This a a part of this humor topic where you can post all the stupid things you've done while flying or builing an airplane or heli. I'm sure you all have done some 'not so smart' things while flying or building. Take a moment to share it with everyone, it might make someone feel better after doing the same thing!


Mine was not so bad, luckily. I was gluing the tail feathers on with epoxy, when I had them all set and perfectly straight I realized that I did mix the epoxy! So we had to take them out, wipe 'em off and put mixed epoxy back on!

[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-blush.gif[/img]
My building blunder has to be one of the stupidest. On my Goldberg Anniversary Cub, I had this cool fueling
port on the fuselage side. It looked like it would be easier to mount the fuel tank backwards, so without thinking about what I was doing, I did it! When the tank was full, it wouldn't matter that the clunk was in front. But when the fuel level got a little low, there would be no fuel at the clunk when the plane rotated for takeoff. Result: the maiden flight was pure joy, but flight #2 was a disaster. As the Cub took off, the fuel went to the rear of the tank, and the clunk was in the front, hence, no fuel to the engine, hence, Cub in nine pieces.

Inspired by an article about building your "foam flyer" out of meat trays from the grocery store, I saved, washed, and sanitized trays for about 2 months. Then I began to build. Wings looked good. By the time I got the two fuslage halves built, I realized they were identical; TWO LEFT HALVES! Back to the grocery, and a clerk who GAVE me more trays to work with. That was this winter. It taxies well, but I have not flown it yet. (Electric)

That sounds cool Bill, do you have any pictures? How big is it and what size motor?

Come on people, post about you! i'm sure I and the other guys that have already posted aren't the stupidest people on these forums.... but then again you never know...

Stupidest thing I've done is get bored with my trainer - a nice Kadet 40 size. Scratch built, flew like a dream. Got tired of flying around in circles and figure 8's, so decided I should try a roll. Anihalated everything north of the wings, reducing the largest piece to the size of a playing card. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img] Oh well, I look on it as an opportunity to convert it to a tail-dragger with a sportier wing!

I wouldn't say this is the stupidest thing I've done but it certainly was strange.
Flying my Apache II trainer (taildragger) dead stick, landed just the other side of the runway in the rough, perfect flare, touchdown, on the ground slowing down the plane flipped up onto its nose, What The?. Anyway walk over to retrive the model and nothing to explain it, closer examination reveals the left landing gear had a wheel missing, after searching it could not be found. Hmmmm

OOhex,
The "foamie" I built has white wings, 40" by 9" from steak-trays, ironed flat on the trailing edge, and heated and curved on the leading edge to form an undercambered wing. they are attached by rubber bands to the top of
FUSELAGE: made from yellow, thicker trays like chicken parts come in. 26" long. Tail feathers use the same thicker yellow foam. A blister pack from something makes the cockpit in front of the wings, with a photo of me (right and left view) seen from the side.
Power is a three bladed 9"prop on a speed 300 motor geared 4:1. Wheels are from the Mini Max that crashed (see crashes). It weighs 13 oz. and I figure that is about 5.2oz wing loading.
I use a Hitec system of feather rx, 2 HS55 servos, wire push rods and plastic horns from a damaged Firebird Tail.
I taxied it on a 7 cell 500mAh pack through a GWS GS100 5amp ESC with BEC. Taxied nice! Wanted to lift off BUT since I fly from a school yard, the paved lot is near the building, and sometimes Upwind is away from the school, but landing would have to be past poles, wires, and too close to the school on crosswind. Opposite wind is take off toward the school, then lift fast, stay under the wires, and miss the poles. Too much for this newby!
Thanks for asking. Sorry I'm weak on pictures even though I have a digital camera, wife has a scanner, and about 4 photo programs in the computer. I've sent no pictures, or printed none YET![img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-blush.gif[/img]

A 13oz plane with a speed 300? That's going to be fun! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

I've had some "fun" with epoxy too. On my four star 40 I was really really careful about aligning the vertical stabilizer. I had the fuselage sitting at an angle, with the front higher up than the back, so I checked it over and over until the epoxy was dry enough that it couldn't move. Then I came back a while later and of course it had slid slightly before the epoxy hardened completely (just enough that you can see it [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]).
I also fuel-proofed the firewall with epoxy. When it was dry I went to put the engine mount back on and oops! The threads in the blind nuts were clogged with epoxy. I managed to get them sorted out by heating them with a soldering gun and threading the bolts in and out.

ok, I'll fess up.
I was building one of my first r/c planes.....this was SEVERAL years and models ago.
Not ONLY did I build two right side fuses....but also built TWO right wing halves.
If I remember correctly, it was a called a Q-tee.......wasn't very cute after I was done ungluing and regluing...this was before the marvelous CA's on the market today.
As far as flying blunders.....I was flying my PT-40 INVERTED,about 10 feet above a corn feild and PULLED on the right stick.......OOPS.
Back to the building board.
Tom

My greatest modeling blunder has served as a lesson I've never forgotten. This goes back to the days of free flight, 1939. I was flying a Bunch Scorpion Major powered by a Baby Cyclone but it didn't want to climb as well as usual. First thing was to put on a flatter pitch prop. For good measure I also put a 3/16 square piece of balsa under the leaading edge of the wing. Cranked it up and the Scorpion climbed like a homesick angel. For those who don't know, the Cyclone had a gravity feed fuel system. When Ol' Scorp went straight up the engine sagged terribly which induced a stall. When the nose pointed down Cyclone started to roar and pulled Scorp up into another stall. Repeat performance. On the third repeat the straight down part ended on the ground and washed out a lot of the fuselage. Lesson to be learned. I never knew which adjustment, caused the wreck. Now I never make more than one change at a time. At least I know what causes the crunch and enough not to repeat it.

I have only been at this for a couple of years and am self taught...so I have a few blunders. My first flight was a blunder...I had been taxiing a fair bit on our grass strip (fly a cessna off the farm airstrip) and decided to do some high speed taxi "tests" to get used to steering with the rudder. Anyways about the third pass it came off the ground (Thunder Tiger Trainer 40)...I didn't panick and try to plop it down and decided to do a circuit and bring it in for a landing. Well for some reason it wouldn't turn to the right and was needing full right aileron trim. I did a big circle to the left with no problem (thanks to flight sim) and brought it in...everything looked good but it started dipping that right wing and ended up cartwheeling. Firewall dropped out (it is an arf) and the tail snapped off. I was upset because I had wanted to wait for my father to be there for my first flight. Straight to the hobby store and fixed it and successfully flew the next day.

Since then I have had a few dead sticks before the engine was tuned but only three other stupid moves. The first was coming in for landing and we have a creek right next to the strip. Well all of a sudden the plane dipped down out of sight and I knew I was in trouble...hammered the throttle and pulled up....into the weeds it went but without a scratch..

Another depth perception problem was a real nice decent ...can't remember if I was landing or doing a slow and low pass over the strip but anyways put it in the top of the field corn....real nice "carrier landing" and again unscathed.

My third depth perception was when I got cocky and was flying where I shouldn't have been....away from people but coming close to a big poplar tree. I had been doing it all afternoon when all of a sudden the engine missed a beat and the plane lurched and leaves went flying....the plane kept going and had a small dent in the wing and a twig stuck in the elevator.

Trying learn from these mistakes but I am sure I will make many more because I am having a blast and plan on doing this for as many years as I can.

Mine was when I decided to convert my wing mounts from rubber bands to bolts. I epoxyed in some plywood mounts with blind nuts. After waiting about 2 hours I decided to take it out for a test flight. According to the epoxy label it should be "full strenght in one hour". I was trimming it to a level flight at about 400 feet over head, when the wing seperated from the fuslage. I was so stunned that I watched the wingless plane nose dive into a corn field at full throtle. About 30 seconds later th wing twisted down relatively close to me. I recovered all the peices and have made progress in rebuilding.

Twice now I have pancaked a plane dragging the rudder on the runway. It didn't seem stupid at the time,but I
sure felt stupid afterwords. Showing off will get you into trouble. All is well that ends well and both planes were an easy repair.(H-9 Pizzaz& GP Fun One) later daveo

I obviously have an "edge" on stupid things. Even after MANY, years in this hobby, which was passed to me by my father, I STILL ironed the monokote on without removing the backing. Being a physics teacher, builder, and flyer, I should know better!

Back in the late 70's when I first started flying, I built an Bridi Trainer 40 (RCM Trainer 40). My instructor was taking the aircraft up for its first flight. Rolling down the runway, the aircraft breaks ground, but the right main wheel keeps rolling down the runway, the the plane banks left , dropping the left main tire into a cow pasture. I have not forgotten to tighten a wheel collar since then. fortunately the instructor landed the plane without incident. it stopped in a verey short distance.

The very day after I soloed and received my wings from the Club, I proceded to hit the only tree for miles. I could not have hit that tree if you had paid me to, but somehow I manage to put the plane about 40 feet up in the tree.

Stupid thing I do often and never learnt not to do. Place exacto knife in right hand, balsa in left hand, thumb or other finger over cutting area, say to your self, Watch the knife will suddenly come through the balsa and I will cut myself, ignore self and continue cutting. What happens? Knife slices cleanly thourgh balsa into finger. And now I know the true Use of CA. LOL[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-blush.gif[/img]

Long ago...

I was getting fed up trying to start a balky engine, and left the glow power connected when I began choking the engine (again). As I was pulling the prop through, the engine kicked back, neatly slicing my finger to the bone. Just to make things more interresting... the darn engine started when I got my hand out of the way.

There I was... with a mangled hand, a running engine and no one else at the field. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-blush.gif[/img] Luckilly... I had the plane tied down.

how about this flying blunder. I was flying an 8' span beaver and had a hard landing bending the landing gear. Okay stop inspect aircraft very carefully, OH Alright stand back 10 feet and check the controls Looks good to me, refuel take off, Um I said take off. OKay how about some altitude, hey altitude where are ya? OKay fly around try to land on gravel road OOPS here comes a car, fly around again well almost around again. Start loosing altitude rapidly, panic give it full throttle and full flaps or so I thought more like full throttle and no flaps and spread it across a gravel pit for a hundred feet or more. Remove all salvagable parts pile peices up and strike match. send saito 120 out for 200 dollars in repairs. MOral of the story. Always carefully inspect expensive airplane after hard landing. Don't worry you can still crash if you want.

Crashing is just as much fun as flying, especially it's the other guy.

It was my first flight with my first plane. I had gone out and got one of those Sharper Image Fire flight things. I threw it perfectly and buzed around for 5 min. I was flying in a huge... I mean HUGE field, in the very center of this field was a sprinkler head. I paid no attention to it on the aproach, to tell the truth I didnt even know it was there. And of course I hit the sprinkler, I walked over to check it over; the wing fell off and the plane was smiling! Yes you heard me right, it was smiling! The plastic nose has been bent in and because of the eyes and the shark mouth I could have sworn it was laughing at me! Picked it up and Threw it back up... didnt notice that small crack in the right hand side of the wing. Got it up to 60ft and it colapsed, the plane went from 10mph to about 60. Hit the ground and vaporized. O well.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

Calling for my brother in a Q-500 race, I figured out not to put my knee on the antena. Let the plane go (antena still under knee), flew great until it got out of range - about 6 feet. The flagmen at #1 earned their keep that day. Plane flew 3 feet off the ground straight down the runway. People scattered, plane hit fence, plane scattered. People reassembled, plane didn't.

Never test fly a tail heavy electric foam jet with a limited range reciever. longest ten seconds of my life..plane survived nearly unscathed...

I've built planes the same way doing Free Flight rubber powered and it flew great!!! I hope you have fun.

I once buzzed the feild at dusk, I dropped in over the tree line at the end of the feild. It was going to be a super high speed fly by and then the model flew right through the trees. I was on the WRONG side of the tree line! The model was TRASHED.

that's might not be good experience.