derek533

Well, last Friday I took my World Models Mach I to the field. It was a fairly calm day (for Oklahoma anyways) with winds around 10-15mph. I flew once with no problems whatsoever. The second flight, I made a few circuits, landed and had intended to shut it off. I then thought to myself how nice it was outside and days like this don't come that often, so I took back up. Keep in mind that the second and last flight are all one flight as I never cut the motor once I landed. I had it about 100' high and about 50' straight out from the runway. I pulled up and applied power. Once I had reached my desired altitude, I chopped the throttle but no response (uh oh), the plane nosed over and the throttle was still wide open so down it came and landed about 2' in front of our retaining fence at our field. That was the worst feeling in the world when you have not control whatsoever. I have had a few radio hits before but nothing that lasted longer than a second. This was a complete loss of signal. It was going so fast that it was able to maintain almost a perfect nose down angle. The engine was completely underground and only the backplate was visible. The engine was ruined (it broke the carb into pieces, ripped off the exhaust manifold and bent the crankshaft).

After the incident, I immediately tested the voltage on my receiver pack and it was reading about 5.4 volts and it is a 4.8v pack. My transmitter was reading about 10.3 volts and the antennae was secure. Who knows what went wrong. I almost wish it had been something that I would have done. I could have taken that alot better than equipment failure.

It is possible that I received some sort of interference. I had no response from any control surface or throttle once it nosed over. Another guy flew right after I crashed and he was extremely mad b/c he got a radio hit when he was flying and stated that he had already lost two previous planes due to interference at our field. He did not crash but he immediatley packed everything up and left the field while I was still picking up the pieces.

I think I jinxed myself though. On the way to our club, I was thinking about how I could convert it to a taildragger and what kind of color scheme I would re-cover it in if I had a mishap. I guess we'll never know b/c there is no re-covering this plane!

Kind of shakes your confidence you know?

bubbagates

My Feedback: (32)

I am sorry to hear that. Yep it can shake you a bit and considering there seems to be a history of interference at your field I will not even try to give you an idea as to what else may have happened.

Just relax, and in a few days you'll feel better and want to start flying again.

Oh yea, you did not say anything like, "come on, one more flight" within earshot of the plane. They have ears and you got "just one more flight" Sometimes I think planes have ESP because you did say you thought something similiar

Just kidding

KaosDriver

Sorry about the Mach 1. Did you check the freq. this other guy was operating on? It sounds like he may have been covering his tracks. In any event, it's nice to hear you mention the memories. That's what really matters. However, what's going on at your field is concerning, to say the least.....Mark

bdavison

My Feedback: (1)

Get one of those frequency checkers. Then head out to the field and turn it on. Check what frequencies are bouncing around...you may find there is one that someone locally is broadcasting on or something.

derek533

Yeah, we have had problems with a guy who lives about a mile away and operates a ham radio. The other guy that was flying was on channel 38 and I'm on 48 so there was no issue there. I do know that the ham radio can interfere with channel 38 but I am not smart enough to tell you exactly why. Who knows what happenned, just frustrating that's all. If my engine and equipment had survived, I wouldn't have been upset but to loose all of that, it's frustrating as heck.

bigdarylg

pcm or ppm, have been hearing a lot of horror stories about pcm's going to fail safe and staying there lately, sorry about your loss