All my crashes so far - videos and pictures!!

[Hogster]

Righty ho!! :D

This one is of my homebuilt but now-retired Spirit. The wing was made from the horizontal stabiliser of a trashed electric glider, and I built the rest of it from scrap! This was it's first proper flight above the ground ... even if it didn't last very long! :o

Nasty Spirit crash (http://hogster.rchomepage.com/horrific_spirit_crash.mov)
4.6MB Quicktime required

End result:
http://hogster.rchomepage.com/crashes/crash_damage_1_medium.jpg


Having repaired the damage from that little accident, I was then punched out of the sky by a horrid glitch on another flight:

Grrr dagnamit - I hates glitches! (http://hogster.rchomepage.com/beautiful_hideous.mov)
20.8MB Quicktime required

Before:
http://hogster.rchomepage.com/crashes/latest_layout_3.jpg

After:
http://hogster.rchomepage.com/crashes/very_bad_crash_1_medium.jpg

http://hogster.rchomepage.com/crashes/very_bad_crash_2_medium.jpg

I did repair the damage from that crash:

http://hogster.rchomepage.com/crashes/complete_medium.jpg

but I soon got bored of that plane (had to fly at full throttle or not at all ... not particularly relaxing to fly) and I ended up putting all the equipment in a foamie flat-plate delta wing I built .... much nicer to fly! :)


I have owned two Irvine Early Bird electric gliders, both of which are now dead sadly. The cause of the first terminal crash is still relatively unknown - I think the rudder got jammed ... either that or I had a glitch ... either way it happened - full left rudder 100ft up on a hill ... rapid pirouetting plunge into a dense wood below .... not much left intact!

http://hogster.rchomepage.com/crashes/early_bird_smash1.jpg

http://hogster.rchomepage.com/crashes/early_bird_smash2.jpg

The second terminal crash was a wing rip-off in a rapid dive. About 100ft up the left wing was torn off (all built-up balsa wing - no reinforcements!). I never saw the left wing again as it fluttered off over the local village, but the rest of the plane came down somewhat quicker .... probably about 5000mph ... into someone's allotment! :eek: I'm so grateful no-one was in the way! I don't have any photos of the remains of the plane, but I do have this video which was taken onboard the doomed Early Bird during its final seconds of life. Sorry the video is so small (physically) - I had to make it that small or my video codec would go spaz when trying to compress it!

Second Early Bird death! (http://hogster.rchomepage.com/early_bird_death.mov)
1.2MB Quicktime required

[Hogster]

To replace the Early Bird I then got a Protech Unlimited 600 - a more aerobatic electric glider with ailerons (instead of just R/E/T). But this poor plane has had its fair share of crashes too! This first one was caused by a tip-stall as you can see. As the Early Bird had a large amount of polyhedral (bent up wings making it more stable), there were no such things as tip-stalls .... the Unlimited on the other hand has a totally flat wing which is much more prone to tip-stalling ... needless to say this took me by surprise! :o

Tip stall close to the ground = ouch! (http://hogster.rchomepage.com/tip_stall.mov)
2.8MB Quicktime required


Fortunately there was very little damage done ... the only real damage being a slight split in either side of the wing where the ailerons started. Easily fixed with a bit of CA. :) .... oh and obviously the prop was annihilated! :p

But that was not all - next crash was completely pilot error ..... ALWAYS check the direction of movement of your control surfaces BEFORE you launch! :o Reversed ailerons don't aid graceful flight!

Oooh dear ..... (http://hogster.rchomepage.com/second_protech_crash.mov)
980k Quicktime required

Again very little damage was done .... just a new prop needed! :rolleyes:


Amongst my other accidents, an electric ducted-fan F-16 commited suicide on the first flight ... underpowered, too heavy, and launched too slowly! It flew in a continuous stall for about 100m, and when it got too close to the trees I cut the throttle ... bad idea - ZEEEOOWWDONK on the nose! Being polystyrene it was a right off - it was heavy enough already and any repairs would've made it heavier still. No photos or videos sadly.

Then I had a P-51 Reno Racer ..... underpowered and progressively destroyed itself over a few crashes ... no pictures or videos either!

Oh then there was my electric paraglider - still flying today, but I did have this little *ahem* mishap with it when on holiday:

http://hogster.rchomepage.com/crashes/paraglider_stuck.jpg

Yep, stuck 40ft up in a tree! :o After a few hours I managed to get it down with a long pole made from 6ft lengths of bamboo tied together with a neighbours ball of gardening string!


If I have any more crashes, I'll come straight here first! :D

Oooooh it's great to have this new forum!!! :D :D

[Tomcat Fan]

[QUOTE=Hogster]To replace the Early Bird I then got a Protech Unlimited 600 - a more aerobatic electric glider with ailerons (instead of just R/E/T). But this poor plane has had its fair share of crashes too! This first one was caused by a tip-stall as you can see. As the Early Bird had a large amount of polyhedral (bent up wings making it more stable), there were no such things as tip-stalls .... the Unlimited on the other hand has a totally flat wing which is much more prone to tip-stalling ... needless to say this took me by surprise! :o

Tip stall close to the ground = ouch! (http://hogster.rchomepage.com/tip_stall.mov)
2.8MB Quicktime required


i love the post-flight commentary super-imposed; at least the moderators can't say you posted it just for carnage value.

i've dorked everything i've "flown" so far.
a megatech groundstrike; after dorking it repeatedly, got it trimmed out to where i got 3 laps of the parking lot in. i thought i was charles f-in lindbergh, right up until i added a little too much elevator in the last turn. it stalled and death spiraled, bending the prop shaft, and hitting the concrete (bad idea, i know) so hard that the gearbox inside the cowling was somehow cracked, the gears were stripped along with what was left of my dignity.

my aerobird extreme-they forget to mention that the extreme stands for "can strike the ground extremely hard". after a few mishaps, i think the tail boom was out of alignment, and the motor had shifted to face the right a little. took the plane home to show my family my cool new plane that actually flew. from the second it got up, it was completely out of trim, did a horrible, wounded duck half lap of the field, crossed over into the parking lot (not the concrete again), and nosed in at about 40 mph. it was awful-the nose came off, the belly compressed and slpit all the way down the middle, engine shifted forward and all the usual fun. holy jesus, i dropped to my knees and almost cried. :eek: got her fixed, sort of, but after a few more unfortunate "landings", the Rx seems to have crapped out altogether. will give in and buy the new fuse and Rx setup in a bit when i have the cash; she flew surprisingly well considering my lack of ability, so it'll be worth the investment once i make all the usual aerobird mods (should've been in rc groups then).

my aerobird challenger-this actually flew great for a while. got loops and all that fun stuff out of her. brought her up to connecticut to show her to a buddy of mine who wants to get into r/c. did a few laps of the field, got a couple of loops and then the infamous aerobird wing bunny ear flop happened while coming down extra fast out of a loop. too much stress on the wing; not enough reinforcement. flop, oh crap, death spiral from 75 feet or so.

so, for those of you who were concerned about this just being a carnage page, what have we learned? and there will be a test on this later...

1. i can't fly for crap.
2. megatech really should rename itself megajunk; their stuff is horrendously underpowered and too heavy.
3. abc wings MUST be reinforced, no matter how well they hold up when you first fly them.
4. in the battle of plane vs. concrete, there are no winners, although i think the pavement continues to claim bragging rights no matter how many times we fix our planes and get them flying again.

[Hogster]

Shameless bump! :D