Wine Country Flyers Model Aircraft Club Forum

Crashes suck.

This is as certain as Death and Taxes, but let's put a lighter side on it this year.  Wylie and I were talking at the field last weekend and we came up with the idea to start and Aircraft Obituary thread here.  The idea is for members to post an entry after each disaster that includes a before and after photo plus a little background on the recently departed aircraft. 

Within minutes of hatching this brainchild, Steve Koll's AT-6 went down in the grapes, which we took as a sign that we are on to something, but fortunately his damages were not severe.

We discussed this at the Board Meeting the other night and Jeff Penner sweetened the scheme by suggesting that we award a prize at the 2013 Christmas Party for the Best Crash posted to this thread.  That's a great idea.  So here is the thread to get it going.  All members are encouraged to add to it by posting a reply with details of a new air disaster.  Folks are also welcome to comment on the quality of rekitting, offer solace, add a story, or whatever seems appropriate.

I'm afraid to tempt fate, but my 2013 has been good so far.  I've flown quite a few aircraft including two maidens but had no crack ups.  But just to get something going I'll go ahead and post my last crash--after all it was spectacular!

Koh

My son Drew and I designed this model a couple of years ago.  The first one is his and it flew so well I decided that I needed my own.  But just to get his goat, I added bigger motors, more detailing, and servoless retracts. ;D

The maiden went well but toward the end I had a severe aileron glitch.  I tore the model apart but had a heck of a time getting rid of that.  After many tests I thought I had it fixed.

The photo below was taken two days before last year's WCF Scale Event.  I was in a rush to get the Mitchell in ship shape for the show and she was flying well that day.  I hit the field again the next day to practice for the show but on the downwind leg she suddenly rolled 45 degrees to the outside.  The Glitch was back.  Too high to land, I came around again.  Another series of glitches in the same spot resulted in her inverted and hitting a vineyard equipment trailer adjacent to the runway.  I took pride in the fact that the debris trail was very scale.

Morale of the story:  haste lays waste. 

This one happened last year so it won't be a contender for the Best Crash prize, but hopefully it will get the ball rolling.

Jacob's Miss Dara that I test flew for him. Whoops!

Bummer, Tony

Can you clip the wing in that class? ;)

Koh

I can add to this one. My latest and greatest ("Great Planes" Revolver) that I maidened in Dec. 2011 was eaten by the vineyard. Red was at the sticks, but it was NOT his fault. This is a mid-wing design with nylon thumb screws inside to hold the wings on. After a flight I forgot and left the thumb screws on the table at the field. I could not find replacements anywhere. So I used steel ones instead. I had flown it a few times like this. On this day I guess I didn't tighten 'em enough. While I was flying Red walked over and I handed him the transmitter asking him to show me what the plane was capable of. I love watching Red or Steve Cole or Tony McDonald wring out my planes. They make 'em do things I can't. Sooooooooo-Red took control headed straight up with a little roll one way then the other----Then the plane did some strange things. We quickly realized something was amiss. As it started down we could see that one wing was a little cockeyed. (thumb screw came loose) And we all know planes just don't fly very well when things aren't lined up as they should be. So in the vineyard she went. And grape vines are a lot tougher that balsa wood.
John

Hi John

Drew and I saw that one.  Definitely a contender for th Xmas party.  Somebody has to have a photo of the wreckage--I recall a camera on scene.

Koh

Red took a picture with his phone, but it was too big. The site wouldn't let me post it.
John

Ouch!! Yeah that one hurt for sure. There is no worse feeling than watching helplessly for 10 or more agonizing seconds and knowing that there is nothing you can do...  :'(

I hear we may have a new front runner! Does crashing your own plane while you aren't even flying it count?  ;D I let the culprit fess up himself.....

Thanks Red for putting that picture up.  And now there's another one for Tony McDonald. He had son Jake flying his Four Star 40 pulling an 80 ft. streamer. Tony was watching and didn't want to miss the fun we were having chasing the 4 *, so up he wsent with his Spitfire racer. It didn't take long--he took out his own plane. Hard to believe that little foamie took out the big 4 *, but it flew right through the wing of the 4 * with hardly any damage to the Spitfire. Looks like the obituary thread is going to fill up quicker than we all though. Sorry to see the expiration date come up on that 4 *, Tony. It was a beautifull plane.
John R

Achtung Spitfire!!!

Well, fellas, lucky for us that Napa's Will Akers[sp?] isn't a member or I think that the Christmas Crash Prize would be locked up.  If you didn't see it, he stacked his EF1 at speed in the North Turn at last Sunday's opening pylon race.

I have never heard an RC crash that sounded like that!  Will reported that he had just switched to high rates and overcorrected in the turn.  A split second later there was a tremendous dust cloud and his beautiful EF1 looked like it had gone through a wood chipper!  As Will's wife said while helping clear the extensive debris field, Will doesn't do anything halfway.

So it looks like John and the McDonald's are running neck and neck for now but its a long season. ;D

Koh

Anyone get a shot of Bryan Young's Dog fighter.........Anyone....?

Adam

Well---Sad to say we have another addition to this thread today. She was a beautifull plane. She did a very nice knife edge all the way down the runway just over the vineyard. I was thinking she was a little bit low. 'Bout that time as I watched, right into the trees she went! When the parts all reached the ground and the noise quit---the pilot Greg Heumann said "I completely forgot about those trees!"

Sorry about that, Greg.  You had that one flying really nicely. 

I missed that crash, but I saw five others yesterday (that includes Julio's T28 that went in twice during Combat.)  it's good to see that our membership is heeding the President's advice after I said "crash early and crash often to give yourself the best chance of success at the Best Splat prize!"

Koh

I was really enjoying that knife edge pass. I had done some rudder-to-elevator and rudder-to-aileron mixing on the transmitter that made the plane much easier to manage in knife. That was a depth perception problem for sure - I thought the plane was closer to the far side of the runway. I did learn something. When an electric plane flies into a tree, you can hear the "crunch" much better than with nitro. When you lose control and crash, sometimes it can be hard to know what happened. In this case, I was under full control. I know exactly what happened. It is all spelled out in the FAA report: "Ultimate cause of failure was tree-induced sudden deceleration."

Here's one more pic - note the tree trimmings in both elevator joints...

Sunday March 24 turned out to be a last flight for one other plane as well. Mike Craciolo (glad to have ya back in the club) and his P-47 were at the field for a great day of flying. The weather was perfect. Many members present. Mike taxied out and took off to the North. He imediately noticed that his ailerons were reversed. (Sorry Mike, but a pre-flight inspection would have caught that, and I'll have to admit-I did that very same thing once) Sooooooooo--as a saftey matter instead of trying to fight it with reversed ailerons back to the runway, he gave it down elevator and dumped it in the creek. Now ya have a motor and radio gear to put in a new plane, eh Mike.

I have had some real good ones in the past, that would be good contenders,..but I think I will try to not enter this contest. ;)

How about tagging pylon #3 at about 100 mph?

Oh NOOOOOOOOOOOOO--The first proto-type. What a shame. Sorry, Red. But I'll bet you already have a new kit cut, eh ?
John

Oh, that hurts too much to look!

Koh

Sorry about your plane Red. I took off with my ailerons backwards on my Sukhoi . DOUHH!!!! We never took a picture though. Landed in the south vineyard hanging from the wires. Not to bad, Luckily I already had most of the parts. Just need a rudder and she will fly again.

Atom

No biggie, it was just an ARF  ;D I have more on the way, so it's all good.

Whooops well that's racing!

Whoops again!

Killed another Spitty!

Well I guess it's my turn to post my carnage. Came out to the field with my grandpa with my parkzone fw-190 and and his spitfire. We then took off and he was doing aerobatics up high and I made a fly by then pulled up in to him with out knowing he was there. His spitfire had the wings ripped off and the fuselage long darted and my 190 had the tail cut off a spun in..... This is what is left of the two airplanes

Heya Jake,

Team McD wants this trophy in a bad way!  ;D

Koh

Dave Mercer's T-28

Steve Cole's Reno 450

Cole's EF-1 Invictus

Oh no! What happened?

It's all in the race report for this month. Steve dove to the start at when he pulled around the south pylon the plane appeared to explode. Looks to me like the wing failed right outside the fuse. No spar that I could c just a thin layer of glass and balsa. Yikes!

It's plenty for non terminal dives lol  ;D

Never take off with Seaweed draped over you Polaris. Oh well it gave me an excuse to get the new Ultra Polaris

Well I figure if I'm going to crash I might as well post my Mistakes.
Maiden flight of my Electro Stick, a plane I flown many times before until the old one had a failure in flight.
So I build this new one, it's been hanging around my shop for a while,  on take off I did not have enough Elevator and could not clear the grapes.
Bad as it looks I can fix it. It has mainly left wing and tail damage. got a new wing on order. Tail is fixed. ;)

John Reade's Kawasaki "Toni"

AKA known as Julio's revenge ;D

Heya, John

Well, at least you didn't hurt the cowling!!

The recipient of the Official Aircraft Obituary Award was named at the Christmas party last night.  It was a tough choice.  A lot of folks that that Wylie had it locked after losing his giant SBach in the vineyard, but you will notice that the photos didn't make it into the thread. Mike Cracchiolo also received heartfelt condolences when he dumped his big P47 into the gully.

Even without John Reade's effort to squeeze in one more crash at the last minute, he locked up the style points with the great corkscrew crash seen at the beginning of this thread. Greg Huemann ran a close second by straining his plane through a tree at full bore. 

But after reviewing this thread a few times, a theme began to emerge.  It became clear that there were several flyers working in concert in an effort to secure this great honor. This group was Clan McDonald.  These guys posted not one but two spectacular multi-McDonald midairs and fantastic pylon racing disasters on multiple occasions.  Three generations were involved including Charles, Tony, and Jake.

Congrats!

I forgot to take a photo of the plaque, though.  Perhaps one of the proud champions could post one up[?].

Well like I said at the party "McDRacing set out to dominate this completion from the start".  We started off strong with a little help from some friends.

 Here's the award My dad, grandpa, and I got at the Xmas party