sskianpour

My Feedback: (2)

Let me start by saying that I am a Boomerang fan, have owned the Intro and XL, and believe they are well built, well thought out designs, and fly fantastic. This is NOT to be a Boomerang bash thread.

With that said, I was on flight 20 or so (lifetime) on my Boomerang XL today and doing a mid-throttle level pass at about 120 mph, there was a "WHHHHUMP" sound and then KABOOM!!!! She disintegrated into Billions of little pieces of balsa. Ironically, the turbine was not terribly damaged, and would likely not be too difficult to have Jet Central repair.

I am only posting this to see if ANYBODY at all has ever had this happen with their XL??? Why do I ask? The SAME EXACT thing happened about 9 months ago to another club member at our club. No sooner or later, somebody is going to be funny and suggest that we have local SAM missiles hidden in the bushes, etc....and frankly, though I am quite shocked and very sad, I can take the jokes and abuse.

But as a science-minded person, I gotta know. ANYBODY heard of this, experienced this, know of anybody else, etc...?

FYI an inspection of the wreckage revealed that the "plastic clear" canopy top had been blown off, and a neat, square-like hole had been punched into the cockpit tub. I never put in a pilot, drilled/cut that area, etc... Some people who saw it theorized that the cockpit tub was just a weak one from factory, collapsed, air rushed in and positive pressure blew the plane apart. There is also a faction that believes the wings exploded first.

I have no idea, but it looked like there was a bomb on board, pieces were strewn hundreds of yards across....[&o]

hooker53

My Feedback: (106)

Shaz, Hate it man. I would have to go with the cockpit problem over wings. I think if you had a fast flutter or wing disruption you would have seen some slight tumble or something before, not instant implosion. Fast Neg to Pos preasure's are extremelt strong. No jokes from me and I hope from no-one else. It's bad when this happens to anyone's sport. Chine up dude. Roy

pilot98

My Feedback: (21)

Lost mine about a month ago. The left wing exploded coming out of a split-s and the plane augerd in nose first. Sounded like a shotgun when it happened. The biggest piece of the wing that was left was about the size of a dime. Wing parts rained down for five minutes. It was quite spectacular. The new kit that I just put together had an addendum to put heat shrink un the wing tubes to make them tight, not sure if this had anything to do with it or not.

sskianpour

My Feedback: (2)

Thanks for the positive post Roy. Mark, very very interesting....[sm=50_50.gif] Anybody else have similar experience? Mark, there was a 5-7 minute balsa shower at my field too. Strange, weatherman had said it would be sunny.

C185Pilot

My Feedback: (25)

Happened at our field a couple of years ago...I was spotting for the pilot and was looking right at it when it happened. The right wing exploded...not just broke...EXPLODED! Was coming out of a loop and was level...I'm convinced that high pressure air infiltrated the wing at the leading edge since no other defect was evident for any other part of the airplane. I see more and more people sealing the leading edge with aluminum or plastic tape...and not just on the XL.

'Mike

Gary Jefferson

My Feedback: (167)

I saw one last year that came apart in mid air as well. I don't remember which event it was but I did see the same thing you are describing. There was very little left of the plane. Just a big bang and it was gone.

hyperdyne

My Feedback: (6)

Shaz, one guy at the field was pretty adamant that he saw a wing collapse first. This is just 3rd hand, so weigh it appropriately. His explanation made sense to me, but then again I didnt see the explosion first hand.

Sorry again to see the boomer go down like that. Wasn't a good day...

gooseF22

I have seen two explode. the tail failed on one, and the wing on the other.

LGM Graphix

My Feedback: (22)

We saw one explode in Princeton a couple years ago, powered by a PST1300R. The jet was flown quite hard though and we're not really sure what happened, but I theorized that it hit a boom on takeoff (wind changed and it was a downwind takeoff and the booms hit pretty good when it did rotate).
Anyway, needless to say, something in either the wing or booms failed as the fuse pod continued on with a perfect football spiral and landed in the tumbleweeds. No damage to the turbine, the rest of the airplane however was complete confetti.

AndyAndrews

Mine has been clocked at over 185 on a hot and humid day straight an level, several hundred flights and no issues. I do worry that one day it will be its last. Flying with a Rhino. I fly fast but I am very careful to never pull too hard on the elevator.

Where your wheel wells sealed? Also, did you glue your wing to the fuse? Some of the failures have been because the wings were just bolted and not glued properly.

SinCityJets

This one was mine. I think applying tape to the leading edge of the wings would have prevented this. I have to admit though, I had a 36lb engine in it and my favorite move was smiley faces, so I figured after 140 or so flights, it had run its course. I still believe if I had taped the wings I could have gotten another 50 flights or so

Og, and just so you know, full left aileron will not stop (or even slow) the right hand roll that occurs when the right wing gets magically beamed up to space (or wherever it went). The fire was so hot it melted the gear [:@]

Boomerangs were meant to be slow flying trainers, and they are great at that.

Chad

sskianpour

My Feedback: (2)

Andy, wheel wells sealed (but not airtight since there is inevitable some spacing there for retract lines, etc...) Wheel wells definitely could have let some air in.
Wing Hysoled to fuse + used 8 screw + blind nuts to suck her in while Hysol drying. That part I am pretty sure of. I dont believe I had tape on the wing leading edges.

Chad, your Kaboom sounds awful lot like mine.
Shaz

digitech

My Feedback: (10)

most causes i have seen is that the cover on the leading edge lets go.
or elsewere on the wing
since the end point on some of them is just below the LE.
it will take pieces of balsa sheeting with it and will explode and takes the wing out.
also overspeed and sudden the XL does not like.
for the rest i have flown quite a few over the years and not happened to be.
the cover does NOT like fuel spills

avicom

My Feedback: (14)

Our friend Edgard had similar experience with his last year. His Xl explode in the air during his normal routine after some long flying days of fun and got terminated.

rcjetsaok

My Feedback: (7)

When you guy's refer to "wings glued to fuse" are you talking about the center section or the center section and outter wing panels as well ????... Ya'll got me nervous !!!!![sm=confused_smile.gif]

Danno

sskianpour

My Feedback: (2)

Danno, just center wing and fuse, not outer wing panels

Edgar Perez

My Feedback: (13)

Wing broke on up leg of a square loop. I think I abused the airframe over many flights, so can't complain.

PaulD

My Feedback: (39)

I was there when this happend as well. This airframe had lots of flights on it but I would not say that the owner had flown it hard. Prolly the hardest it had ever seen was full throttle passes low and then yank and bank at the end of the runway. This is a pretty big airframe and 28 lbs of thrust from the PST 1300 should not have been "excessive" for it.

What I thought I did hear before the EXPLOSION was some form of flutter. Was hard to tell as the owner was also having problems with his PST and compressor stalls. Needless to say though, this was definately a structural melt down in the wing.

The confetti of parts raining down after was spectacular!!!

PaulD

Eric D

Had a left wing panel explode a couple years ago.

readyturn

My Feedback: (9)

I close in the wheel wells with 3/32 balsa and don't use the plasttic wheel well covers that come with the kit. You can notice that the balsa wing skin around the wheel well cutouts are not stiff and any pressure differential could lead to the skin coming off.

2 cents worth...

Rick

worldmodelsmach1

My Feedback: (1)

Shaz, Sorry for your loss, It happens to all of us.[&:]. My part of the background evidence is: I was out at one of my local clubs when a guest flyer had shown up with an XL, there was a small crack in the wing, I informed him of this, upon inspection, it did not seem that the crack went into the wing, It looked more like a dent. I recommended that he not fly due to the safety issue involved when flying such a high speed aircraft where something as minor as this could cause failure. He took it up anyways and I was filming the flight; needless to say he was left with a total loss of 5k+ when everything was incinerated. Upon closer inspection of the video, It looked as though a panel from the leading edge had lifted up causing a chain reaction (the whole wing blowing up as in many of the other incidents.). I would post up the video, but my hard drive broke down last month and I am left with my crummy old Ibook...
My $0.02 worth.

-Chris

PS Im even more sad because the boomerang is my dream plane...

sskianpour

My Feedback: (2)

Thanks Chris, Rick I appreciate your input also, but it is a little too late for me to go back and reinforce the wheel wells ]

afterburner chuck

I have had the same XL for 6 years well over 200 flights 37 lbs thrust, wheel wells open for more air flow wing skin is reiforsed at the wells have not had a proplem whit this aircraft. Alen always said you can push the XL for 100 flights but that 101 flight may be the last one he designed the XL for a 120 not the monster engines that we put in them

AndyAndrews

now Im thinking about putting aluminum tape along the leading edges of my wings... lol.

Wayne22

My Feedback: (2)

Up to this point, i was aware of 4 that had broken up in flight...including the one at princeton discussed above. Two of these four had covering peeling off the center section (under the fuselage) on the second to last flight, but the owners took them up for another (to be the last) flight.......