Wow - A really tough Night of Flight

[RC Dad]

Took my youngest son out to fly this evening armed with his Bixler and my oldest boy's Rarebear. Absolutely perfect night for flying - no wind, and warm (first night out in shorts for the year).

Well, got to the field and realized we left the DX7 at home. No big deal I thought, we'll just use the DX5e (ignoring the little voice in my head saying...the Bixler has some real trim issues...get the DX7).

Well you know what happened. First flight lasted maybe 10 seconds and she went in like a lawn dart. Broken elevator and distorted fuselage. So instead of packing up and going home, I just grab the Rarebear of course.

Did full and complete pre-flight check. Worked really hard trying to get the trim figured out as good as possible on the ground. Launched the plane - maybe 5 seconds and she also was a lawn dart. Broke the fuse clean through to the top of the wing. Blew out a carbon rod and broke the prop...The worst part, this plane has been our most reliable flyer...it had never been crashed...well, we got that out of the way tonight.

So total time in the air tonight 15 seconds...two planes out of commission (although easily repairable). Just when I thought we were past the point of coming home from outings with no flyable planes in hand. Well, I get my ego handed back to me quite nicely!!:black_eyed::black_eyed:

Hope everyone else had a better night tonight! Thanks for letting me vent!

RC Dad

 

[lobstermash]

Haha, yeah, happens to all of us at some point. Usually crashes happen when you say 'well, just one more flight', but the bad days are bad days. I had a period of a couple of weeks where I kept crashing, and I consider myself a pretty reasonable flyer... I found that a break of a couple of weeks and returning to a confidence plane really helped.

Speaking of confidence planes, I recommend getting/building an EPP flying wing. They're phenominally sturdy, eternally repairable, dexterously versatile and criminally cheap.

 

[Brian fred carr]

+ one for EPP ...........Its brilliant stuff just bounces off the ground and as for a wing i coudnt agree more i have a great planes slinger,a 40 inch wingspan and is the best fun to fly i find the elevon control so intuitive, also get em up high and you can glide for ages

 

[jetpackninja]

I'm a big +1 for EPP
I'm a big +1 for flying wings too!

I know people that have actually taught themselves to fly with a flying wing but in general I don't recommend them for first planes.
I do think they can be excellent followup trainers and second planes once a newer flyer gets used to the orientation issues.

Check out this video of an all EPP Assassin hitting a brick wall over and over again.
I have a couple of these and they get flown EVERY time I go out flying.

 

[jetpackninja]

Took my youngest son out to fly this evening armed with his Bixler and my oldest boy's Rarebear. Absolutely perfect night for flying - no wind, and warm (first night out in shorts for the year).

Well, got to the field and realized we left the DX7 at home. No big deal I thought, we'll just use the DX5e (ignoring the little voice in my head saying...the Bixler has some real trim issues...get the DX7).

Well you know what happened. First flight lasted maybe 10 seconds and she went in like a lawn dart. Broken elevator and distorted fuselage. So instead of packing up and going home, I just grab the Rarebear of course.

Did full and complete pre-flight check. Worked really hard trying to get the trim figured out as good as possible on the ground. Launched the plane - maybe 5 seconds and she also was a lawn dart. Broke the fuse clean through to the top of the wing. Blew out a carbon rod and broke the prop...The worst part, this plane has been our most reliable flyer...it had never been crashed...well, we got that out of the way tonight.

So total time in the air tonight 15 seconds...two planes out of commission (although easily repairable). Just when I thought we were past the point of coming home from outings with no flyable planes in hand. Well, I get my ego handed back to me quite nicely!!:black_eyed::black_eyed:

Hope everyone else had a better night tonight! Thanks for letting me vent!

RC Dad

Dad- Did your pre check also check to make sure that the surfaces where moving the right direction?
I have more than once checked a plane into the air after just making them wiggle to find out that somehow the servos had been reversed or that I had mixing unintentionally disabled.

EDIT- I reread your post. Looks like you did do a good preflight---

Sorry, but crashing is part of the deal in my experience anyway. Keep at it

 

[RC Dad]

Thanks for the ideas regarding an EPP Wing - I am definitely going to look into the Assassin.

Yep did a good pre-flight and did find a reversed elevator. Both planes had significant trim issues and I could not get them corrected in time to keep control. It was total pilot error - definitely expect to crash at this stage into the hobby but it was just the wam bam thank you ma'am way in how it happened that got to me...

I have the Bixler already repaired. The Rarebear will be fairly straight forward to fix. I was thinking medium CA as the main glue in the large break in the fuselage with some thin CA with kicker on the outside edges to hold it together until the medium can dry. Will also add one or two pieces of carbon fiber over the crack to help hold it together too. The plane is EPP. Was curious if you think this approach makes sense or would hot glue be better to hold the main break with CA on the edges?

RC Dad

 

[jetpackninja]

I'm a hot glue fan for EPP- Only danger is sometimes it gets hot enough to melt the foam. Problem with CA on EPP is that the CA isn't flexible.

Any kind of contact cement works well too (like 3m77 or whatever)

Gorilla glue is also great for EPP (and lots of other types of foam too) repairs. I use the brown stuff that looks like maple syrup but a lot of the guys have gone to the white stuff. Only real drawback for the Gorilla glue is it is messy and expands. Not a problem if you don't use too much and have your pieces taped securely.