Pilot Error Rubber Band Strength

[tmack]

I have had my share of busted props, bent landing gear, lost a horizontal stabilizer, but never a major wipe out. The fuselage stick on the Slow V was very weak and I had to replace that a couple times, but for my regular planes we were pretty uneventful in terms of crashing until recently.

I was lazy. Repeat lazy. I only put two rubber bands on the wings of my Apprentice. Well I was in a dive and pulled up to loop and the wing came off the fuselage. The wing slowly paddle wheeled to the ground, I cut the throttle and pulled up on the elevator trying to make a hill with large bushes only to miss the mark by 1 foot.

As I told my son, flying RC means there are parts and we repair what we break and fly another day. We did repair this break with Gorilla Glue (the white fast drying) and we are flying the plane with no problems. I had to buy a new cowl and a new motor mount. I had a clevis for the nose gear servo connection and a propeller in my flight box and that was it. I lost the nose cone, but we left that off for now.

This is the worst crash in the many years I have been flying. I still have my first generation Hobby Zone SuperCub (NiCads with 27 mhz radio) and never had a wreck like this. In a way I am glad I crashed it because it really made my son relax and not worry about these things. We always fly with 4 rubber bands on the wings now. LOL!

 

[Montiey]

I put at least 6 on.

 

[earthsciteach]

Clean looking repair job. I almost lost a vintage plane at Flite Fest this year because I used weak rubber bands. The front of the wing would lift causing a disturbing and sudden nose up. I thought the battery had shifted and messed up the cg, but realized it was the wing when I picked it up after landing in the soy beans. Luckily there was no damage, but the pucker factor gauge was pegged! Lesson learned.

 

[makattack]

Nice to hear the repairs went well. I've been taking a whole lotta new rubber bands to the field lately. I noticed that it doesn't take long for those bands to deteriorate in the Sun and heat. I was lucky, one just fell apart on me as I was putting the wing on, which lead me to buying a large bag of them and keeping them sealed up until needed in a ziplock.