Geesh I hate this

[sp2pilot]

Well what do they say about a steep learning curve?


I never even touched a transmitter for a Radio Controlled aircraft in my life 12 weeks ago. Then It was jump in with both feet and no looking back. Computer sim. a few hours a day while I have a good friend assemble 3 aircraft. Yep 3 of them a Nitro Models .60 Super Chipmunk and a Matt Chapman cap 580 from GP as well as my trainer a Hanger 9- P51 advanced trainer. I solo the P 51 and immediately go at throwing it into every type of Aerobatic maneuver I could think of. A couple weeks of this and it is time to Maiden the Cap. I am so nervous on its' maiden that I could hardly breath. I get it into the air and trim it out do a couple orbits and scare myself several times but manage to calm down enough to bring it in and land it clean. This scenario is repeated several times that day with longer duration flights and stronger demonstrations of skill on my part ending the day with a feather soft landing. A week later I return to the field, pre-flight the Cap and roll it out and do a uneventful take off but the aircraft glitches badly with some form of channel coupling between the throttle and the elevator resulting in a un flyable aircraft that became a lawn dart 15 seconds after it left the ground, Complete loss.

I then went back to flying the P 51 gaining confidence and spending the majority of my flights doing drills to improve weakness in my flying skills. I had been using the same transmitter that was in the Cap and had not been able to re-create the glitches so let the problem slip back into the back of my mind until one fateful afternoon in early Dec when the P 51 demonstrated the exact same issues 90 seconds into a flight and again I was locked out and the fail safes returned the control surface to zero however the aircraft was pointed straight down so it augured in with devastating results.

Not to let the loss of 2 aircraft slow me down I had ordered my Aero Works 50 CC Extra 260 and by Christmas Day was ready to Maiden it. I had a wonderful Maiden and several great flights that day finding the big plane remarkably easy to fly and landings were as easy as my Sim.

Then this weekend I flew all day Saturday consuming over a Gallon fuel and getting pretty cocky with how I was handling the Big Extra. I returned Sunday morning and had a nice flight and then asked one of the vets at my field to take up my plane and see how he likes the way I had it trimmed as well as how my expo settings were on my transmitter. (No one had ever flown any of my aircraft and I was curious if my untrained approach was far from the normal) After he flew it and landed it he said I had built a beautiful aircraft and my settings were perfect. Well with that ringing endorsement I quickly refueled and fired it up for the fateful flight. Now my pre-flight routine has always been to start the plane, check all controls, bring the engine from idle to full throttle a few times then roll out and fly, but no on this flight I start the engine check controls and roll out, never bringing it to full throttle and it cost me huge. I began my roll out adding throttle and the Extra accelerated smartly down the runway and lifted off as the engine was at about half throttle, I continued to add throttle and began to climb. Then it all went silent. The engine just quit....I was maybe 25 feet off the deck and 75 feet from the end of the runway. I do not have the experience to even know what I should do. I immediately pushed forward on the elevator and watched in horror as my plane rotated forward and headed straight down towards the runway. I pulled all the way back on the stick and the plane flared and pancaked hard shattering the landing gear and spinning off the end of the runway flipping upside down.

Post mortem and I have the formers on both ends of the landing gear crushed as well as the bulkhead under the wing spar fractured badly. Both wings are un harmed as well as the elevator and rudder structure. My Carbon Prop is gone as well as both wheel pants. I have already done most of the demolition to get at the areas I have to repair and tomorrow I should begin rebuilding and be flight ready by next weekend.


Geesh I am a dumb ass. The cardinal rule is keep flying the plane when things go bad, I just freaked out. Panicked and then over re-acted. No one to blame but me. I am still very much the excited newbie but these "lessons" are starting to gnaw at my eager beaver mentality.

[Bat Fastard]

Wow......... Keep at it. At the rate you're going, you'll have it figured out in no time.

[rmothers]

sp2pilot,

Seems like you have the concept down. As always bad luck will most of the time preval for a beginner pilot as i have had my fair share of bad luck.. In a little bit these things may still happen but you will learn to compensate for these things. I know it is an after thought but take every plane you have as high as you can go and kill the throttle(not the eninge kepp it running) just pull the throtle all the way back and see how the plane reacts when you have little power. This wil help really help the next time the plane deadsticks for sure. I used to do this with my can-do only i felt stupids enough to kill the engine. Sometime at about 10 feet inverted to see if i could land it. This has helped with the bigger planes. I will also not bring in the can-do sometimes until it died. I do not recommend this as i said i was felling stupid. But it did help when my goldberg edge would deadstick. Which happened alot with the new glow enigne. I reconvered it about two time from this and i contribute it all to the practice on the Can-Do. Sorry to hear about your loose dont loose hope and keep up the good work...

Rodney

[wizard]

Good point on how to practice for an unexpected dead stick. When I think back to when I was still new to the RC game, I had one plane that I can't remember landing more than a couple of times with the engine running. This was not due to engine problems, I just enjoyed flying it so much I couldn't stand to land as long as it was still running.

[OnTheEdge]

First off, sorry to hear about the losses of your first two planes. I've been flying for many, many years and I'm sorry to say you've been bitten by the RC bug. Welcome to all the fun. With the bug bite, however, comes the desire to jump into newer, more advanced planes before we are ready. While you felt comfotable flying your new planes, my advise is to stick with your trainer till you are ready (really ready) to move on. Just because one can take off and land without breaking the prop and flying some aerobatic maneuvers doesn't mean we have learned all it takes to "move on" to your next plane.

While you will get many differing opinions on this, in my opinion, jumping into other planes too quickly is one of the biggest mistakes I see new folks in this hobby do.
Don't get me wrong, you are very much like thousands of others that advance too quickly. Hopefully others may learn and thankfully no one was hurt. As you mentioned, when your motor died, you didn't know what to do. That is exactly why we need to get more stick time with our trainers. Saving a plane should come naturally, you shouldn't have to think about what to do to save it. Not just for the ability to keep from crashing your plane, but to keep from hurting someone.

I'm sure we all can think of someone who learned to fly these things planes real quick and without incident. But I'd bet a week's salary that for every quick learner, there are 50 of those who have to go through the learning curve (and many of those leaving the hobby before accomplishing the learning curve). As I'm typing this, I'm visualizing all the folks who have come and gone at our club field.

My advise (take it for what it's worth) is to set your 50cc plane aside for now (don't even repair it at this time). Send your radio in to find out if it had anything to do with the demise of your first two planes. Buy another H9 P51 trainer and fly the crap our of it. Don't move on to your next plane until you can get it in the most unforgiving situations, and save it without even thinking about having to save it. Also, don't forget about the rudder, it's without a doubt one of the most important sticks in the event of a deadstick.

Just my two cents..........Mark

[3D_Kid]

well stated. yes, i probably stayed on my trainer for 6 months, maybe more, then upgraded to a sport model.

[rmothers]

I had my trainer for about 1 year well my teo trainers. LOL it was great I didnt put enough rubber badns on it and pulling out of a loop the wings came off. It was funny. Anyway i flew it until it hit the ground... I was taught that and it is a good lesson to learn and follow through with...

DONT STOP FLYING IT UNTIL IT HITS THE GROUND.......

Rodney

[king160woody]

what happened to the Nitro Models .60 Super Chipmunk???

[wizard]

I always liked the saying "Don't stop flying it until all the pieces stop moving!"

[Dan_nO]

On The Edge... Ditto.

One thing as an instructor myself that I have done with all that I have taught is to, fly with them untill I myself am comfortable with their flying and to the point just shortly before I feel that they are ready to solo, I usually do this next step when the situation is right and everyone is aware of what is going to take place during the training flight so that everyone is paying attention just in case....I take the trainee and have them flying around, and in a safe situation, i then have them to practice a turning decent at the end of the runway to loose their altitude and then to land.....take them back up and then I dead stick them. Yep, I get them up high and I pull their throttle trim back and kill it in order to make them dead stick it while I am talking to them. This may be wrong to do in the teaching process, but what is a guy going to do that you solo that hasnt ever dead sticked a plane ? If they havent done it then what are they to expect except for to panic. I have never had anyone to have an incident in doing this, and it later paid off when they did have a dead stick because they had practiced this in their training.

[sp2pilot]

On the edge,

Thank you for your well thought out post in response to my rambling dribble above. I will respectfully decline to go back to the smaller aircraft and continue to go forward with my education with the 50 cc Extra. At the ripe young age of 47 I have the disciplin to continue with drills, sim time and perfect my craft. The big plane is easier to fly for myself, my failing eyesight and the forgiving aerodynamics of the larger aircraft make it substantially easier for me to fly safely. I take the safety of of what I do and how I conduct myself with grave seriousness. I would never endanger another person with my arrogance. I spend a great deal of time constucting safe aircraft and spare no expense in regards to redundant back up systems.

Sorry if I bristle easily but in regards to my conduct I am guilty of nothing more then an over abundance of enthusiasm and a bit of bad luck.

To Clarify when I stated I did not know what to do,... I did not drop my transmitter and put my hands over my eyes nor run away, I just failed to execute a proper recovery that would still have resulted in at the very least placing my aircraft into the trees at the end of our runway. A flame out on take off with out having enough airspeed is one of the biggest plane killers at our field, not sure about yours. There is no lateral recovery area at my field s a down field corrider is all that is left to regain control, and attempt an emergency landing big planes like mine almost always end up in the tree line, If I had more expierance and was less prone to panic I would have probably been able to let my plane set back down and attempted a rudder turn with the resulting ground loop, a much less violent result then the abismal save I executed.

[sp2pilot]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Dan_nO
	On The Edge... Ditto. One thing as an instructor myself that I have done with all that I have taught is to, fly with them untill I myself am comfortable with their flying and to the point just shortly before I feel that they are ready to solo, I usually do this next step when the situation is right and everyone is aware of what is going to take place during the training flight so that everyone is paying attention just in case....I take the trainee and have them flying around, and in a safe situation, i then have them to practice a turning decent at the end of the runway to loose their altitude and then to land.....take them back up and then I dead stick them. Yep, I get them up high and I pull their throttle trim back and kill it in order to make them dead stick it while I am talking to them. This may be wrong to do in the teaching process, but what is a guy going to do that you solo that hasnt ever dead sticked a plane ? If they havent done it then what are they to expect except for to panic. I have never had anyone to have an incident in doing this, and it later paid off when they did have a dead stick because they had practiced this in their training.

I dead sticked the glow planes quite often due mstly to my inexpierance to "tune" the engines. In fact the very first time I flew the trainer resulted in a dead stick that required me to do a 270 degree turn and land keeping the plane in to the breeze as well as avoiding several obects as I was flying at a local soccer field not yet having joined a flying club.

I do have close to 100 hours of actual sim time that I use as actual training and not just fly around till I get bored. The Sim was responsible for my deadstic skills as the G.3 Sim has a flight failure mode that I use at all times.