the connectors to the ON/OFF switch, I use a strong thin string and tie them together. They cannot pull apart. Period. Learn to use the "belt and suspenders" approach on the models. It takes little effort and practically no cost. My concern is not losing a plane; it is losing control of a plane and hurting someone or something.

No kidding you ding-dong



















Sorry, couldn't help it. Thanks for the good advice.

Thanks for the story. I will use it at our next club meeting and emphasis stong safety behaviors.

John 373786

I had a similar thing happen. I was working on landings and low level passes with my PT 40. On one pass, I drifted it into some long grass (about 3 feet high on one side of our runway). Looked the plane over, no damage. Refueled and got up in the air again. The plane was way out of trim for some reason, I could not give her enough roll trim to fly well, after a couple of circuits I landed and investigated. My mishap had losened the bolts on the control horn of the rudder, the horn came right out and I had no rudder to use and it was causing the problems. If that had been the elevator, I would have not been able to keep the plane in the air.

Minor mishap could have killed the plane, I now know to check every connection after every rough landing, or minor crash.

My close call and lession learned was to watch out doing Harriers in the wind.

I was flying my Ultra Stick 40 on the first day I had it flying and I was doing harriers. However the wind was blowing at an odd angle to the field and slowly it was drifting off. Now I was having alot of fun so I really didn't notice the plane getting smaller and smaller until it started losing contact with my transmitter. It started doing large snap rolls until it luckily worked it's way back towards the field and I regained control. Was really frightening for me, seeing it was my second plane on its first day out.

Pay attention to how far away the plane is!

Now I know that you were having fun but my gosh, what is the range on your radio gear? How far do you think it was? I would think that a radio system would be able to allow the aircraft to go about a mile away before losing contact. Maybe it was the line of site and you being low to the deck that made you lose contact so soon?

Perhaps one of the funniest post-incident accidents I have ever seen was when I was stationed in Korea. I used to fly with a bunch of Koreans at an area they were going to build some apartments, but had only laid the streets and fire hydrants for some odd reason. Anyway, this guy is flying what looked like a Kyosho Cseena 182 when he landed it and dinged the leading edge into a fire hydrant. I looked at it and saw a visible dent in the leading edge and walked off thinking, "his flying day is done" and went to preflight my own plane. Five minutes later I hear an engine start and the guy is taxiing out to take off again. He gets up to about 300 feet and starts doing loops and other stuff until his wings fold together above the airplane, and then separate. Now we have two wing halves gently fluttering to the ground, a dumfounded pilot who is not doing anything wih the controls, and a missile-like Cessna 182 fuselage spiraling nose first toward the ground at near full throttle. It impacted safely away from everyone, but right into the pavement, obliterating anything that may have once resembled an aircraft part.

Since then, I know never to fly an aircraft that has had an incident until I can do a complete and thorough inspection at home. sometimes you have to peel back a little covering to see the damage.

and always make sure to check that the control surfaces are mmoving the right way. i had a problem with that once and i flew my plane with all the controls backwards. lol

ryan

On my best glow plane (.60 size 300 extra With a OS .91) I got a new Rx and did not unwrap the antenna and I was bumping around and did not know why so I landed. When i saw what happened I was surprised I did not crash.

Good luck

Will

PS: My dad put in the new Rx and did not tell me so don't blame me.

Hehe...those foam rubber wraps they give you when you buy a new rx is there for a reason. I had a hitec 6 channel rx. It was small,
good size for electric flight. Generally, I will put velcro on rx's to hold them in place on foamie type planes. Started using it on my glow planes. No problems...even been in a few crashes. Had a new Cessna Skylane, OS .46 AX power. Put that rx in the plane.
And, just used velcro to hold the rx in. Worked fine until one flight, I was up about 150 feet and was in a nice scale looking left hand turn. Tried to level wings out and got nothing. Plane kept turning left in circles while dropping...dropped right into the ground destroying plane. Upon post crash investigation, it was revealed that the xtal in the rx had fractured!!! I've since have wrapped all my
rx's in glow planes in foam ever since. I had the rx velcro'd to the inner side of the fuse. Apparently, the vibration from a running engine shook the living daylights out of the rx.

Dave...

hello
i had the same thing with a brand new Cap 232. I had one flawless maiden flight then on the second flight the airleron connection worked its way out a bit. I lost airleron control in the middle of a stall turn then i came back on a spun the plane with no imput from me. I couldn't figure if it was interference or something else. The connection was intermitted so i would use the airerlon to level it but it would respond a few seconds later. I managed to land it downwind with no damage at all.
When on the ground it was still messed and we tried swapping transmitter cyrstals (we can do that in canada) into a different transmitter. It didn't solve the problem. But then i saw the aileron connector backed out more than the others. When i pushed it back in they were fine. I fixed it with a few elastics around the whole reciever and connectors and it has been fine since.

Tom

Beware, this could also can happen inside of the radio....it did in mine. Ground checks should be a little more extensive IMO.

Good Luck

For newer pilots, check your Dual Rate for low rates if that's what you really want to start out at (first flight of the day for instance). I did not and, with a combination of strong gusty winds above the tree line, I ended up with a pile of scrap balsa and a quick ride home. My mistake started with not assigning the same percentage for both low and high rates (basically disabling the dual rate function) until I was ready for high/low rate functions. I was not ready for high rates but it was in high rates. The flight did not last long, mainly because I was confusing the strong gusty winds (partial contributor) with my over-correcting movements on the control sticks. Pilot error.. no excuse sir! Rebuild and remember.