Post by Intrepidation on May 15, 2009 1:47:13 GMT 1
It's been a rough week for my SC. After making it over a year with little damage beyond propellers and a slowly deteriorating cowl, it's had the firewall come clean off, the tale end of the fuselage crack, the actual tail come loose, and broke some rubber bands.
Now comes this: Yesterday evening my friend and I were going o fly, and he wanted to try a parking lot, so we went to the university one around 7:30pm. There were still cars around but it seemed clear enough to fly. He took off and then I did. His plane flew well but when he landed it hit the fence. I was circling around to land when a sudden gust of wind pushed the plane towards a parked car. I gave it throttle and pulled up to avoid it, but as I was doing so the wind gusted again and pushed it at full throttle into a light pole. Upon hitting the light pole it nose dived into the ground, with the nose absorbing all of the impact. Worse yet, it landed a few feet into a bust street.
Luckily it didn't hit a car (or I would have been in even bigger trouble). As well, the custom lights we wired up were unharmed by the crash, and were still on, so cars cautiously avoided the plane while my friend hopped the fence and got it.
The damage? It broke the motor mount and cracked the firewall, but happily nothing else.
I have a couple of crappy cell phone pictures of it apart in the "shop" with gorilla glue on the firewall.
Today we went to the hobby shop and I got a new mount and firewall (just in case). The gorilla glue seems to have done the trick though, at least for now, but if it breaks again I have a spare. The new mount is all set up. I put the plane back together and taxied it in the driveway...seemed to be working properly. Way too windy to fly and really test it.
It's apart again now though, I'm upgrading the wiring to make the tail light blink, and incorporating a quick release for the wing's wiring
Now comes this: Yesterday evening my friend and I were going o fly, and he wanted to try a parking lot, so we went to the university one around 7:30pm. There were still cars around but it seemed clear enough to fly. He took off and then I did. His plane flew well but when he landed it hit the fence. I was circling around to land when a sudden gust of wind pushed the plane towards a parked car. I gave it throttle and pulled up to avoid it, but as I was doing so the wind gusted again and pushed it at full throttle into a light pole. Upon hitting the light pole it nose dived into the ground, with the nose absorbing all of the impact. Worse yet, it landed a few feet into a bust street.
Luckily it didn't hit a car (or I would have been in even bigger trouble). As well, the custom lights we wired up were unharmed by the crash, and were still on, so cars cautiously avoided the plane while my friend hopped the fence and got it.
The damage? It broke the motor mount and cracked the firewall, but happily nothing else.
I have a couple of crappy cell phone pictures of it apart in the "shop" with gorilla glue on the firewall.
Today we went to the hobby shop and I got a new mount and firewall (just in case). The gorilla glue seems to have done the trick though, at least for now, but if it breaks again I have a spare. The new mount is all set up. I put the plane back together and taxied it in the driveway...seemed to be working properly. Way too windy to fly and really test it.
It's apart again now though, I'm upgrading the wiring to make the tail light blink, and incorporating a quick release for the wing's wiring
