First flight and crash of 2003
 

This was my first flight this year and I got a little too close to a metal pole at the field today. Try to guess which wing grazed the pole. Cold fingers, dumb thumbs, and a serious case of pilot brain fade caused this to happen while I was doing touch-n-goes.

It's actually quite nice to get that first crash over with, but for some sick reason I was wanting to show my "handiwork" off to everyone... Enjoy...

:-)

john

one more
 

Here's the dog doing a post-crash analysis....

crash
 

Sorry about your accident, but look at it this way before fixing it hit the other wing in the same place and add two engines and make a tri motor out of it. (he,he)

is this right?
 

Thanks for the suggestion Bob!

Just shove a couple more engines in right? So far it looks the hole is plenty big enough for it to work. You guys are going to have to help me figure out how to route the throttle linkages though...

lol

john

tri-motor
 

Good work John, next comes the other engine. Won`t be as easy.

wings vs. poles
 

Reminds me of an old 2m foam glider I had back when I was learning soaring. I came in from a huge thermal (straight down) and was gonna make a beautiful sweep around the back of our flying hill and come around front to pull a couple rolls and slow that beast down. Seemed like a good idea, except that the flagpole with the windsock decided to interupt my plan. Came straight down, pulled back and leveled it, wing caught the pole right next to the fuse. Ripped the rubberbands off, wing slid down the pole while the fuse became a ballistic missile into the (thankfully) empty parking lot. Total damage: small dent in the foam wing (not very noticeable) and a few scuffs on the bottom of the fuse where it slid for 50ft before hitting a curb and catapulting into the weeds. Replaced the rubberbands and relaunched. Say what you will about foam but it does have its advantages.

First flight and crash of 2003
 

Hey John, where are you flying out of? We've been flying fairly steadily all winter with quite a few mishaps at our field as well.

Flying field
 

Lt. Dan:

I've been flying out at the Memphis Propbusters field...just off of Highway 64. Where do you usually fly at? Given the short days and a busy work schedule, I've haven't had time to fly since October. The day i took my airplane up it was in the upper 30's, spitting snow, and the field was horribly soggy from all the rains we've had. When I retrieved my plane from the "carrier landing" I just did, I was amused because the water spray kicked up from the wheels actually turned into ice on the underside of my airplane... oh well I wanted to go home anyway.

I know some of you guys are thinking "oh yeah 30 degrees is cold" but in my defense I want everyone to to know that Yes I'm a WUSS! :D

With the exception of putting the red, yellow, and blue trim on the wings, I've almost got her back together!

john

First flight and crash of 2003
 

Hey Dude sorry bout that man but you gotta get back out WHEN ITS WARMER LOL and fly your heart out. Thats hat my dad said. But im still wondering what kind o servos and engine to put on my heart???:-)

First flight and crash of 2003
 

put an extra servo on the wing lol

First flight and crash of 2003
 

Hey guys, thanks for all the suggestions. anyone thought about taking airplane pieces from a bunch of crashed airplanes, gluing them all together and seeing if it would fly?

A name for it would be a no-brainer: "Frankenstein".

I'll just rename my airplane "Patches"
lol

:D

-john

First flight and crash of 2003
 

Our field had a famous "patches" plane. The owner finally flew it through the windshield of someones car. We also had a "trashcan" plane. Pieces came from 4 different planes, all debris from other accidents.

Incidentally, my one and only venture to the flying field this year resulted in about 3 seconds of flying, and 1 second of crashing. I built a spad stick, and was in such a lather to give it its maiden voyage, I forgot to extend the TX antenna. DOOHH!!! Busted up fuse was the only damage. $3 and 1 hour and it will be good as new.

First flight and crash of 2003
 

LOL!

"Trashcan" is a good name for a plane too!

Sorry about your first flight airwethead, as Homer Simpson would say, "DOH"!!!!

:)

john

pole
 

Hey I'm not the only one. yesterday i had my my first flight and first crash of the year. My electric fighterbird hit a metal pole when i was lining up for a landing, cliped the right half of the tail off, spun to the gorund and landed gear down lol. 10 min of work and a new tail and its ready to fly again.

First flight and crash of 2003
 

My modified Kadet Senior before and after toays "flight":
http://home.stny.rr.com/sergeev/afher_1flight_2.jpg
http://home.stny.rr.com/sergeev/kadet_crashed2.jpg

An aileron servo went nuts and sent the plane into a spin...
:(

First flight and crash of 2003
 

OMG bluesky :(

that looked painfull, how long till she is flying again, looked a nice plane too

First flight and crash of 2003
 

I have a somewhat scratch built plane I call the Freedom1. Used a wing and vertical tail from an obliterated Sig Kadet. I just finished it and I hope to fly it in the next few weeks.

Freedom1

First flight and crash of 2003
 

Dan

It looks pretty good to me and the name is very appropriate! Good luck on your first flight!

-john

oops
 

oh yeah, and I'm sorry about your loss bluesky
:(

I agree with gizz...it was a good lookin' one.
good luck with the rebuild

-john

frankenplane?
 

I once helped "create" something from wreckage scraps in desperation...:)

Last year at a 1/12 scale combat meet a friend and I entered competition with only 2 planes. A House of Balsa T-6 texan, and a foam Hellcat.

During the meet, the Texan had a midair collision in which the wing was shredded and nose was buckled in the crash. The Hellcat had a midair that originally had no noticeable damage- with the minute exception of the battery pack coming unplugged. Unfortunately, it flew a nice steady dive into the ground at about 70mph and its fuse and wing were broken up....

So, after a bit of CA (about half a bottle) some epoxy, extra rubber bands to hold the wing together (we also ripped up a shirt and glued some fabric over the holes in the wing-since we didn't have any fiberglass) and repositioned the firewall, we gave it another try. We had a wierd hybrid of a T-6 balsa fuse with a foam Hellcat wing.
We crashed the first "test flight" due to being way too tail heavy, and thus broke the wing in half again... (it wasn't all the way dry yet) so we glued heavy stuff (lead, rocks, etc...) to the nose, stuck the wing back together, and tried it again.

End of long story...-> We finished the next 2 heats of combat with "frankenplane" and placed 4th overall..,!!!!

All the repairs took place during the 1 hour lunch break at the meet....

I tell you THAT was one ugly plane...(which was later stripped of anything good and tossed because we didn't trust it to be safe to fly around people...)
:D:)

First flight and crash of 2003
 

BWAHAHAHAAAA!!!!! You're articulate crash story had me in stitches Wallrat. I had no trouble visualizing the event. Sounds like it should have happened to me though. A light pole in a parking lot claimed my .40 GP Sportster just above stall speed during approach, clipped the right wing,sent it into a high rpm flat spin (hopeless as I was right at stall speed) spinning bellyflop right into the asphalt. Cleaned up the mess with a broom and went home. I felt like an idiot cuz' the pole has always been there, but I was flying as if it was never there, don't know why.


JJ

Here is my first flight of the season
 

By the way mine is the red stick :stupid:

Got too close

Terry

First flight and crash of 2003
 

Here's my first crash of 2003. I broke the tail.... again.

First flight and crash of 2003
 

Hey guy's sorry for kind of jumping in the middle of this. But I saw some of the pictures and i just couldn't resist. TO start off, bluesky, OUCH MAN!!!! That really looks like a painfull one. John, sorry about the crash. but it's obvious that the damage is repairable. bet it'll feel good to get it back in the air. and last, the freedom 1 looks really good.
-chris