All Good Things...

[wvrailfan]

One of my favorite planes, a Durafly SkyMule, met it's traumatic demise this evening. I have had the plane since they first arrived in April 2014 and this evening's flight was number 382 for this plane. Not bad for a relatively cheap foamy.

Preliminary investigation, and eyewitness reports, indicate the cause of the crash was pilot error. Pulling out of a long and steep dive the plane was moving too fast and the elevator servo could not overcome the force of the air over the tail.

The plane passed through a tree on the way to the ground, sheering off the wings and vertical stabilizer, which remain about 50 feet up in the tree. Both motor nacelles separated from the wings and continued downward with the fuselage and other pieces.

What was recovered will not be rebuilt.

Two positives to take away from the incident, I learned to watch my speed on long steep dives, and, I get to build a new plane to fill that empty space in the hanger!

[OV10]

Darn shame because you had a nice look on the convert to a warbird. What ya thinkin of replacing it with??

[xviper]

My SkyMule is one of my longtime favs. Mine is equipped with a Turnigy T1000FC flight controller (stabilizer and Return to Home) and "Buddy Box" (for turning the stab off). With the T1000FC working, it's really hard to do anything silly. It's solid in the wind, can fly on its own in a straight line and at a given altitude. With it off, I can fly it crazy and if I get into trouble, it can save itself with the flip of a switch. It can also come home like a well trained dog.
Till now, I've been flying it as a "normal" airplane. My plan is to install my FPV gear into it and use it as a video platform.
The Mule can be had quite cheaply these days and buying a kit will allow you to resurrect it with all the guts from the crashed one.

[wvrailfan]

My Mule had become one of my "go to" planes. It had plenty of power for great vertical flight, was big enough to be easy to see, even at over 1000 feet flying LOS, and it slows down nicely for landings. It is a big, heavy, draggy plane, but I liked it's flight characteristics and appearance in the air. I will replace it with a new 'Mule in the near future.

I often used mine for AP with a Mobius camera. I could put the camera anywhere on the plane without affecting CG to any great degree. I have mounted the camera using just electrical tape to the top of the vertical stabilizer, the wing tips, the side of the fuselage and in place of the nose cone.

The only down side of the plane is that it is a HobbyKing product. So some of the components are not up to what we expect from a reputable seller, (I had to replace the ESCs after ten flights) and getting parts is hit and miss.

If you want a large generic twin that flies good and allows for a lot of modelers license, I can recommend the SkyMule.

https://vimeo.com/158127974

Jim

[Hippie 64]

That's a shame but like you said another build is in the future .

I like the Sky Mule and have wanted one for quite some time but don't like dealing with HK . It would be great to see Flightline or Freewing do one .


Bryan

[KitBuilder]

To bad foam isn't really fixable :(