BOT dies tragic death

[ptlpc]

Well, flying sailplanes takes 100% concentration. Little distractions can add up to cause utter disaster. Here's my story:
Today at the field we had a new retriever on the winch which was cool because you usually have to walk through the weeds to get the chute.
Anyway,
Distraction #1.
My guru friend lost his prized plane a few weeks ago by getting caught in the return after a zoom launch. With that on my mind -
Distraction #2
I get up to the line and the foot switch doesn't like my shoes for some reason and only engages intermittently.
Distraction #3.
I call the guy over who is manning the return and ask if he can work the foot switch.
Distraction #4
Well, call for takeoff and as the BOT leaves my hand, the wing bonks the footswitch operator in the back of the head. :eek:
Distraction (from loud BONK) #5
Don't know if there was too little airspeed, or I froze, or what - but the plane arched to the right and hit with authority, exploding into many pieces. Un-repairable. Very otherworldly sound on impact.

Old pros at the field told me "yeah, I've done that before" which helps... a little. But the BOT is no more. :( On the the next one.
:D

[R. Carver]

Yep, done that before-except it was my own head that I hit :D

[Urbanarmitage]

Ouch! That's a nasty one! :( After your post about how much you loved your BoT are you going to build another one?

Wayne

[ptlpc]

I'm building a scale 3.5M Mini Nimbus now for next season. I'm looking at something like a Spirit 100 to get some stick time in on a full house type bird to prepare for the scaley. Good luck with your build! I'm following it.

[Urbanarmitage]

Thanks! Same to you with the Spirit. I took a look at the Spirit a litttle while ago. Looks like a nice bird!

Wayne

[carrinsr]

I realize this thread is about a doa BOT, but I just wanted to add that my AVA has been the best thermal sailplane I've ever had the thrill of owning. And I've owned many, many over the past decades.

David

[dr.E]

Local club member who flies HL and free flight bought an ARF BOT. He was warned of the weak wing construction so he spent his morning Hand Launchng the BOT. (30 ft javelin toss)

An hour later we turned to him and asked him where the BOT was. He pointed to a speck 1000 ft up!!!!! He asked me how to get it down and I told him "with the spoiler" he said he didn't have one :eek:

Now I tell him to fly out of the thermal and spin it down using the rudder and elevator. First spin was great, then he applied down!!!!!! BOT was reaching terminal velocity (balsa molecular dislocation) I told him not to pull up but rather just apply a little up trim and pray. Before I could repeat the suggestion he gave full up (the rest is history)

Fuselage was empailed 30 inches into the sod and the wings took 4 minutes to come down, the elevator halves came down a minute later.....

[Urbanarmitage]

Yep, done that before-except it was my own head that I hit
:D Reminds me of when I started learning to salt-water fly fish. On a windy day I ended up embedding a fly in the back of my mentor's ear! I was NOT popular! :o

Fuselage was empailed 30 inches into the sod and the wings took 4 minutes to come down, the elevator halves came down a minute later.....
I had a friend I used to fly with years ago. He was the kind of builder that didn't really care what his planes looked like or how strong they were, he just wanted to fly. Kind of sticky-tape and a prayer stuff.

He had just finished building a 1.2m aerobatic aileron hybrid out of bits he scrounged from the guys. It weighed a ton and IMO had the flying characteristics of a half-brick but ...

Not being used to flying faster instead of floating he was flying it like a 2m floater in some strong slope lift. Somehow he managed to get a fair bit of height and decided to start playing.

After about 10 mins of throwing it around the 15th-hand nylon bolt gave way as he was climbing out from a high-speed flyby.

The perfect arc the fuselage followed before embedding itself in the side of the slope was quite impressive! It must have 'flown' about 40 meters before becoming a lawn dart. The wings however took on a life of their own! They flipped LE over TE for about 45mins and managed to fly about 3km before 'landing' in a rubbish dump. (Saying something??? :) )

After being missing in action for about 4 hrs my now very irate friend arrived back with the wings in-hand. He said the only reason he kept looking was because of the aileron servo mounted in the wing!

Ahhh, memories ... :D

Wayne

[ScaredyCat]

My pal Bruce flys an Aspire with the wing rubber banded on and about two weeks ago we were flying up in Eugene when Bruce brought the Aspire down on a killer run from way up and as it got about 100' from us the wing started jumping violently up and down banging the fusealage...causing the canopy to fly off and then UH OH out came this red thing and the plane started spiraling in behind us as Bruce pulled every which way on the controls...I said, "uh, Bruce, what was that red thing in your cockpit," to which he replied, "oh, just the receiver battery!"

He did retrieve the plane...but it apparently did a nose dive into the HARD ground.