I took out my planes as usual for my late morning/early afternoon flying ritual today. I brought with me my GWS Corsair, Spitfire, Switchback, and Dandy. Since I haven't flown my warbirds for a few days, I decided to fly those first. The Corsair went up first. Everything was fine and going good until all of a sudden, my razor motor cut out. Dead sticked it in without a hitch. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the prop was missing a blade and the gearbox was underneath the plane. Apparently, the prop broke in mid flight. The vibration from the unbalanced prop sheared the stick in half! Next went the Spitfire. I was flying around for about 2 minutes when my battery went dead. Ok, no problem, I'll glide it in. WRONG! The plane was down wind and I was about 2 feet from the ground when it tip stalls, and does a cartwheel on the ground. I snap the fuse in half, pick up the pieces and go home. The only real flying I had today was with my Switchback, but that wasn't without any problems either. Upon takeoff, one of the wheels fall off. After I finish my 15 minute flight, I bring her in on one wheel. The Dandy went up next. I tossed the plane and did a few circuits around the field. A strong gust of wind comes from out of nowhere and brings it down hard on it's nose. The forward bulkheads broke and the motor stick is pushed back about 1/2". I've never had a more horrible day of flying. Damaging 4 planes on one flying session must be some kind of record. Luckily the Spitfire and the Dandy was easy to repair. Hopefully, I can repair the motor stick in the Corsair without adversely affecting the trust angle. I should have stayed home today.

Good grief!!! Sorry to hear that, but at least it sounds like they will all fly again. If it makes you feel any better, I saw a pic on one of the forums a loooong time ago of two composite planes (something along the lines of a grand apiece with equipment) that had been piled in within 10 minutes of each other at a high enough speed to utterly destroy everything. That's the stuff nightmares are made of!

Forgot to mention those two planes belonged to one guy. He destroyed one, then launched the second one and piled it in too. Yikes!

Dude that BITES. You couldn't wait until I was there with my video camera?

Mario <-- Running for cover

Mario,
You'll have plenty of opportunity tomorrow.

Tres,
That sucks. That one guy wouldn't happen to be YOU would it?

Must have been something in the air today, I went to work early to fly my pico stick cause there was no wind! Unfortunately I was talking to a coworker and looked away for one second then bam, a tree snagged her! In the imortal words of Charlie Brown, RATS! Thankfully it was a low branch and I got it by standing on a co-workers van and a broom stick.. No damage to the plane, just my ego

Dude, that sucks.

I avoided that. I didn't fly, too windy

Cam

Man, what a bummer. I think it is possible to reglue the motor stick if it was a clean break (eg. no missing parts or splinters.) I eyeballed my TigerMoth motorstick after cracking it in a hilarous ground loop. It seems to work fine after the reglue.

The Spitfire is back together, just waiting for the glue to dry. I'll reinforce with some CF ribbon along the fuse this time. It's the 2nd time I've split it. Cool thing is, it broke in a different place. I just fitted the motor stick back together, but I'm thinking of also reinforcing the motorstick with some strips of CF ribbon.

I've had a bit of bad luck with my past 3 planes. My diabolic ended a little less then a month ago, it flew great, had its problems, and then i srtaed to get everything really working well. well basically my elevator broke off ( not original elevator) and the plane wiped out. destroyed a b50 11xl, speed control, receiver, and a few servos, along with the airframe. so about 800 bucks down. then I buy an extase and it has its problems, but it starts flying well. then in two flights, first an inverted low pass cracked the rudder ( so low I skid on the canopy..haha) and then the next piled it in, not really doing a trick. broke the airframe and messed up the b50 but I fixed it, and I also broke 3 servos. I finally have the frame fixed but haven't flown it. then a get a discus handlaunch... an xterminator... I just get it flying well, really starting to learn, so I take the dad out to see it. and toss it hard.. and right into a tree. well we came back this morning and got it out, but it had a huge crease in the kevlar wing. a little superlight glass and shes good as new. now I take her out again and break the rudder off. thats in the process of drying in the garage right now. so don't feel bad, we all go through our crashing stages, you should be lucky that yours aren't that expensive ( yet...)

Rhett

I've had some pretty bad days..

1. Went to fly TigerMoth, flew well, on the way home hit a bump in the road (huge bump btw) launching my model into the air along with my transmitter. First my TM hits the floor assumably ok, then my transmitter lands on my TM and breaks the trainer switch (so much for lessons on my Alpha Trainer) and the TM Fues and wing, among other things. I get home, glue it all back together and go flying again. Man was I stupid then, the plane was rolling real bad side to side when I used the rudder and the wings were V shaped.. I didn't think anything of it and proceded to rock it back and forth like an idiot. Then my friend suggested a barrel roll. It went like this. "Lemme get some altitude.." "Ok, this looks good.." *full right rudder* "OH $@(*#$" SMASH.. wings folded and I had to make two trips between my friend and I to get all the yellow foam back to the truck. It was repaired later.

2. Had a pretty good day with 3 flights or so on the P-51 and SlowStick, teaching my dad how to fly. He hands me the transmitter when he gets nervous but one time he neglected to hand the transmitter and flew almost out of sight, smashing into a curb far down the road. Got home, fixed it, went out by myself later to fly both. Tip stalled her into the ground, destroying the wing and fueselage. Got the ole SS out for some relaxing flight and smashed her in good too. I didn't feel too good about flying after that. I repaired them both later.

We all have our days..

sorry to hear about your 4 crash day.

let's see if this will make you feel better. time ago, i was working on figuring out how to fit the planes into my sedan, when i slipped and pushed my hand right through the fuse of a gws zero. when your hand goes through a fuse like that, it's not just foam, it's control wires, it's servos, and it's battery compartment. totalled it in one fell-swoop. good going idiot.

just few days ago, on the maiden landing approach of my gws bn-2, i nose it in from 40 feet, 90 degrees into the ground. stupid again. it was such a vertical hit, it sent lightning-like cracks down the center of the fuselage, while wreaking havoc to so many parts. i had to actually pull apart the partially cracked foam pieces, so i can have a chance at glueing them back to normal strength. i had 30 pieces of little foam pieces to glue back. yeah... not fun... had micro cracks everywhere along the wing, thanks to my maticulous epoxy job on the motor mounts. the impact of the crash threw one of the twins into the ground, and left the other one on, causing the wing to pivot and tear itself off from the wing mounts. those are always fun to fix, right guys?

you are not alone, all you foam and balsa smashers... feel better soon.