What was the worst CRASH you ever had? Let us see your photo.

[starcop]

My worst crash was when I maidened 'My Little Gal I'. She was a FW P51 that I renamed and customized the paint and the decals you may remember her from the video I did on making rivet lines. All was fine and she flew great. brought her around for landing, dropped flaps and gear. Nothing, no control input. She literally went from normal flight to absolute vertical nose down lawn dart mode, right into the center of a gravel pit. I gathered the pieces and took them home, stripped everything out of her that I could and checked through every piece. Turns out that the L/G sequencer was at fault. When I used the servo tester through the sequencer to activate the L/G, it would blue screen the servo tester!
Not taking any chances and believing that I'd found the answer, I replaced the sequencer and did what any good modeler would do, I made a project out of it! As I stated at the time, it wasn't buying a new plane, it was repairing one I already had, just took a new fuse, wings and tail feathers is all.
So, 'My Little Gal II' came to being, this time with Flite Metal wrapped around her. Took her to NEFI and Captain Mike was kind enough to maiden her for me as I had just too much time and effort in her. The result was like the phoenix rising from the ashes>

Grossman56

My Little Gal I and II

Something really good came out of that. She looks fantastic, wow, I'd like to install that fake metal on one? It almost looks chrome metal on the fuselage & wings. Thank you, for sharing of course. The moral of the story is; you can always make something good from a bad situation. The truth be told. Matt

[Bajora]

My worst crash in the last few years was my beloved Freewing 80mm Mirage. My eyes started deteriorating as I entered my late 40s and I fought getting glasses for some time. I had the Mirage in the landing pattern and was turning downwind to base on a day with gusty winds. She was rocking and rolling a little and at only about 75-100 feet of altitude, I blinked when I should not have. I corrected the wrong way with the ailerons and BOOM! The blue camo/gray scheme was a little challenging with my less than great eyes ... Fortunately, as is often the case with foam models, it was not as bad as it looked AND MotionRC always carries spare parts! With a new fuselage and a few other spare parts ordered, I had her back in the air in a few weeks. The one thing that DID stink though was that it trashed the battery.

[Grossman56]

My worst crash was when I maidened 'My Little Gal I'. She was a FW P51 that I renamed and customized the paint and the decals you may remember her from the video I did on making rivet lines. All was fine and she flew great. brought her around for landing, dropped flaps and gear. Nothing, no control input. She literally went from normal flight to absolute vertical nose down lawn dart mode, right into the center of a gravel pit. I gathered the pieces and took them home, stripped everything out of her that I could and checked through every piece. Turns out that the L/G sequencer was at fault. When I used the servo tester through the sequencer to activate the L/G, it would blue screen the servo tester!
Not taking any chances and believing that I'd found the answer, I replaced the sequencer and did what any good modeler would do, I made a project out of it! As I stated at the time, it wasn't buying a new plane, it was repairing one I already had, just took a new fuse, wings and tail feathers is all.
So, 'My Little Gal II' came to being, this time with Flite Metal wrapped around her. Took her to NEFI and Captain Mike was kind enough to maiden her for me as I had just too much time and effort in her. The result was like the phoenix rising from the ashes>

Grossman56

My Little Gal I and II

[Teeks]

The worst crash that I ever had barely damaged the airplane. How can it the worst then you ask? Let me tell you!! It was late January, and the spot where I was flying had a sizeable water feature. I was flying the old balsa Lanier F-20 that I had built several months before, and had many flights on. The temperature outside was about 36 degrees, and I was dressed for it. I was doing some aerobatics with the plane, and it wound up in an inverted flat spin, and it would not recover. SPLASH!!! Right in the middle of the pond!! So, determined to retrieve my plane, I took off my coat, and went to dive into the pond to get it. I took three steps on and dove....into 6 inches of water!!!! Turns out, the pond was only a foot deep at its deepest point. So, soaking wet and covered in mud, I walked out and retrieved my plane, that only had a broken fin. You may proceed to laugh until you wet yourselves now, thank you.

If only we had pictures!

[Kloverzero]

The worst crash that I ever had barely damaged the airplane. How can it be the worst then you ask? Let me tell you!! It was late January, and the spot where I was flying had a sizeable water feature. I was flying the old balsa Lanier F-20 that I had built several months before, and had many flights on. The temperature outside was about 36 degrees, and I was dressed for it. I was doing some aerobatics with the plane, and it wound up in an inverted flat spin, and it would not recover. SPLASH!!! Right in the middle of the pond!! So, determined to retrieve my plane, I took off my coat, and went to dive into the pond to get it. I took three steps in and dove....into 6 inches of water!!!! Turns out, the pond was only a foot deep at its deepest point. So, soaking wet and covered in mud, I walked out and retrieved my plane, that only had a broken fin. You may proceed to laugh until you wet yourselves now, thank you.

[starcop]

Easily my LX F-35. Completely disintegrated on impact. Rotated and climbed out no problem, power was excellent, and the model was very stable in pitch. In roll however, it was a real pig. Roll control was fine at low bank angles <25 deg. Above that, roll control became extremely sluggish, and above 40 deg, it would drop a wingtip, and recover level. That is a real problem for a jet that requires quite a bit of bank to turn! I did 2 patterns to try to get used to it again and lowered the gear, and put in 10 deg of flaperons. This was approximately 2:00 into the flight. On my downwind leg I had pretty good speed, and a wingtip dropped. I recovered the wingtip, but as I did, the nose pitched up, stalled, and the plane stood on its tail, then did a hammerhead straight into the ground from 50 ft. I have never seen an edf behave like this model. Mine just might have been too heavy for those thin wings to lift.

This is why we need Freewing to produce a good, scale looking, 80mm F-35A!

Roger that, an 80MM would be the ticket for that aircraft. I'll mention that, even a 90MM would be cool, the F-35 is a popular air frame among many pilots including myself. Thank you, for sharing your experience. Sounds like, it was one of those; needed more time & height to recover it. Have a Merry Christmas! I'll post the 80MM request! :)

[F106DeltaDart]

Easily my LX F-35. Completely disintegrated on impact. Rotated and climbed out no problem, power was excellent, and the model was very stable in pitch. In roll however, it was a real pig. Roll control was fine at low bank angles <25 deg. Above that, roll control became extremely sluggish, and above 40 deg, it would drop a wingtip, and recover level. That is a real problem for a jet that requires quite a bit of bank to turn! I did 2 patterns to try to get used to it again and lowered the gear, and put in 10 deg of flaperons. This was approximately 2:00 into the flight. On my downwind leg I had pretty good speed, and a wingtip dropped. I recovered the wingtip, but as I did, the nose pitched up, stalled, and the plane stood on its tail, then did a hammerhead straight into the ground from 50 ft. I have never seen an edf behave like this model. Mine just might have been too heavy for those thin wings to lift.

This is why we need Freewing to produce a good, scale looking, 80mm F-35A!

[starcop]

Howdy Pilots, So far the worst crash I've had, I didn't get a photo of it. I did get a video, so there is a place to watch it. Some of the worst crashes, was Two 1200MM F4U-Corsairs. I got them from B/H when those first 120MM came out. (The folding wing version).

The folding wing one's that were pretty trick; I have a photo. I was flying with the drop tanks & bombs attached. I would get into a loop, once it pulled out; it would go into a death spiral with no control. I'd bet it was me and, I'd get frazzled, so I didn't keep my sticks under control.

The dumb thing was, I did the exact same thing, right after I had just crashed one of them. Told myself, you dumb azz, what was I thinking? Not thinking is more like it.