My Wild Hawk is dismembered and my head hurts

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
We had our next to last RC club meeting after school today. Today, we had a new kid (new to club, anyway) show up so I could help him learn to fly. He has a brand new plane - that thrust vectoring F-16 from Banana Hobby. :eek: He never consulted with us prior to ordering. We tried to convince him to return it for a more appropriate plane, but he insisted on it.

So, I took my Wild Hawk up about 3 mistakes high and handed over the controls. It took him about 10 minutes to be able to get it to do circles without nose diving. Then, it clicked and he was doing pretty well. He seemed to have a feel for how it reacts and how to make the proper inputs to keep it flying fairly level. I had taken control for him a few times, but he seemed to be doing pretty well. He was getting lower and lower with the Hawk and I was about to tell him to circle around, chop throttle and glide in for a landing. But, before I could say anything, he started a tight, spiraling right turn. I told him to give it left stick, and the nose came up above the horizon, back into a fairly gentle right turn. I told him to level off the wings and this is where things really fell apart. From what I could tell, he cranked in hard right stick and must have done the same with the rudder because the Hawk rolled inverted. At this point, the plane was about 20 feet directly over our heads. I didn't have time to say anything. He panicked and pulled full 'up' elevator. The plane nosed over directly toward us. Instinct kicked in and I covered my head and hit the ground. I never saw it hit, but when I peaked my head up, the Hawk was in about 5 different pieces on the ground. At that moment, I was just thankful that neither of us took a plane to the head. In literature, that last sentence is known as foreshadowing.

I collected the pieces. It is repairable, but it will take a lot of work to get it back in the air. I may just let her rest in pieces. After all, I found her in the trash and have gotten nearly a year of ridiculous flying pleasure. Not too shabby.

So, I picked up my Assassin wing and sent it into the air. The Assassin has taken some pretty hard abuse and hasn't been flying nearly as well as when she was new. But, she flew great today! I was chasing the other teacher's wing around the pattern. My wing was in a diving left-hand turn when suddenly, it felt as if someone had thrown a baseball into the side of my head. My head snapped around, wrenching my neck.

I have no idea where he came from, but one of our students had been flying his HZ Mini-Supercub that he has ubgraded to brushless motor and 4 channels. He says it snap rolled and he lost it. My head found it. That HURTS!

Oh, I retained control of the wing and continued flying because I'm cool like that. :cool:
 

jetpackninja

More combat please...
Mentor
Hahahahaha- Sorry your head hurts. I laugh with pure sympathy more than enjoyment.
I took a two pound combat wing to the head a couple of weeks ago. Knocked me to my knees!
Hmmmn now that I think about it, that might explain a few things.
 

colorex

Rotor Riot!
Mentor
Wow, sorry for your plane... I remember how I felt while looking at the disfigured nose of the Bixler... when I nosed in...
 

treadd

Uber N00b
Please please please tell us when the kid pulls out that F-16 and goes for his maiden! You may need to talk to the football coach and borrow some helmets for everyone. :)
 

jd7792

Senior Member
I think a video record may be in order for the F16 maiden, what does everyone else think???
I have to admit that I almost did the same thing.... I wanted something wild, fast and expensive first up, but went with the advice of a Skysurfer as a starting point!
Very glad I did!
 

Fishbonez

Active member
Teach
Way to sacrifice your body for them students. LOL Your WH also made the ultimate sacrifice as well. Dont throw her away she was rescued from the trash and deserves the gorilla treatment. As for the EDF hope he is able to get his money back and sell it for the price he or his parents paid for
 

Tritium

Amateur Extra Class K5TWM
EST, you indicated once upon a time that you either grew up in rural Texas of at least spent some time in school here. It only takes a brief time living in Texas to make a VERY hard head. :p.

Thurmond
 

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
Tritium - yup, 7 years in the Middle of Nowhere East Texas.

Bonez - I do think she is done. On a complete whim, today I started laying out a completely scratch-built version with modifications to better accommodate fpv and be more streamlined for longer unpowered flight. I got as far as laminating some 1" blue foam together and rough cutting from the plan view on the band saw. By the end of the day, I was more leaning toward using the electronics on a larger flying wing for fpv with enough room to internally house all of the electronics. I would even make a Lexan or acrylic bubble to keep the cameras out of the wind stream. I'll know which direction I'm going when one or the other is mostly built.
Oh, what's the gorilla treatment? Do I have to eat the hawk???

JD - The poor F-16 is definitely ill-fated. My buddy keeps offering the kid $100 to save it, but the kid wants more like $200 for it. I am not at all impressed with the plane. The elevator attachments are so weak and wobbly (flying elevs)! I even replaced one with aluminum tubing. Its an improvement, but still sub-par. From what I've read, these are the weak points in the plane and frequently lead to severe crashes.
 

Foam Addict

Squirrel member
Hey Teach,
A similar story, but partially self inflicted.
I was a temp instructor and learner at an RC flight academy in Oshkosh Wisconsin.
I was flying with 6 other fly zone sensei, when two had Esc failures, I went around to let them land, but my plane hit low voltage cut off. There was a 25 mph cross wind, and my plane found my neck.:black_eyed:
That was not fun, flying with a stiff neck!
 

randelora

Member
I wish a had a video camera rolling the day my 3 yr old son walked in front of my HZ super cub on final approach. The wing tip brushed the top of his head and I still made a perfect landing. The look on my wifes face was priceless!
 

Foam Addict

Squirrel member
Oshkosh was fun, We were staying on the airport, and driving all 37 of us to Fond du lac and Winnebago to fly, Those giant grass runways were awesome, your always on the runway!
how every they weren't so great when we had a case of exploding LiPo. Grass=fuel!!!:(
I will load some pics from in side a plane some time.
We had duct tape engineering to attach cameras to planes.;)
Foam Addict.