Monday, May 25, 2009

Day 1 : 30 seconds in the air, and crashed!

So, I took the fully prepped Purple Plane, temporarily code-named "Barney", down to the Klendestine Rd. field today.

Banded the wing on, fueled him up, pointed him down the field; hit the throttle, and felt the aderenaline! Going.. going.. "UP!" I said!

And it went up! It flew... climbing too much; needed elevator trim to compensate, but I wasn't fast enough to set it. So, it did one loop... then I thought I was regaining control; but it continued to loop a second time.. and BAM; into the ground.

So, I put down my antenna and did the walk of shame out to the plane.










It's really not bad; theres only 2 places where I have to replace wood, several areas I have to re-cover, but structurally things are still tight; the elevator and rudder area is un-scathed; the motor is fine, receiver and servos all still work. Also, the cross-bars that hold the servos in place all broke free, so Ill have to remount those.

I estimate the repairs at :

3-4 pieces of balsa,
1, 6' roll of purple monokote,
1 bottle glue
1 bottle Zip-Kicker (I loved this stuff!)
1 Tube of epoxy (Optional)
and, considering I haven't tried to cover a section of wing in 15 years, 4-6 hours labor time.

Then, once everything is once again in working order, Ill contact the club guys and make an appointment with an instructor :-) The 'bucket of patience' I sent for is on back-order; so I thought "Well, I was good at this 15 years ago, I should be able to handle the basics on my own.. what's the worst that could happen?"

Now I know :-)

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