Crash support group

[buzzbomb]

I am the luckiest Pilot. I was flying my FT Spitfire flight 3 at a semi- small field. This is my first time I flew the Spitfire at this field. It is important to note that I have previously only flown mighty minis here. For orientation, there is a big sand field that I fly over, and a 6 foot tall fence that I keep to my back when flying. Beyond that fence is a 6 foot deep "ditch" more like a hill. It is grass. To my left is a flat grass strip about 40 yards long. It curves around behind me and forms into the ditch/hill. I use the strip as a landing runway. So I'm flying the Spitfire at half throttle, when I feel my time is up. I started my approach. Throttle cut. That Spitfire will glide forever!! It's just like almost vtol landing in no wind! I was too high, since I'm used to the mustang which will come down pretty quickly. I abort landing because it's too high. Twice this happens. On my third landing approach, I am about a foot of altitude when I run out of runway, I'm flying over the hill thingy. I'm at a playground, and there's a house behind the grass hill/ditch. It has a fence as well. Don't want to hit that So I bank away and throttle up. I still have a fence (behind my back) to clear. At full throttle, the Spitfire was too low. I really don't want to crash this bird, especially because my great grandfather flew the Spitfire in WWII. The left wing clipped the top of the chain-link fence. Flat spins (kinda) more like Spins out. 270 degrees. I nearly got hit (again) it then lands on the grass nose first and slides the whole six feet down to the bottom of the ditch. It's a miracle, NO DAMAGE. The leading edge of the wing now is accordioned about a centimeter in, and the wing has those little cracks that you get when you have a hard landing. Other then that I'm impressed with the durability of this Airplane! I really shouldn't have taken it to the small field but oh well. I have an experience to share with you. Take a lesson from me, NEVER MAIDEN WITH A NICE PAINT JOB! See now, I can fix the cosmetics, it looks like minimal hanger rash! If you made it to the bottom, thanks for taking the time to do that! Happy Flying everyone! View attachment 138333 View attachment 138334

Good story! You need video, man! That would have been epic!

 

[Matthew Sanders]

I know. From now on I'm going to video every flight, even the uneventful ones, because uneventful flights turn eventful a lot of times. I'm in the middle of scratch building the FT flyer for a friend. I'm going to maiden it though just to see how it checks out. Unless I miss my guess, I'll be building another FT Flyer tomorrow 🙃

 

[OliverW]

Ugh ugh ugh ugh

 

[rockyboy]

When I saw the first photo @SquirrelTail , I thought to myself "that's odd to have one pipe pointed back so much".

Then I saw the second photo.

I'm sure you can rebuild her, but a "cooling off period" might be in order before starting the surgery.

 

[OliverW]

When I saw the first photo @SquirrelTail , I thought to myself "that's odd to have one pipe pointed back so much".

Then I saw the second photo.

I'm sure you can rebuild her, but a "cooling off period" might be in order before starting the surgery.

Yeah... My dumb DA70 quit when I was in an inverted harrier and I rolled it over and pancaked it.