KitCrasher

I just got my wings 3-4 weeks ago, and have been heading out to the field every chance I can get. It was a perfect evening to fly...not too much wind, temp in the low 80's...and I was the only one flying (can ya beleive it?). I had 2 successful flights and was working on approach and landings. On one landing I turned a litttle too much, and the goofy thing tipped and shut the engine down.

It was almost dusk, and at this point I should have been happy with my 2 1/2 flights, but with the perfect weather and having the field to myself, it happened. I thought to myself..."I'll top off the tank and go up ONE MORE TIME".

I got the plane lined up, hit the throttle and away she went. About 1/3 of the way down the runway the engine sputtered a bit, but I still had runway left so instead of backing off (like I should have) I kept on going. Just as I was about to pull back on the throttle, it kicked into high gear. At this point I'm not sure exactly what happeded. I think the left wheel hit some high grass, the plane cartwheeled over and smashed the nose into the ground. [:@]

There is no damage to the wings, but it will need a major nose job. I hope to have it flying in a week or so. I've got a couple pics of the carcus. If anyone has a cure for the "One more time" bug please let me know!

aussiesteve

Ok - the cure for the "One more time bug" is as follows.

Hit yourself over the head three times then accept that that particular bug is ilmost incurable and you'll probably suffer those symptoms again. -

It is also often associated with the "Dumb Thumbs" Bug and the "Hey guys watch this bug" (AKA the "This will show them" bug). Now if you get afflicted by two or more of those at once - you'd better hope you ain't flying something in the top half of the cost range for this hobby.

AERORICH73

Hi Steve: This situation is part of the learning process to becoming an experienced pilot. Do not beat yourself up over the crash. While I have been at this hobby for years, I still have problems not following my gut feelings that arrive at a flight time when common sense tells me to stop doing a stupid thought. Always check the wind speed before leaving home, take all the equipment including TX, follow safety rules with channel pin on the TX, and anchor the plane with a deadman if no one is there to hold the plane when starting. Oh, by the way, it is great to have a medical kit handy just in case. Went to the club field late Sunday afternoon with wife in tow. My flight log showed I had not flown since February 2008. My takeoffs were great, and after airborne, my fingers and mind began to remember how to operate the TX. Landings were a real learning experience as the old beat up trainer was just acting very sloppy a low speed on the final approach to the runway. Having an idle speed to high, my gound speed was high when the nose wheel hit rough grass, and slowly flipped the plane over. The left turned nose wheel had twisted the steering arm against the firewall, and really bent the solder cable end. This problem followed me the whole time at each landing. Sure glad no one else was flying to see my consistant high speed landings, with flip overs. Plane did not get damaged, but I was not pleased with my piloting skills. The Evolution Alpha engine(0.455) that came on a plane purchased, is still running on the rich side, and I have been concerned about having a flame out at idle during a landing; so need to spend some time at home to lean out the mixtures so the idle can be below 3000rpms.

It is good to read that you are heading to the field often. Before remarrying, I was flying several hours a week. Now I have more to do at home when the wind is blowing to hard. The club runway had to be move 90 degrees due to a nasty housing developer; so we have a 90 degree crosswind to deal with most of the time. Turning off the base leg onto final is really an interesting chore as the base leg is at down wind high speed when making the turn into a crosswind on final. A lot of the club members land on the runway width.

Give us a few photos of the repair, and the finished job.

Rich S.

jetmech05

never ever think just one more flight e.eeeee....gad you did yourself in...sorry it happened...... get back in the air soon

Adui

Rule of thumb I always follow, (well ok so its most of the time )

Never go up for one more, or one last flight.
I try not to go up if I know I dont have time for at least two more flights. If its getting close to time to quit, but the above applies I will go up again, with the idea in mind that I can fgo again after.
If when that flight is over, I still have time for TWO mor flights I will go again, if I find my time is down to 20 minutes or less, I am done..

I have only broken this rule a couple times, the gremlins havent got me fo it yet.. ([X(] looking for something wooden to knock on QUICK)

WILL FELLENZ

Hi,

OH, that does not look bad at all compared to mine (try the wings blowing of at 300 feet in the air)
All you need to do is start piecing things back to gether, and make sure to show the scar!!

Arebeck

My Feedback: (2)

KC,

One thing that I never ever, ever do is to tease the airplane gods. Saying 'one more flight' is a sure way to anger them. I also go the way of saying " A couple more flights then I am done". This never angers the airplane gods and they will leave you peace, looking elsewhere for the sacrifice of balsa and glow!

Just fix that plane up and go fly!!

Congratulations on getting your wings.

Ron

aussiesteve

Hey will - did the wings blow off for reasons of "Saving" on rubber bands?
I saw a guy at our old field do that - he was given a bag of old postal rubber bands and decided to use them against better advice (they weren't even the correct size) because they were "free". He even used 3 on each side of his 40 size trainer to make sure he had redundancy if anything went wrong.
The look on his face when the wing came off when he tried a spin was great. The lawn dart came down about 50 yards away from the flight line and my son caught the wing as it came down whilst he was walking out to help him pick up the pieces (amazing how long it took to come down).
He still "Scrimps and saves" on such minor items and has lost a couple of planes since - I guess he likes to sacrifice to the airplane gods on our behalf.

Redback

My approach is to say loudly (so the gremlins will hear) "two more flights then I'll pack up", then cancel the second flight.

Terry

Bipeguy

My Feedback: (2)

Hey Kit, I crashed my tower trainer sooooo many times, I lost count!! Just keep putting it back together and fly the wings off her! It's a GREAT trainer.

Bipeguy

Blade-breaker

My Feedback: (4)

Crashed trainers = tail dragger conversion. I think you will like it, and ya want to learn how to fly a tail dragger anyways, Right?

flybug

Sorry to see your trainer crashed, but I'm sure you can get this back in the air in no time.

Spacemonkey71

I'm kinda glad I'm not the only one dumping Tower 40/60 into objects The 1st time I flew mine "the pine tree goblins" snatched it and landed it PERFECTLY - about 60' off the ground........ it took 3 days and 60' of PVC to knock it down. the wing was peirced so for all I know, it's still there. I replaced it with a different wing (it's a little shorter (about 10"...), but with a 1" wider chord so flying it tomorrow should be a REAL trip! I trust this plane about as far as I can spit brussel sprouts [:@]

Don't worry, your crash is NOTHING. Check out the pics I posted here. This was from a trainer plane that the guy didn't set his elevator correctly on. He "landed" on his wheels, just REAL hard! He snapped the fuselage, smashed the left wingtip, blew out the rear support for the wing, and generally knocked the every loving TAR out of it. He was going to junk it (it has been around the club for a LONG time and, I swear I'm not making this up; at some point, SOMEONE decided that clear bathroom caulk was good airplane "fix-it" material!)

I brought the plane home in 3 peices and my wife looked at me like I'd just brought home a hooker! It took some inventiveness, but I reconnected the fuselage (the best wood I found for bracing was actually those wooden "yard sign" posts for $0.72 each! I carved up the peices I needed, set them with woodglue, and then MASSIVELY RE-ENFORCED the entire bay with gorilla glue so the expanding foam would fill in the gaps and get the corners. Now it's so tough, I can't break it over my knee!. To fix the crushed wingtip, I disassembled the tip, removed the balsa scraps, puzzle pieced them back together + woodglue, then pressed out the ultrakote from the inside to make it as smooth as possible, THEN dumped a POTLOAD of gorilla glue into it and smoothed it around the busted part with my finger. It expanded PERFECTLY and pressed the shaped back into line. Then I replaced the balsa - more wood glue + gorrilla and CA'd the wingtip back on. To fix the rear of the wing, I just had to "shim" the wing back in line (on the wing and the fuselage). It turned out VERY WELL!!!!! They'll be SHOCKED to see this bird back in the air!

You don't have ANY problems that a little ingenuity and scrap peices of wood, glue, CA, and gorilla glue can't handle. Good Luck!

Mine's a Tower 60 and they're supposed to be SOOOO easy to fly...... I have NOT found this to be true so far! They're almost TOO light, I can NEVER get the ailerons to "behave" consistantly (either one side or the other is always higher...) and the wingspan is really affected by the breeze (call me silly, but shouldn't a 60"+ ws have a weight of MORE than 6 lbs????) the build is a little flimsy with lots of weak spots (you found the big one already!), and the covering material is like a plastic "tissue paper" in durabilty....Mine's been torn, punched, ripped, etc... and it looks like crap! I'm almost looking forward to crashing it again so I can put all the parts on my new hand-made (from blueprints) 1970's Jensen "Das Ugly Stik" I just hope I don't bugger up the engine in the process....

(the 1st picture is of the damage, the 2nd is of the fix, and the 3rd is what it looked like about 10 minutes before WHOMP! into the turf!)

There is hope in fixing your plane! Just take it one part at a time and don't get overwhelmed. You'll have it flying again in NO time!

Jim_Purcha

My Feedback: (8)

I know the feeling. I did that with my Avistar two summers back. I had to go for that third flight of the evening. Too much in a hurry. Tried trimming it too close to the ground and through my aileron trim all the way over too the left. Rolled the wing into the ground. Just finished fixing up the monokote trim too.

flybug

Ouch!! that one hurt[&o]