freakingfast

My Feedback: (3)

If you fly enough, you are bound to find some things wrong in a pre or post flight that would have in a few moments of continued flight, ended a planes existence. And there are those lucky or miracle landings you made, despite something was horribly wrong. This is whats known as a "Free Plane".

My free plane:
I had just gotten my 40 size World Model P-51 with over sized engine ready for flight.
On the day before the race, I had just completed a good practice round and everything performed great so I decided it’s time to land. The landing was perfect, just greased it down. The plane had almost rolled to a stop in front of me, when the wing’s trailing edge dropped to the ground, than the fuselage rolled off the wing! The two wing screws were totally gone so the only thing that had been holding the wing on were the positive Gs (Which is so totally unlike my normal fling style). No damage except for the tips of the prop as the engine was at idle when it happened. I replaced the prop and remembered to put blue lock tight on the new screws this time…..and check screws after flight!

This was witnesses by at least 6 guys. At first there was total silence, probably because everyone’s the minds were still trying to process what they just seen, than laughter.

freakingfast

My Feedback: (3)

double post.

Fly_Fly

Yes !! I know what you mean...........about three month ago I decided to go out on a limb and buy my first Composite ARF Yak 55-SP, 2.1m it was the most I have ever spent on a model EVER !!!
Any way after strangling my wallet and getting my new shiny Yak ready for certification, checking to make sure everything had the right amount of glue, all wiring was snug and free from vibration danger etc etc etc.......
It was maiden time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4oQO_ATR0M , any way the maiden went very well, I was so ecstatic as to the way it flew, beaming with joy. THEN IT HAPPENED !!!!
The following weekend it was a fantastic day, even better than maiden day I fueled up my Bank Balance and fired it up ready for flight two.......... I took off and went ballistic too about 400 feet, leveled out and tried flying straight and level...
Somthing didn't feel right, not like maiden day, it felt squirrely and wanted to nose down all the time, I began trimming thinking "why do I need trim ?" it was fine last week, I flew another couple of circuits and decided I would land and investigate..!!
I began a landing approach, however it was fighting me, I was flaring but it was nosing down, I had full up elevator and luckily it touched down ok, "nose down attitude but safe" Then I noticed that one elevator was hanging down, eeeek, what has happend.
I looked under the stabs and went white !!!![X(] The control rod had wound itself out of the clevis and dropped, THEN I NOTICED THE OTHER PUSH ROD..........HANGING ON BUY 2 THREADS..........[]I forgot to put lock nuts on the push rods..........
Another 30 seconds and my shiny red and yellow investment would have been SCRAP, a big lesson learned, So after lock nuts and locktite, 18 or so flights on she's all good, "this was my free plane."

Cheers guys, and remember Check Check and Check again............

TooLow

My Feedback: (5)

I still have my "Free-Plane" after all these years. Back in the 80's I got busy and built a RCM plans Pacific Ace. Thought that it would be a relaxing 3ch flyer, it is! After a day of flying and everyone was getting ready to go home, I decided to get "one more flight"! on it, up and chugging around and discovered it reacted funny to inputs. Did a fly by to check things out and to my horror there was 4-6 inches of air between the wing and fuze. I did the slowest turn in my life getting the plane headded back to anywhere I could land. Upon touchdown the wing popped loose and I was able to taxi back to the pits . Still had to walk out for the wing,but it was in one piece ready to fly another day! Think that was the last time I trusted good ole #64 rubber bands!!

gboulton

My Feedback: (15)

Brand new 102" 100cc WildHare Edge 540...6th flight of its life.

Greta flight, ahd a blast, everything all hunky dory. Uneventful landing, taxiing back to the shutdown area. Wiggled the surfaes a bit for no real reason other than just twiddling sticks.

*boink*

Right elevator just flops down.

Servo arm off the servo. Apparently i'd missed that one in preflight!! [X(] [X(]

freakingfast

My Feedback: (3)

Keep the stories coming in guys! This is good stuff.

dhal22

a couple of yrs ago i noticed that my patty wagstaff arf was wiggling a lot during straight flybys. as i wondered aloud why that was happening a more sensible individual suggested wondering with the plane on the ground. i quickly agreed. all save one of the blue ca hinges had broken on the rudder. the last ca hinge was on it's last thread, the only thing keeping the rudder from completely falling off. i assume she would have been a goner had that happened. the plane still flies today.

Darkbird

My Feedback: (7)

Have a Ziroli corsair thats i was flying the heck out of. Practicing landings, had a few bouncy ones, didn't think on it too much. Last landing was nice and smooth, even got some applause from those watching. Taxied back, shut down, and pulled it back to check it over. found a small split in the wing skin near the root, so i picked up the plane to get a better look. The "small crack" opened up about a half an inch, showing that there was nothing but a very small percentage of the wing skin holding the right wing on. no idea what kept the wing on in flight, but i still have a plane to fix at least.

foodstick

I have posted this on other threads, but YEARS ago a friend was helping a guy trim out a G-shark, lovingly known as a G-SNAP. Suddenly there was a loud BOOM! everyone looked up to see the plane at about 300 feet...slowly they entire cowl, and motor pulled away from the large plane..it looked like the lunar module slipping away from the rocket. A g-shark was about 120 sized plane, the cowl and gas engine sped up and arced down making a sickening thud as it hit, and BOUNCED..

The suddenly tail heavy fuselage did a sick falling leaf impression finally landing much later in sort of a harrier attitude, breaking only the elevater. It was impressive..considering the distance it fell, and the fact that at times it was sort of flying backwards ! It was an easy repair ...except for that motor....

Cdr.Instigator

Well, I must add mine here too.

In my short time in the hobby of foamie building, I had never had an incident that didn't involved cork screwing in to the ground or lawn darting with Operator error..

That is until last weekend.

I was flying my E-Flight Funtana Clone at my local park. I had been flying it for a good 30 minutes doing pattern and what not. Replaced the battery 3 times and landed many as I'm still practicing my landings on wheels. Well, after some nice flying I decided I would do one last full throttle vertical. I was about 70 feet up and as I came back down to about 50 feet, I leveled off and punched it one more time. The motor mount and firewall broke off the fan Fold Foam and the motor flew out and away from the plane. I kept an eye on the motor and with my peripheral vision I kept the foamie leveled. Once I realized more or less where the motor had landed I got my complete sight on the motorless foamie. I was astonished on how well it glided and was well balanced with out the weight of the motor. I had control of all my control surfaces and was able to do a nice almost perfect landing on wheels. Did not even nose over or did any wing touched the grass..

As soon as the motor came flying off, I had a feeling that the foamie was toasted..

skyraider71

You guys are going to love this one.
Early this year I finally got my 2.4 radio, an Aitronics RDS8000.
I installed a reciever in my trusty EagleII and on a cold and breezy
Febuary day went out to maiden it.
Since I was new to 2.4 I took every precaution. I perfomed one last
range check with the engine running before taxiing out. After the take-
off and climbout, I began to lose control of the model. It got worse to
the point that I had control for only split seconds at a time. The Eagle
began to head out over the woods while I tried desperately to get it
turned around, the wind wasn't helping. Finally I got the Eagle headed
back and I began to get more control. After getting it on the runway
and an exhale of relief, I looked down at my transmitter and realized
that I had not taken it out of range check mode!
Thankfully I had used an old trainer to get aquainted with my new radio.
If this had happened with one of my hot sport planes, this story wouldn't
have ended well. So I actually got two free planes for the price of one!

crossman

I've had two of these moments, with the same plane. Early in my instruction period, we had a very windy night at the field. We had everything on the ground, waiting for things to calm down. Meanwhile, a wind gust pushed my Eagle II into a picnic table, knocking off the tail. When I started to repair it, I found the elevator pushrod broken in half. After several minutes of trying to fit the two pieces back together, I realized that while the plane was in my basement for several years unused, mice had gnawed nearly though the pushrod. There was only about 1/8" of wood left. The other time was this spring, after I recovered the plane. Between flights one evening, I was making adjustments to the ailerons linkage. At the end of the evening, I was cleaning the plane to go home and with a quick brush of the wing, I knocked the arm off the servo. I had been flying most to the evening with no screw in the servo arm.

foodstick

Back when I first started flying, I was a building machine. I not only built a bunch of stuff for myself I built things for friends, and even to sell. One time I had just finished a very nice looking four star 40, and a guy I knew bought it.

He had flown it once before, and on the second flight he taxied out to the end of the runway, and as he turned the entire fin/ruder fell over and off the plane ! I did remember gluing the piece on and trying to get that perfect joint with not to much or to little glue. Tried to make it strong enough without a messy job of it. Well after that I tristocked all fins, or at least put hardwood posts down into the fuse.

I was never more embarrassed about a plane I had built, thankfully it ended well.

Flight Risk

My Feedback: (1)

My very first trainer, a Hobbico Superstar was taken up on a buddy box. The instructor took it up and was about to come around and started screaming he had no control. After about 15 seconds of expecting it to crash he said he can control it with the rudder and elevator only. The throttle was stuck wide open and no ailerons. He somehow flew it around for a bit then the throttle finally went to idle. Somehow he got it to land. When we took the wing off we discovered that the aileron servo had dropped out of the wing and got tangled in the throttle servo. The servo screws hadn't comeout , but the wood blocks which are glued in at the factory sepated from the wing. My instructor somehow saved me a plane.
Moral: Don't expect your ARF to be almost ready to fly.
That was 8 years ago. Since then I've gotten a couple other free planes. I landed one with only one engine mounting bolt barely holding on the engine, and another plane which I had flown many times but then after a flight noticed a big gap where the elevator hinges are. After an inspection of all hinges, I noticed all the elevator, rudder and most of the aileron hinges were hanging on by a thread. These were CA hinges and could easily be fixed.

Rod S

Straight Up

My Dad brought his new V-Mar Sweet Stick 40 ARF to the field for me to test fly. It looked very nicely done and everything checked-out during preflight. I taxied it out to the runway, turned into the wind and fire-walled the throttle. I expected about 10-feet of roll-out with the Thundertigre 46 pulling like mad, and although the speed and acceleration were good, she took a long time to unstick. Must have used about 200' of runway and a lot of up elevator before she rotated. I thought "OK, the CG is way too far forward". As the climb-out continued she got REAL sluggish on the elevator, and eventually it had no effect at all! However, I noticed that I could control pitch-attitude using the throttle, so all was not lost. I started setting up for a landing, and cut the power to get her down the glide slope. Flaring was the challenge - no elevator, and the need to advance the throttle a LOT. I don't know how I did it, but I greased her in, rolling FAST but smoothly. She rolled out on the firm grass in about 150' and came to a stand-still, undamaged.

We went up and inspected it, to find the elevator hinges had all let go [X(]. The elevator was hanging out about 1/2 - 3/4"! I wiggled the elevator and it all became clear why I had no control - it didn't do much with that kind of hinge gap! I was just lucky that a partial bind of the hinges gave slight up-elevator, otherwise I'd have had no effect from the throttle neither - the plane has no built-in incidence. I suggested my dad PIN the hinges in . He got his new plane back, pinned the hinges during the week and we flew her again the following weekend, without incident.

rick55_55

My Feedback: (3)

I one time had to change the reciever at the field on my 8ft flat wing powered glider.I had the wires labled and it was the the same exact reciever.Before take off i didnt check each surface,i just wiggled them all around at once and thought everything was good.Well,i tossed the beast and it got about 10 feet from my face and i realized that elevator was ailerons, ailerons was elvator. My brain was going a mile a second trying to get it back on the ground in one piece. Igot her back down with only a little scuffs on the right wing. I dont even want to know what my blood pressure was. Its funny how a grown man can almost stroke himself out over a flying hunk of balsa. After i got it down everyone at the field came to applaud my little "show" i put on when old Frank came over and said"well why didnt you just turn the TX sideways?".It got silent, and the field busted out in laughter. Felt pretty dumb but she still flies to this day.

WaffleMan

My Feedback: (1)

One day I was flying my sweet stick 40 trainer. I had just taken off and I looked down at my transmitter so I could accuratly set my thotle to half. (I was still new) I was flying with a futaba 72 radio. When I looked down I noticed that my antenna was not out! I quckly reached out and extended it, and completed my flight without a hitch.

A different type of free plane: one of the club members was giving away a battered old clipped wing glider with no engine, battery or reciever. I plan on putting a ancient spectrum nicad, my futaba 72 system, and a enya .09 wich I got for free in it. Then I am going to use it for full contact combat.

rcleno

My "free plane" is a PZ F27-Q Styker . It was my first jet type aircraftbut i soon learned how to fly it safely Then it was time to do some of those Flat spins they brag the Strykercan do so i moved the CG back slightly and i was ready to go. I climbed toa safe altitude then started a rolling dive beforei "snapped"the Styker Into an upright spin.it Completed about 2-3 revolutions before kinda flopping over. As i tried to recover The Strykeri noticed that i would roll left when i pull on the elevater. Strange i thought. So i bought the Plane down the best i Could. When it was down i wiggled the Sticks.YIKES! Only one elevon moved. i picked it up andsaw thatthe control horn had come off the suface.there're onlystuck to the foam with CAon a 80+ MPH jet Yikes!Thankfully the hinges are quite stiff so it didn't affect the aircraft too much.I'm amazed icould bring the plane sown safely needless to say i made sure all thecontrol horns were securelyfastened.

WaffleMan

My Feedback: (1)

Another one for me: I was flying a 40 size profile that I had recently replaced a naileron servo on. It was good on the ground, but when it go in the air I had no elevator control!
It had a little up elevator when I lost it so I was able to bring it in withe the throttle with a bouncy but non damaging landing.
It turs out it had accidentaly clipped the servo wire when i cut a zip tie that was holding the elevator and the old aileron servo wires together when I replaced the aileron.