Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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!

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

[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.

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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)

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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...

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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!

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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]

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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.

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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.

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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.

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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.

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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!

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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.

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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]

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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.

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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.

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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]

Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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.

RE: Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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

RE: Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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

RE: Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

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.

RE: Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

that's might not be good experience.

RE: Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

I was flying my friends plane once on a new street with a paseo bridge overhead about 50yards out. As I was coming in for a landing, the airplane dissapeared behind the bridge with a loud thump! A second later, the plane falls to the ground.

RE: Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

I've done that before.....:eek:

RE: Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

I had a Spitfire I used to put in a straight down vertical dive and pull at the last second. I did this many times, until the last time...Lawn Dart! :D

RE: Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

Back in the 80's I had a Falcon 56 with a OS .45 FSR on it..

So as usual I strapped the wing down with rubber bands, did my pre-flight and took off..

The plane was acting a little funny on hard up elevator commands and loops..
I landed to check it out and I'd only put 4 rubber bands on.. (normally use 8-10)
The wing had been lifting off the fuselage..

My dumbest move to date was with my Telemaster in my 2nd year of flying.
I'd just gotten into inverted flight and loved doing low passes down the runway about 8' off the deck.. Fun but a tele dosen't like to push out of inverted flight all that well.

Well I was about 10' up on the next pass and thought I was high enough to loop out.. Turns out I needed about 12' to make it.. WHUMP!
smacked the paved runway hard enough to crack the wing in half. The 3" spinner and the fuel tank held a foot race down the runway to see who could escape the wreckage faster.

I managed to salvage the tail and wing.. About a month later I had it rebuilt and flying again but the fuse was 1/2" wider because I cut the bulkheads to the outside lines on the plans :)

I'm sure several here have done the classic step over the plane and kick the tail off right? Always best done right after finishing the final radio setup in the living room the night before a maiden flight..

RE: Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

A good friend of mine just passed away this last week, he was a heck of a pilot, and a great guy.

He told me years ago he was flying on a big open field that had some old goal posts on it. he said he was standing off to the side of the field, and decided to fly between the posts, everything looked great until the last second, then he realized his offset perception was wrong..he nailed the vertical post and the plane exploded..

he said it was like someone grabbed the plane and moved it over at the last second...

RE: Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

My last cockup was after consoling one of our juniors who had just done a guillotine job on his plane by trying to fly through the guide wires on a 200ft telemetry mast. We got he remains of his plane back and I got him to fly again but he wanted to use the buddy box. I have an old ARC/Thunder Tiger Ready trainer with me in case anyone needs training so we got it up and running and he took off straight and true, after about 30 secs the Ready went straight in, couldn't believe it 2 planes in 20 mins itwasn't till I looked at my tranny the ariel was still down DOH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RE: Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

I think my biggest blunder tops you all.

Formy first NATSIhad built aCLScale P-38 and I also built the electronic controls for it. It featured Right Throttle, Left Throttle, Flaps, Retracts and Brakes. Igot very nervous and when I called Takeoff Ionly advanced the Right Throttleand Ground looped it right in front of the Judges and all of the other contestants. No damage to the model but Ithought a lot about NOTshowing up the next day.

The model was in Model Aviation March 1986.
My Avatar shows my newest CL Scale model.
Clancy

RE: Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

I pulled out in front of a 1/5th scale P-51 with a foamy.  THWAAAAP!   fortunately the P-51 only suffered some scuffed paint.

many years ago I was flying one of my first PT-40 trainers in an incomplete housing subdivision, Only paved streets, no buildings anywhere.  There was ONE telephone pole in the whole subdivision probably the only pole within a mile, yep you guessed it...I hit it.

I used to build rubber band powered airplane kits. I was preparing for a model flight competition, I guess I wound the rubber band too tight,  the plane flew, and flew, and flew.....I never saw it again.

I was standing behind my .60 size mustang on the taxi way, I bent over to grab the rudder and check something (I don't remember what), when I bent over I stuck the end of my 72 mhz antenna in the prop of the running engine. I ruined the antenna and the prop.

And I can't forget the most embarrassing one,  I was out late one Friday night,  Got up early Sat morning to fly my brand new 71" FW-190, I guess I was too tired, I hooked up the ailerons backwards and missed it during my pre-flight check.  took off and crashed it in the first turn.

RE: Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

In 1998 I was living in Cornwall in the UK. Of course, I was also in the ******** scene and was building a Sopwith Pup. On the particular evening I was working on the fuse, busy superglueing things in place - I had myself a bit contorted in and around the fuse and a bottle of super glue in my right hand - the BA Concorde was then flying regularly between Heathrow and the States. When it flew up the Bristol channel, it would accelerate to supersonic speed. So this particular night, while I was busy with the Sopwith fuse, minding my ownbussiness,the Concorde flew by and meteo conditions was right to conduct sound very well, the result was a larger than normal sonic boom, the house vibrated, I got a fright and squeezed the cyno glue bottle, glueing myself to the Sopwith fuse in several places - my wife had to help me getting free......

Some 35 years agosome guys bet me for a sixpack of beersto fly a 72" Barnstormer Bipe through the rugby posts on a local field - which I did successfully, then, to be the smart*****I attempted to do it again to prove I can do it - this time Icame in faster and flew straight into the left upright post, almost cutting both wings off and uprooting the rugby post...

Around the same time we attached a long nylon fishing line to a plane to tow balloons. On that particular day we did itagain,and I took off - and realized about at the same time that somebody is standing on the end of the line when the plane was about 4 m high and the line snapped taught, stopping the plane in mid air and came crashing down...http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/js/f...bananahead.gif

Cheers

Bundu

RE: Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

Hello All,
I am a newbie as most of you would probably call me, ( flying for about a yr now), I had several foamies to learn the finer points of keeping a model plane airborne before I stepped up for the large money purchases. I assembled the wing onto my Parkzone Stinson SR10 and checked all my controls as I have been taught to do every time I fly a plane. All was well and I proceeded to make a beautiful takeoff and several nice loops around our field. After getting comfortable I proceed into a steep dive and planned on pulling out well before any risk of danger. At exactly the same time as the wing folded in half and removed itself from the plane, I recalled not having installed the retaining pins into the wing struts. That was definitely the fastest that stinson will ever go, straight into the ground.
Mattchewn


17 planes and 10 are still airworthy! After only 8 months. Lots of foam for safe packing though.

RE: Greatest Modeling Blunders
 

FOODSTICK , Your story brought back memories of a friend Burt , gone now quite a few years. Igot to know him from the hobby store we both went to. As a surface R.C. er I didn't see him fly but the other flyers that came in used to call him the cub guru. They said he probably trained 100 or more R.C. pilots and built many planes for himself and others from stock wood and home made templates. Anyway , to his favorite blunder story. His 8 year old grandson wanted to learn to fly. Being a proud grandpa Burt went a little overboard in setting up the boy for his 1st lesson. He custom built a special trainer and took the electronics from one of his competition planes as this radio had a buddy plug. Things were going well untill the boy asked " Grandpa , what does this do?" and hit the pre- programed button. That was when Burt realized he hadn't cleared the snap roll from the radio! He said the plane came apart like it was hit by a missle and his grandson didn't want to fly for a month after that. WE ALL MISS YOU BURT!