Radio Controlled Planes: August 2009 Archives

Shot down! Actually pilot error...

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Well, I went out flying tonight after quite a break from the hobby. Should have stayed home.

Started out with the Lady. Used a weaker battery (which wasn't a real big deal), and so I wasn't getting much performance. That's ok - I just wanted to work the bugs out of my head before moving on to the Fokker.

Well, after one successful landing and back in the air, it started to make a very different whine. I quickly brought it for a safe landing and looked for the problem - I stripped both gears. One down and out.



It was such a perfect night for flying, I figured I'd risk trying the Fokker. After settling my nerves I got airborne - my what a HANDFULL!. It kept doing these crazy stalls - I was panicking - How am I going to CONTROL it?!? I was sure it was balanced - what to do?

I managed to get my head back on and talked myself through the problem - it's pulling up to much, push forward - woa! not so much, back a bit - no wait forward TRIM that's it trim it down, some more - ok one more, there now it's behaving much bettrer, whew!

Flew around for 5 minutes! It was great! Brought in for a landing, which was into tall grass thankfully as I had not completely got the hang of it. No damage, looks good, back up she went! Beautiful take off and 3 more minutes of glory and then it happened. I was turning around over a gravel road and noting that the elevator has a LOT of authority - too much for my comfort, when it suddenly banked too far over and in my panic I pulled back which hammered it into the ground... I'm so ticked at myself.


 I'm not sure it is repairable. Will have to open the wing to see how mangled all the bits are in there.


Sigh. Back to dreaming about flying again...