You all will have to forgive me for holding back. It has taken me a few days to get over our loss.

For those of you that have been following our build, we got the Black Baron Special up and in the air for its maiden flight on July 3rd. Our instructor/test pilot had advised us that we would probably get a little roll to the right on takeoff due to a slight warp in our wing. No Prob, just warp it in the opposite direction and heat it up to shrink the covering. That was basically the only thing we had that was not expected .

On takeoff, the airplane did indeed try to roll right, and that was corrected with trim. We had to tone down our control throws a bit (thank you, computer radio) and we added exponential to soften it up a bit. Our instructor was very pleased with the plane. We had Eva take the controls first. The plane flew like a dream! The Irvine .53 was more than enough for it (unlimited vertical!), and it ran quiet and like a sewing machine. I flew it next and we decided to call it a day. A great and successful one at that.

July 4th. Headed back up to the field to fly it again. Eva couldn't make it. My instructor let me do the takeoff and it tracked very well. Straight out, up and into the pattern a few passes, figure 8's, loops, and aileron rolls. This thing flies great! So smooth. Very solid. The engine just lopes along!

My instructor must have been VERY impressed. He decided to show me how to do a split S, and an immelman. I did them, too. Not perfect, but quite respectable I would say. They just needed to be polished up a bit. My instructor then showed me how to do a 1/2 Cuban 8. I responded in kind. Gave it some throttle... up, up, back over the top... inverted coming down at 45 degrees nose low. Almost perfect! But then I started to hunt the elevator![X(]

Airplane was upside down, coming at me. Everything was backward! I started getting nervous and I told my instructor he had the airplane! But... too late! Into the dirt. Upside down. More than 45 nose low. Power on.[]

The airplane was totaled.[&o]

My instructor really felt bad. Eva was in total disbelief when I told her about it. (I think a little pissed, too!)

We salvaged the engine. Haven't fired it up yet, but it's on an LT-40 ARF we just finished. Cleaned it up very well. Turns nice and smooth.

We saved the radio equipment, too. Looks like it will all live to fly again.

For those of you who said we should have picked up a real trainer, You were probably right. I think that probably would have been a wise move. I do think that the cause of my crash was a combination of my instructor trusting me too much and me having too much confidence in myself. I also gave him the airplane in probably THE worst position possible. This event has been something to learn from.

I have decided that I need to use the sim to get very familiar with any maneuver before I try it at the field. I have also decided I am going to perfect the basics before moving on to advanced stuff for fun. I'm not as good as I thought I was!

Steve, I'm looking for a Black Baron Special, too. The second one is going to stay in the box for a while. We're going to fly the wings off this LT-40 (not literally, I hope!).

BTW, if you do build a Black Baron Special, hang an Irvine .53 on it. It's awesome!

Wish we had stills of our flights to show you. We only got it on video and I don't know how to post it for you.

Sorry to hear about the loss. I followed your build thread, and that was a good looking airplane. Inverted, heading toward the ground is not a good position to put a pilot in on the second outting. Your instructor should be ashamed. I can't believe he let you take it off on the second flight either. This guy is brave with your stuff! Anyway, at least you have another one to build once you get the hang of flying!

I too am sorry to hear about your fault. It isn't your instructors fault nor yours, it is a combination. Again, Crashes happen don't worry about it. If you can fly the pattern and fly figure eights and straight and level, you were more than ready to take off, so your instructor wasn't trying to rush, you were just very good. The lt-40s are great planes from what i have seen (never flown a 40), I have however flown an lt-25 and it is a very fun plane. Have fun and don't feel discouraged.

Sorry about the loss. Let me say this though. I'm assuming you are a new pilot? Your instructor should have never let you do these types of aerobatics this early. Actually, he wouldn't be an instructor in our club after that. And I'd be blaming him, not you for the crash. Good luck on the LT-40. Its an excellent plane to learn on and it will not disappoint.

Dave...

For future reference heres a little trick, and Im not joking.

When you are upside down and dont know what to do,,, remember 1 word... PUSH. Get that word engrained in your head.


Heres how it works.,,, You are flying upside down and "OH CRAP, Im heading for the ground and Im upside down I dont know what to do.... WHAT DO I DO???? PUSH!!! "(Push the elevator stick FORWARD!) The plane goes up and away from the ground no matter what weird upside down attitude you are in. The only way this doesnt work is if you are not inverted.

Im not joking or harassing you. That is the word all top pattern pilots use to describe climbing out of inverted flight, and its for a reason. You PUSH forward on the elevator stick to move away from the ground when inverted. I fly the masters pattern and there is a good bit of low level inverted flight so I PUSH a lot. If you go to a pattern contest and you sit down with a group of pilots chatting about maneuvers I can almost guarantee you you will hear the word "push" at least once.

When I am flying an iverted maneuver and I need to climb out I still think "Push" from time to time when I am nervous. Its simple insurance.[8D]

Once again your inexperience shows Chad. It was the instructors responsibility. He should not have been letting such a new pilot fly this type of maneuver at an altitude where this could happen. And then not to recover for him is even worse. An instructor does not wait for the student to "give" the plane back, he "takes" it away in time to save it. In short, this should not have happened.

Jetgod, I too am sorry for this loss. As a full scale pilot you should remember that altitude is your friend. Practice on the sim and at a safe altitude until confidence is supported with skills. At least you can keep in the air.

Agree with Bruce on this one. The instructor was showing how to do advanced aerobatics, fine. But any situation can go bad and if its at a safe altitude, there is time to recover. The instructor should not have let the plane get too low without taking over and leveling the plane. And Bruce is right, sometimes the plane is in trouble and the student doesn't even know it. Thats when the instructor should take over and correct things. Sometimes it may be premature and the student was just about to fix the problem himself, but its a jugement call and its better to error on the side of keeping the plane safe. I only had one student that used to say, "you took over too soon, I was about to fix that". However my method is, I teach at the 3 mistakes high, when things start to go wrong, which means that the plane is losing altitude for some reason, I start counting(to myself). If the student hasn't started to properly respond to the situation by the count of 10, which should be lots of time to see that something is wrong, I take over because there is isn't enough height left to trust that the student can safely recover. The new guy that complained always went home with his plane in 1 piece, which is better than what happened when he was getting "trained" at the "other club and had to replace the entire plane! [8D]

Dave,

Oh man, I am very sorry to hear about this. I followed your build thread with great interest. [] Please do not be so hard on yourself. I do not do kits so I cannot relate well to the feeling of taking a bunch of sticks and creating a plane. I do customize ARF's so I feel bad when I plant one. Thank god in over 800 flights over the last 1.5 yrs I have only planted 3 of them but each one hurt to a degree.

I, myself, was pretty confident that you would be fine on that plane. I will never argue the fact of flying a more docile trainer like the LT-40 is better but in your case I really did not see where it was going to matter and I still stand on that belief.

Now I also agree that your instructor should have not let you do the more advanced maneuvers. He should have taken control sooner. May I suggest that the next time you and the instructor work out a communication strategy so that you both understand who is doing what and when, just like you do in full scale in either training or even if you have a first officer next to you. It may sound silly to those that have never taken full scale lessons or have flown full scale commercially, but communication is key.

You did find out very quickly that full scale does NOT carry over to RC in respect to handling the plane as orientation becomes a problem, fast. I have not doubt about your full scale skills and I have a gut instinct about you being able to pickup on RC fairly quickly.

The really cool thing is you recognize what went wrong and already have a plan to help reduce the risk of that happening again. That is a true sign of a good pilot as you already know.

Tom Skerrit in Top Gun said it best. "A good pilot is compelled to evaluate what happened so that he can apply what he has learned". And that you just did. [sm=thumbup.gif]

Again, I am sorry this happened, please keep us informed of your progress. Your posts make for great reading.

thejetgod,
You learned the same way I did...the hard way. Except I learned the hard way on a Sig Ultimate profile. You really can't rush this hobby. Fly the heck out of that trainer before you move up. But I'm glad to see it's not getting you discouraged like it did me. It took me the better part of 3 years to really get back into the hobby (and I got back in with a nice...slow...Tower Trainer). This really is the best hobby on earth. Take it slow and enjoy it! Good luck with the LT-40.

-Patrick

Sorry about the crash. I was going to join those complaining about your instructor, but the quotes above make me first want to ask, who was holding the radio with the instruction switch? Not that I think you should have been holding it, just wondering.

Instructors should always have the live radio, and should not hesitate to let go of the switch. I find it easy to explain why I took control, but fatigued or nervous students usually have to be asked if they want a rest. Students in trouble shouldn't be asked, the switch should be released. I usually let go of the switch and say "The reason I took control is...." as I'm straightening out the plane.

Good luck on the next planes!

Best wishes,
Dave Olson

Were you on a buddy box, or were you just handing the transmitter back and forth?

As an instructor (Who only teaches on a buddy box) I cant imagine watching an airplane go into the ground waiting on the student to ask me to take over. Its a reflex that is subconscious, if I see a plane in trouble I will wait as long as I can but when I know its getting close I instinctively let go of the button and catch the plane, I dont ask for permission. Im in control and I decide whos got the plane.

Fastsky hit the nail directly on the head... a "COMPETENT" instructor does not wait for the student to tell him to take control of the aircraft. I cant count the times in my first few flights where my instructor said "I've got it", and I didnt even realize that quickly that I was in trouble. His competence and attention to what was going on with the plane at all times saved me from re-kitting the plane several times, I suspect. There is a big difference in getting instruction from someone who knows how to fly R/C, and someone who can "instruct" flying R/C. I've flown full scale for a bunch of years, and the same holds true in that relm also... just because a pilot can fly does not in any way mean he is competent or qualified to teach someone else to fly.

Guys,

Thanks for your interest and good advice. I wanted to clear up some of the questions that some of you have had regarding our training arrangement. Every time that I was flying with the instructor, I was on a buddy box. The instructor held the master radio and I held the slave.

You are quite correct that my instructor should have kept me in a much safer learning environment. He probably should have not allowed me to attempt maneuvers such as I was, or at least he should have made sure that I was 3 mistakes high. However, as a full scale pilot, I am disappointed that I did not place those limitations upon myself. I know better. Altitude IS your friend and can help you avoid costly events such as we had that day. I will choose to learn from this whole experience and walk away from it wiser.

As a follow up, we have our LT-40 assembled (still using our Irvine .53 which runs excellently), and it has two flights on it now. After 4 different approaches (man, does this thing FLOAT!) I finally got a nice landing out of it this evening.[sm=thumbup.gif]

Eva likes it better (as a trainer) than the Baron (she finally told me she was a bit afraid of the Baron). It's larger, easier to see and much more forgiving. It also is much less slick aerodynamically so it doesn't get away as quickly.

We're still having fun, which is most important. I'm just looking ahead to solo time!

Thanks again for your kind words and good advice. We'll keep you posted on our progress.

Dave-

Sorry to hear about the loss. At least you had fun building it and we all enjoyed following your progress. I agree that you should fly the wings off the LT-40. You will eventually get so comfortable with it that recovery from odd situations will be completely intuitive. Then you will be ready for something a little more maneuverable.

Have fun!

-Scott

Ya, wait till you see what that big trainer looks like hanging from the prop, very cool! I learned how to do that with just an FX40 engine on the front!

Man sorry to hear about the nice plane you built but we have all lost a plane at one time. and will lose more if we keep flying. But you are on the right track now with the trainer plane. I have just started flying a stick plane i got when i started out in this hobbie i was told to put it up and wate until i got use to the trainer so i did. this is a slow learn hobbie for me and i have learned to leason to the guys when thay say dont do it yet. Anyways i hope you injoy flying the trainer thay are a lot of fun. I still fly mine when my little girl is not flying it she is 12 and loves going to the club and flying with me. Good luck and i hope one day you have all the planes you wont and can fly them all very well.

your instructor was at fault,i did so many fly by's and touch and go's until i could see it in my sleep when i was learning.it is such an unsafe practice to let a student do anything but controlled takeoffs and landings especially with other people at the field like i assume there was.some people just have a natural knack for learning to fly some instructors take that for granted,but until you could prove you could do the basics i would never let you do any advanced maneuvers.i have been flying RC for almost 30 years and i still get confused at times when flying inverted especially when there are 3 other people flying at the same time.the push method works someone here explained that.also when flying an airplane toward you remember wing down on the stick on your ailerons.good luck with your lt40 they are a good trainer.i am sorry about your loss just use it as a learning experience.how many times can we reflect back and say if i just did this.......
most people that fly have had some sort of crash some worse than others,i have had my share.i love this hobby and getting out on weekends with my children and fellow flyer's'.when you are on a buddy box and get into a critical situation like you were the best advice i could give you is try to fly through it yourself,some situations cant be avoided no matter what advice you get.good luck and happy flying