Near crash --- has this happened to you ?
 

[8D]
Was training a new flier on his Alpha ARF . Sometime into the third flight of the day he began to have a steering problem . Being on a buddybox , I took control and found I could not get the Alpha to turn left . After a lot of rudder and aileron input I was able to land the plane . Upon checking the plane over he found the colored trim on the right wing was loose . It was held in place on the inboard end by the rubber bands and on the outboard end by the Alpha decal . The air flowing over the right wing was interrupted by the trim that had turned 90 degrees causing a partial stall of the right wing . ( almost like a spoiler ) We removed all the trim on both wings as we found some more that were becoming loose . The plane flew great . Wondering if this is a common problem or if anyone else has ever heard of this . If this plane had crashed we probably would never have found what caused the loss of steerage .

RE: Near crash --- has this happened to you ?
 

happened to me twice!

Once on the side of the fuse, and once on the wing. On both happend recently after i had soloed so i had no buddy box but i managed. I was just flying along and it felt like i had no aileron control like you mentioned so i did the best i could and landed it safely... only then did i see a big orange peice of trim flapping behind the plane as i taxied it in.

Either tack down your color trim with CA or take it all off! other wise it could be a rough landing or worse!

RE: Near crash --- has this happened to you ?
 

Yep, been using the iron more than I ever figured I would, that and some ca like Righty was mentioning. Also, check the integrity of the rubber bands holding the wing on, especially after a "bouncy" landing while shooting touch n go's.. I have had one break, then during a loop on the same flight, the wing came loose (you could hear it "rattle" or flutter while under the bottom of the loop), and it skewed a little to one side, causing the aileron to jam.

RE: Near crash --- has this happened to you ?
 

how many rubber bands are you using?

I use 12 minimum.

RE: Near crash --- has this happened to you ?
 

I can usually get away with 8. Two on each side criss crossed, and 2 on each side front to back. The test is to hold on to the wing and give it a bounce or shake to see if the wing is on tight. If it bounces or rattles at all, I will add 2 more to each side, but I have only had to do that once. The time I broke one you had a hard time seeing it until you really looked, the broken band was under the others. It only takes a couple of seconds to check if you have any doubts, and is a really cheap thing to do.
Righty, what kind of gear did you use on yours when you converted to a taildragger? I have one airframe I am going to modify. It was an Alpha, but I am going to also cut the wing and remove most of the dihedral from it. Can you give me a measurement of where your main gear is mounted and how your C. G. worked out? Thanks in advance. If you want you can PM me...

RE: Near crash --- has this happened to you ?
 

I have the same problem with the covering on mine. I always use 12 bands minimum. Im gonna take the iron to the covering problem.

RE: Near crash --- has this happened to you ?
 

I once ended up flying around with a balloon stuck to the right wing of my Midwest Super Hots... this happened during a FunFly event at our club.
The goal was to pop balloons that where pinned to the ground on flower sticks. I managed to pull the flower stick out of the ground... it was hanging on the bottom of my wing, and the balloon on top.
I needed quite a bit of rudder at that moment :D... if it weren't for the enlarged control surfaces I probably wouldn't have made it back down in one piece.

And more recently (last year) the trim on the right wing of my Weston UK Magnum let go during flight. This is a 170 mph plane... without rudder... and pretty small control surfaces.
The black carbon trim on that plane has about the size of the wing... when it let go it got stuck to the hot tuned pipe... needless to say it was a handful to get it back down. But I made it...