LongGoneJohn
Gone
Well, been flying a lot.
A few weeks ago the airfield took four planes in a matter of 2 days. It was a rough outing.
First up: I was flying my new-to-me 1400mm FMS Zero. My buddy had taken good care of the plane, or so I thought. I tested it, and had seen him fly it 20 times with no problems. I go out, check the connection with my transmitter and off I go.
Within 20 seconds I lose all flight control of the plane. It comes back just in time to save it. I turn around and prepare to land it, when it loses all control again. Smashes no first into the ground and rips the entire nose off, destroys the prop, nose cone, cowling, a few servo's came flying out, etc. I didn't take pictures of it, but needless to say, I was annoyed.
It turns out the ESC was an aftermarket cheap ESC (I wasn't aware) and it decided to die mid flight, once that happened... the receiver stopped getting power and it was all downhill from there. I just finished repairing it a few moments ago and will take it out today to see how it does:
Next I was flying a little flying wing thing. It's an original ZAGI, really old and not very -- safe to fly -- I was just trying it to try it. As I expected, the motor rotated forward in the mount, launched the prop off and I had a glider. Landed it safely, but I won't be trying to repair it. It's just not fun to fly.
Needless to say, I was done for the day there.
Then my buddy comes out, he brings a few of his planes including his FockWolfe and his giant EPP foam (crap!) Eurofighter. The thing has 8 channels, including thrust vectoring and all kinds of crazy shit.
Well.... this happened to it:
He was doing a flat spin and when recovering, the wind picked up. The wind kept the plane rotating - albeit in a nose dive - because of the large surface area of the almost-delta wing. He used rudder, aileron, anything and everything and could not get the rotation stopped. Destroyed, it's done. No repairing that one. We sat there kind of in awe for a minute. We have a few rules when flying though:
1) Don't fly anything you aren't willing to destroy.
2) A crash is okay, so long as it's catastrophic and exciting. Crashing on landing or doing something stupid and causing a crash are not exciting, that just sucks.
So, this met both #1 and #2, and as such, we got over it.
The same day, my other friend is flying his P-51 and just dumb thumbs it into the ground and destroys the entire thing. It cannot be repaired either.
Needless to say, the last 2 outings have been bad for a lot of us. I don't know what it was, or if the bermuda triangle just decided to set its sights on my airfield, but it really trashed some shit good. Normally good "pilots" were crashing way too much.
Soooooo, that's about it for now. Right now I'm down to the P-51 belly lander, P-47 is repaired and flying well, and this giant 1400mm Zero which, well, we'll see how it flies here shortly.
A few weeks ago the airfield took four planes in a matter of 2 days. It was a rough outing.
First up: I was flying my new-to-me 1400mm FMS Zero. My buddy had taken good care of the plane, or so I thought. I tested it, and had seen him fly it 20 times with no problems. I go out, check the connection with my transmitter and off I go.
Within 20 seconds I lose all flight control of the plane. It comes back just in time to save it. I turn around and prepare to land it, when it loses all control again. Smashes no first into the ground and rips the entire nose off, destroys the prop, nose cone, cowling, a few servo's came flying out, etc. I didn't take pictures of it, but needless to say, I was annoyed.
It turns out the ESC was an aftermarket cheap ESC (I wasn't aware) and it decided to die mid flight, once that happened... the receiver stopped getting power and it was all downhill from there. I just finished repairing it a few moments ago and will take it out today to see how it does:
Next I was flying a little flying wing thing. It's an original ZAGI, really old and not very -- safe to fly -- I was just trying it to try it. As I expected, the motor rotated forward in the mount, launched the prop off and I had a glider. Landed it safely, but I won't be trying to repair it. It's just not fun to fly.
Needless to say, I was done for the day there.
Then my buddy comes out, he brings a few of his planes including his FockWolfe and his giant EPP foam (crap!) Eurofighter. The thing has 8 channels, including thrust vectoring and all kinds of crazy shit.
Well.... this happened to it:
He was doing a flat spin and when recovering, the wind picked up. The wind kept the plane rotating - albeit in a nose dive - because of the large surface area of the almost-delta wing. He used rudder, aileron, anything and everything and could not get the rotation stopped. Destroyed, it's done. No repairing that one. We sat there kind of in awe for a minute. We have a few rules when flying though:
1) Don't fly anything you aren't willing to destroy.
2) A crash is okay, so long as it's catastrophic and exciting. Crashing on landing or doing something stupid and causing a crash are not exciting, that just sucks.
So, this met both #1 and #2, and as such, we got over it.
The same day, my other friend is flying his P-51 and just dumb thumbs it into the ground and destroys the entire thing. It cannot be repaired either.
Needless to say, the last 2 outings have been bad for a lot of us. I don't know what it was, or if the bermuda triangle just decided to set its sights on my airfield, but it really trashed some shit good. Normally good "pilots" were crashing way too much.
Soooooo, that's about it for now. Right now I'm down to the P-51 belly lander, P-47 is repaired and flying well, and this giant 1400mm Zero which, well, we'll see how it flies here shortly.
