What is your best R/C Crash/Survival Story?

[rmothers]

I have two I would like to share the first I have to say is almost exactly like chammond's crash... My plane was a goldberg Edge 540 67' (baby plane sorry) Anyway I hit a power line on approach. It is incredible how much crhammond crash matched mine, plane stopped in mid-air, canopy ripped apart, prop hit the lines, engine went flying... Only my engine OS .90 had a bent crank.. I had flashbacks and even felt a tear rolling down my cheek while reading crhammond post. Anyway second one was I had an aileron come off in an accelerated dive. I was told i went white at that moment.. but i was able to recover and land it in one piece (of what remained) with the servo dragging alongside the plane...

Thanks for the stories love reading them

Rodney

[rc4flying]

Here is another,
I had this Carden 35% Cap. We were interested in maybe getting into IMAC. So we had a guy that does IMAC offer to take us out and introduce us to that style of flying. Well, I had a 32 oz tank in the plane and that was always enough for the kind of flying I did with plently left when I would land after 10-12 minutes. This day we drove 2 hrs to this guys field and the winds were in the neighborhood of 25-30 mph. We decided to try flying being we drove the distance. We having to fly at full throttle all the time because of the bad winds........You guessed it, I ran out of gas and not close to the field , either. But being I was flying higher then normal, I thought I could get back to the field. Well, I landed about 1 foot short of the field in a complete stall from about 3 foot high. Just could not muster anymore flying out of the plane. Pic is the ending results. That is the only damage the plane had, and it hit HARD. Got home, took the gear off and took them to work with me that might. Used a press to get them back into shape. Could not tell I did anything to them and was flying the next day......In calmer weather.

[snap a saurus]

Got few of those, here is one, few years back, I lost one side on my first 3.3m Yak after a violent parachute, one battery got disconnected and ended up in the tail on fire, second was rapped around the pull pull rudder restricting rudder control also lost throtle control with a battery in the tail and barely enough power to climb in straight lines and loosing altitude in turns after 30 minutes of strugling with the controls and my spotter directing me to crash it in an accesible spot, I landed the plane with power, the only damage was one broken landing gear.

Second one, years back I was torque rolling a 35% Radiocraft Staudacher and dropped it into the corn, the tail got tangeled in the corn (flying wires) and it wouldn't pull up at full power so I killed the motor, plane fell in the corn, went and got it, cleaned it, and flew it again, basically the're was no damage at all.

Another which ended in a crash, again years back, I was distracted while assembling a 90 inch Staudacher with 75cc for power and forgot to plug in the ailerons, after taking off and realising what I had done, I just kept rolling untill I gave up and put it in, total loss.

[Colonel Klank]

Many years ago, I was calling the pattern for Neal Culiner and a strong wind was pushing him farther away from the flight line and towards the only tree in sight.
As I was reminding him to bring it in a bit, he flew right through the tree! In one side, and out the other with only a slight rustle of leaves in the middle. We could hear the gasps from behind us followed by a round of applause. Neal was so focused that only after he landed did he realize what had happened.

(the plane was a Curare, I think)

[SleepyC]

Last year i went to Joe Nall and had a nice 33% H9 Extra 300.
All set up and ready to go.

Got a bit nervous with all the people and pros around and asked my good buddy JeeUm to take her up for the first time down there.

Well, I had installed a smartfly power expander,and thought I had locked the receiver down into that industrial grade velcro, but JeeUM took off and trimmed the plane for around 30 seconds, did one roll and BAM.. receiver pulled out... spun in from around 400 feet.

Myself, Tony Russo, Wizzard, and this other guy spent 1+ hours looking for the plane.

Me and Wiz stopped for a smoke, and Wiz smelled gas... we followed the gas trail to a tree where parts of my plane were suspended in the limbs, motor on the ground, and wings and such in trees surrounding the area.

With out smelling the gas, we wouldn't have found the plane.

Bad points: Never even flying the darn thing... and saying to JeeUm 10 seconds before he took off," don't worry if anything happens, I won't hold you responsible, I mean your doing me a favor". (I cursed the plane right there, I should have said.. JeeUm.. mind crashing it over here, so i can locate the parts easier!)

Good points: Wiz coined the phrase "crash and go seek, and I came up with "Titanic" and "the Berg"
Titanic = crashing on the maiden flight,
and the BERG = the tree you hit while crashing on the maiden flight!

[wizard]

Sleepy, thanks for the reminder. All of us that were tromping around in the briers, were wearing shorts. Reminder to self. Have a pare of jeans close in case we play "crash and go seek" with someone else at the Nall this year.

[Rolling Thunder]

I was flying my KMP yak and when I went to exit a blender the plane acted funny, when I realized my rudder was stuck at full deflection. By the time I figured it out the plane snapped and went into a death spin.

I was able to put the plane in a upright flat spin at full throttle and slow the decent at about 20 feet off the ground. When it got to a couple of feet off the ground I hit the ignition kill and let it fall the last couple of feet.

I ended up breaking the prop, tailwheel, my new RC supergear landing gear. And punch a bunch of holes in the covering from the desert bushes.

I was flying it the next day.

[Colonel Klank]

Yesterday marked the 13th flight of my Great Planes Pitts. I did not dare say anything that would curse the flight and just taxied out and flew my normal tumble and snap routine. Only after landing did I mention to my friends that I had passed the dreaded 13th flight without incedent.
After performing a pretty rigorous pre-flight for the next go 'round, I noticed that both muffler bolts had fallen out and the muffler was rattling around inside the cowling! I flew the rest of the afternoon very loudly as the bolts were long gone.

[rbuhrman]

Earlier this year I came within an inch of wrecking my 29% Giles. I’m not sure how it was saved but pure luck was a big part of it for sure.

Good old impatience was at the root of this near-disaster. I was waiting for a heavy morning fog to lift and decided it would be O.K. to fly close-in and keep it low. On the first circuit I almost lost the plane in the fog but landed it safely. I did some more slow, low circuits with landings and take-offs.

On this approach I cut power a little early on my right turn descent to final. As the right wing dipped, there was not enough flying speed and the plane stalled, becoming impossible to control at an altitude of 40 feet and dropping fast!

The plane traced a crazy downward spiral as I fought to regain control, with the wings banking violently left, then right. By the time I added power, the plane was inverted and about a foot off the ground. I figured it was over, but didn’t really have time to figure….I was just trying to stay alive. Somehow the plane started flying again and I moved the stick forward and it climbed, wheels toward me, up into the fog.

I brought it back down to the visible area and did a few more circuits (with more airspeed this time) while my heart rate settled down, then landed it.

A few minutes later the fog was gone. Amazingly I still had and airplane to fly!

Low and slow 50 degree banks are not part of my approaches anymore.

-r.buhrman

[JayB]

My closest encounter was with a 35% wildhare extra. I had just learned how to hover and I was feeling pretty unstopable. I decided I was going to do some harriers up and down the runway. I didnt realize that the wind was blowing about 5 to 10 mph. Did an awesome headwind harrier then turned back down wind down the runway and got about 25 feet up and tried turning in a harrier with a tail wind. The tail of the plane shot out and next thing I knew I was 25 feet up and the thing was pointed straight at the ground. Somehow I pulled up without stalling about 3 inches above the ground. I flew circles the rest of the flight and landed and changed my shorts.

Another close call was with my 40% Jtec edge. I had finished a normal flight rollers harriers hovers ect. Everything went fine. Came across on final to land. and about 50 feet infront of me I pushed some down elevator to get her a little lower. all of a sudden the right side elevator went full down and the left side was working normally. It hit the dirt pretty hard. Broke the one elevator stab that was full up to counter the full down. and tore off the main gear. Other then that it was fine.

[Jamieman]

Beat recoverable stack i had was with my glow super chipmonk.
I was doing a nice knife edge pass close to the deck when a mate did a low pass down the flight line,
Yep we nailed each other with his plane cut clean in half & mine now missing 3/4 of the left hand wing.
I managed to get it back to level flight with FULL right aileron & a generous amont of rudder & complete a 1/2 circuit onto final. Unfortunately as airspeed bled off trying to get it back down at 4-5ft off the deck i lost the reaiming aileron's authority & it landed badly although the only real damage from the landing was the broken wing mount & a few cracks in the fuzz. All repaired & back in the air.

Unfortunately my mates plane was matchsticks.