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- Newsgroups: rec.models.rc
- Path: sparky!uunet!ftpbox!mothost!white!rtsg.mot.com!svoboda
- From: svoboda@rtsg.mot.com (David Svoboda)
- Subject: RC plane crashes (was: Re: R/C Glider crashing!)
- Message-ID: <1992Jul22.223321.1541@rtsg.mot.com>
- Sender: news@rtsg.mot.com
- Nntp-Posting-Host: guppie44
- Organization: Motorola Inc., Cellular Infrastructure Group
- References: <1992Jul21.214510.25304@cs.aukuni.ac.nz> <BrrroI.K04@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
- Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 22:33:21 GMT
- Lines: 84
-
- All of my glider crashes have been pretty typical (well, there was the time I got
- stuck with the verical member of a goalpost skewering through a wing...but anyway...)
-
- Two spectacular power crashes that pop to mind:
-
- 1974. Second "real" RC airplane; a Sig Kommander with a Kraft radio, Enya BB45,
- beautiful white with red and blue pinstripes. Perfect. Second day out, we (my
- father and I) are on the fifth flight of the day, and evening is quickly
- approaching, we decided to take "one more for the road" (*always* a mistake, esp
- if you let the plane hear you say it :-). I took off and did some aerobatics (I
- was just starting to "discover" pattern), and noticed that a white airplane at
- dusk is not too optimal :-). Well, somehow I ended up quite a ways away, and
- the plane was getting a little hard to see. I thought I was coming back, but
- didn't have a good eye on the plane (and didn't have the experience to fly with
- "low information"). Somehow, it got turned around, and when I saw it again,
- it was going away. Well, my dad thought he could see it better, so he took
- the transmitter, but to no avail. Keep in mind, now, that we can *hear* the
- airplane just fine, it being at full throttle and all, but just can't get a
- handle on what exactly it's doing. Well, a good rule of thumb when you lose
- sight of an airplane is to pull full up elevator (spreads the wings out, and
- a looping airplane stays in about the same region of sky), so I took the
- transmitter, and applied full up. A few minutes had passed by now, and it
- was getting really hazy. So we had this looping airplane out there, listening
- to it go "woooowwwwooooowwwwooooowwww" as it looped, catching the slightest
- glimpse of it every ten seconds or so. It seemed like this continued for a
- couple of hours :-), but it was probably only one two minutes, when we heard
- a distinct "crunch" at the "bottom" of one of the loops (the airplane was
- *completely* invisible by this time) and the engine sound stopped. Sinking
- feeling.
-
- We walked around until dark, in the corn field, in the woods beyond it. No
- luck. It rained four inches that night. My dad was able to take some time
- off of work to search, for the next few days. Finally, he called the city
- police, and they sent a helicopter out to find it, which they did. The wing
- had come off, scraped off by entering deep woods at full throttle at the
- bottom of a loop (ack!), and was lodged in the top of a (very tall) tree. I
- retrieved it with a fishing arrow. The forward part of the fuse, everything
- in front of the wing TE, containing the entire radio, and the engine, was
- buried about a foot in the ground, with balsa confetti all around (apparently
- the rest of the fuse).
-
- We did not rebuild that airplane. We never painted another airplane white.
-
-
- 1985. While I was away at college (making sailplane-kabob :-), my
- father was constantly building. He had just completed a little airplane called
- the "French Poodle", scratch built from magazine plans. This airplane was a
- tailless tandem-wing airplane, roughly modelled after the full scale "Pou de Ciel".
- It looked sort of like a biplane, but instead of a lower wing and a stab, you
- move the lower wing back on top of the fuselage tail, and stick the rudder on
- top of it. The forward wing pivoted for elevator control, ala a canard.
- Really strange.
-
- Now, one of the funny things about the construction of the airplane was that
- the plans called for a .15 engine with the propeller on backwards. Not a
- misprint; it was specifically called for. But they didn't say why. So being
- typical "more is better" modellers, and knowing that a backwards propeller would
- just decrease the thrust, we ignored that and put the prop on normally.
-
- Well, I have always been the "designated test pilot" of the family, so we go
- out to fly the little thing. Taxi normally, takeoff. No problems. My dad
- had given it the recommended control throws and balance points, and he builds
- good and straight, so it flew right off the board. He said, "Try a loop,"
- so, gently, I pulled it over, pretty as you please. As it came to about a
- 45 degree down line at the backside of the loop, I seemed to get a glitch--a
- momentary jab of down elevator, which hurtled the little thing at the ground.
- Well, I was quick to get the up elevator to it, and a moment later it pulled out.
- "Thump, thump, thump," went my heart. "Well, we had better think about ending
- this flight, and see if we have some radio problems," I said. I make a
- point always to stall an airplane once before landing the first time, so I
- come across the field and did it, and the little plane just mushed nice and
- straight; beautiful. So I pushed the nose over and add throttle, and when some
- speed builds, pull up, Pull Up, PULL UP. No response, and the little airplane
- just accelerated straight down from a couple hundred feet. I chopped the
- throttle just before it hit, but managed to plonk it on the runway, for a
- total loss, and a sizeable hole in an asphalt runway. Another balsa confetti mess.
-
- Turns out (I found out later in aero school) that tandem wing airplanes, especially
- the historic Pou de Ciel, tend towards a serious "tuck" problem, and at some critical
- speed, cease to respond to elevator input. The backwards prop was in effort to keep
- the speed down. The little airplane, though strong enough for it, was not meant ever
- to do aerobatics. Live and learn.
-
- Dave Svoboda, Palatine, IL
-