Lost 1/2 a vee...

[Sparky Paul]

Had a guest pilot flying my GL with the vee-tail.. in a monster thermal..
When neither of us were able to see it all that well, I said... "Time to bring it down."... Shouldn't have put it that way...
After the right vee fell off, it flat spun for almost a minute.. minimal damage on "arrival"...

[HELModels]

Dang Dude. What was the violent maneuver or the structural problem?

[ghoti]

Wow! Looks o me like a severe case of cross-coupled controls. If it had lost the other V instead would it have flat spun in the other direction? Glad it landed with little damage. Too bad you didn't get that one on video.
fish

[HELModels]

I am betting on the direction of spin being locked by the last input which resulted in busting the tail. That partially agrees with ghoti and he does know some stuff, but maybe Sparky will elaborate. Sparky aint no foo either, besides being the chief witness of the event. Tell us chief.

[Tom Harper]

Sparkster,

If it had come off clean you might have had a new 'asym' configuration. Probably would have worked fine.

BTW: Beautiful area - neat Joshua Trees!

[Sparky Paul]

The guy flying it wasn't up on gliders, I found out! :)
He pushed out of the thermal.
Wrong!
Had the whole thing come off, the tuck would have been a lot less hilarious! :(
.
On that theme, at our indoor "build an AMA Thermal Dart and fly it" event last Saturday, Joe broke the whole tail off his.. just behind where the pin for the rubber motor goes... he wound it up and threw it.....and it FLEW!... Dutch roll like crazy, but it didn't tuck!