What happened?!?!

[TheEntraP3]

Hello to all my fellow minions of the FliteTest Joshes!
I was doing my last flight lesson at my local R/C airfield this evening with my balsa Alpha 450 Sport, and something odd happened.

I was coming in for the landing because my battery was running low. Note that the sun is still above the horizon and the sky is still very visible. I was coming in on the side near the flight stations because my battery is very low so I wanted to get on the ground asap. I landed successfully, but when I did, My back wheels snapped back, breaking the balsa wood holding the wheels to the airframe. The landing wasn't a hard landing; I was going into it at a soft and recommended landing speed and I landed with the back wheels touching the grass and the front wheel landing on the concrete paths connecting the flight stations to the runway. I think I was coming down too fast and didn't use enough up elevator to reduce my falling speed before I landed. Does anyone know exactly what happened? I can provide pictures as needed until me and my dad fix the landing gear.

 

[Balu]

Perhaps the material was already cracked from harder landings before and just gave up?

 

[IFlyRCstuff]

if the concrete was higher than the ground and the back wheels ran into it (because the front wheel was on the concrete, right) then that may have cracked something

 

[makattack]

That's too bad about the damage, but I think iflyrc nailed the problem on the head. The transition from grass/soft to hard might have been the cause. Incidentally, you actually would use increased throttle to lower your rate of descent, and elevator to slow your approach speed.

 

[TheEntraP3]

Here's even more good news!
Today I went back out to fly at the airfield, and of course I'm still uncomfortable with launching the plane myself. So, I asked my pal, Glen, to toss the plane up for me. He did. He did it quite well, actually. TOO well.

After tossing the plane, the battery hatch promptly gave way to the battery, sliding out of its little nook. And because I was going full throttle to take off and not hit the ground, along with the little boost Glen gave the plane, my Turnigy 2.2 3S (with an XT60 connector) pulled the connector out of the connector on the ESC, shutting down my plane, which was currently at approximately 45-60 degrees above horizontal from me trying to climb into the air. Then, the plane stalled and plummeted nose-first into the ground only about 20 feet below it.
No big deal, right? WRONG!
The firewall caved, the thingamajig that holds my prop on the motor also caved, the center of my wings, which were glued to each other, broke and nearly ripped off of the fuselage, and, to make my life so much easier, the front half of my fuselage is nearly accordioned. Although that last part was a bit of exaggeration, I still have to cut off half of the fuselage in order to repair the damage done by the ground. (Stupid *sniff*ing concrete, no one likes you)

As you can probably tell, I'm mad. I'm putting aside the repairs for now and I am going to look into possibly using the electronics from the Alpha, which are still intact but may or may not be damaged (haven't checked yet), for an FT scratch build plane.