What is the worst crash you witnessed

[varg]

I've seen a couple of large turbine models go down at my local field. One lost a control surface or two and went in very far away, in the wetlands west of the field. I have some pictures of it going down but don't know where they are saved right now, I'll post them if I find them. Supposedly the owner has lost a few turbine models at this point. RC is a hobby where I see many equipment failures (and even more pilot errors), I will never understand how anyone can spend tens of thousands of dollars on turbine models knowing that fact.

 

[Ketchup]

@Ketchup, was that the giant quad that hit the flag?

Yep, I think that's the one.

 

[mhlau999]

Yep, I think that's the one.

That was crazy it just exploded. Sad day

 

[mhlau999]

I've seen a couple of large turbine models go down at my local field. One lost a control surface or two and went in very far away, in the wetlands west of the field. I have some pictures of it going down but don't know where they are saved right now, I'll post them if I find them. Supposedly the owner has lost a few turbine models at this point. RC is a hobby where I see many equipment failures (and even more pilot errors), I will never understand how anyone can spend tens of thousands of dollars on turbine models knowing that fact.

I am not sure , but I like what is under your name, build cheap, crash cheap. Perfect for this string

 

[mhlau999]

My vote is for Mac Hodges B29

Here is the plane in all it's glory.

That is an incredible plane, thank you for sharing

 

[Merv]

That is an incredible plane, thank you for sharing

It was an incredible plane.

 

[JasonK]

I have a new 'worst crash' to add to the list, mostly because of the personal emotional attachment to the plane:

I flew out multiple batteries on this plane through the day, got it trimmed to almost perfect. Was flying at full speed 2ish meters off the ground (possibly only 1) doing low passes... my phone rang and before the end of the first ring my plane made a rapid deceleration.... (was definately to close to the ground to bump the ailerons) and this is what it looks like now (after removing the battery)

 

["Corpse"]

I have a new 'worst crash' to add to the list, mostly because of the personal emotional attachment to the plane:

I flew out multiple batteries on this plane through the day, got it trimmed to almost perfect. Was flying at full speed 2ish meters off the ground (possibly only 1) doing low passes... my phone rang and before the end of the first ring my plane made a rapid deceleration.... (was definately to close to the ground to bump the ailerons) and this is what it looks like now (after removing the battery)

View attachment 175001

That looks like it flew great! Are you gonna build another?

 

[JasonK]

That looks like it flew great! Are you gonna build another?

It did fly great, 5ish mins using plenty of 100% power on 2s 650mAh 6x4.5 (if I ran it at 40-50% - what it took to keep a steady flight, I could probably get 8 minutes out of it), unlimited vertical (after I stopped accidentally inputting rudder at full thrust). Only issue was that it would climb/drop when off 50% throttle (almost got that trimmed out with some throttle -> elevator mix, but not quite)

I might redesign it and make it a dual boom to the tail pusher so i can FPV it. I tried puting an FPV camera on the top of the pod, but the camera was about 25-50% black lines from the prop. I need to 'take a break' and figure out what I am going to do. I need to also build a trainer as I finally ordered another radio so I could buddy box my younger kids who want to learn to fly, so I have quite a few planes to build/fix this week. (I have most of a build log linked in my signature on it.

 

[joji]

My worst crash... many years ago when I was young(er) and dumb(er), and knew nothing about scratch building, I put together a horrendous foam profile plane with electronics harvested from another plane that I had wrecked. Needless to say it crashed straight into the ground after an equally horrendous hand launch. Was quite discouraging but at the same time I had no clue what I was doing.

Another notable crash was with my first Flitetest plane, the tiny trainer. Spent a long time building that thing, and it flew well for the first few seconds. Then, the battery came loose, shifted to the back of the plane, and the CG became all wonky (at least that’s what my post-crash investigation pointed to...) . Wasn’t a dramatic crash but it kinda sucked after all that hard work! I did feel pretty proud that I built something with my hands and had it flying properly for at least a few seconds, though! I wasn’t discouraged at all, I just wanted to get started on my next build. Also, since then I have always made sure my battery is nice and secure!

 

[mrjdstewart]

this is one of my best in a while. took off and pulled hard left and into a dive. i was able to pull up but when there is a tree in front of you at full throttle it doesn't really matter. hit so hard it broke the motor shaft and separated the two bells of the motor.

gonna set it aside for a bit but pretty sure i can salvage it. wanted to put in a bigger motor anyways.

laters,

me

 

[Ryan O.]

I will start

A long time ago I witnessed a maiden on a beautiful 1/4 scale piper cub with a big gas motor, the guy told us his wife insisted on curtains on the side windows. He took off nicely, circled the field and pile drove it into the ground. You could see the guys was just devastated, he walked out on the field with a shovel and a wagon. I packed up my glider and went home. Nope not flying that day.....

Last night it was pretty windy, I was working on low passes, clearly not three mistakes high and I have bounced my hobbyzone champ off the grass a few times, walk over, half throttle, chuck it back in the air. Apparently a butterfly flapped by and disturbed the air.

I saw a 1/4 scale panther hit the ground after it folded it's wings. I was there just in time to see the dust cloud and raining balsa ans fiberglass pieces. Everything was anhilated, and they needed a tryck to toss all the wreckage in. It crashed so far away the impact sound was half a second after it hit.

 

[mhlau999]

Wow, all amazing crashes. Thank you all for sharing.

 

[Tench745]

I was at flite fest west watching the giant race quad flying, and it came in to do a pass. I realized that it was way too low, and it was... I talked to Stefan about the quad for a minute, and I'm not sure exactly how, but I ended up with a blade from one of the broken props that was on the quad. FT has a video with the crash that they posted a while ago.

I believe I was there for that crash as well. High-speed disassembly.

 

[mhlau999]

@Tench745, High speed disassembly is a very good description. I might be confused but didn't they also fly a small drone into the blades on purpose? Kind of like lettuce shredding out the bottom? I am not sure if that was the same drone or not.

 

[FoamyDM]

My dads 120" Cessna Skymaster. Had a wing fold due to a weak ring design. Hit the ground at around 80mph. He spent 3 years building it View attachment 174866

With the one above,
4 vote against Balsa.
1 vote against 3d printing.
2 vote pro foam..

 

[L Edge]

Into helicopters, just got my son's backup 60 nitro chopper and went to club field to test fly. Placed chopper on runway and backed off about 20ft. Son lifted and trimmed chopper in mode 1 and was ready for forward flight in mode 2 (acrobatic mode with constant rpm=2300).

He engaged the collective and next thing was a tremendous wack of wood(fiberglass blades were not invented yet) as it took off. Next thing we see is the battery going thru the plastic canopy and a wildcat of a chopper just flopping around on the ground and beating itself to death. The other blade hit the boom and shattered the wood and left a short segment in the blade holder and it turned,rolled, flipped the chopper until the main gear sheared. The engine increased some and spun(without battery, nothing works from transmitter) until it overheated and froze the engine. Then it finally died and what a mess.
What happened, the blade root pulled from the bolt that held it and that was that. It hit the other blade in flight and then the total destruction began.
Motor destroyed, tuned pipe exhaust tube ripped off, fiber frame cracked in a number of places, gyro for tail hit, 5 expensive high torque servos and the $100 receiver destroyed plus the governor.

So, you want to fly helicopters, be prepared to part with the cash.

 

[speedbirdted]

No kidding. Someone once told me that if you can't take a $100 bill out of your pocket then rip it up and laugh, don't fly helicopters.

 

[L Edge]

No kidding. Someone once told me that if you can't take a $100 bill out of your pocket then rip it up and laugh, don't fly helicopters.

Think about an auto-- you shut your engine off, gather energy on the way down, and hope you bleed that energy off to slow it down and land it with the blades still producing lift. Seen pilot's drop from about 5 ft with no energy left or bounce it back into the air one or twice and shell out
$100's of dollars. Only thing good about helis is they are capable of flying and landing in high winds where airplanes will be grounded.

 

[mhlau999]

Holy cats, I had no idea model Helicopters were so deviating, I am an electrical engineer and have designed lots of wire harnesses for full size helicopters. Every bolt has a hole in the end and I cotter pin installed so the nut does not back off. When I asked why do they install cotter pins in the end of every bolt, the guy took a a step back and said "these are not actually designed to fly, we make them fly!"