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

[Dewey H Lee]

The first one looks just like my first old nitro trainer that i started back with. It flys alot better with all the repairs ive had to make. Really simple stuff but it has so many different colors of monocote on it i nick named it patch. Our field is farmland also and we have a cable with a lock across the road leading in. We also have a large metal box that we store club iteams in such as the wind sock and buddy boxes ect. Each member has the combination to the locks of the gate as well as the box and its changed every year. So far we have been lucky. I dont know what people are thinking these days.:Confused::).

[crankestein]

The same happens in our field, all the wind devices have either been stolen or vandalized. All the time they leave behind trash from their hangout the they before. Its farm fields, not sure whats the magnet on visiting that specific spot in the middle of nowhere.

Here are some crash photos.

While testing vertical it looked like the batt cable moved around and jammed w the aileron servo. As soon as I took off and corrrected w aileron it disconnected from the rx, banked left and hit a pole. The other pic is in the process of fixing it. It flies true and is super balanced as it is, flying inverted takes maybe 1/8 of elevator.

The other is a VH Acrocub, fail. Its a POS kit, way too much hassle to make it fly well. In other forums they recommend a gyro, lighter servos, reinforce this that, naaah, got bored and is silly stupid so much effort in a alleged beginner kit.

[MesRcPilot]

Hi Daryl ,thank you for the invitation indeed but now I have 70 and I doubt I will go so far. Happiness is a relative term but the fact that she also changes(speedway) ... at least Murphy's law says so.
I'm glad we talk because it's rare in today's "crazy" world...so ...
All the best
Josip

[wrongroad]

G'day Josip,
If you ever come back here, let me know and you will have a bed and a feed ready for you. Who knows, we might even fly a couple of models.
As far as insurance is concerned, the MAAA [Model Aeronautical Association of Australia] covers clubs and members for Twenty million for public liability.
They also cover clubs against vandalism and theft of equipment from club grounds. Sadly, a good number of flying fields get thrashed and broken into every year by small minded fools.
My club is around forty strong and we have quite a lot of equipment at the field, like ride on mowers. We are also very isolated as such [only a ten minute drive back into town] as there is only one house on the road that takes us to the field and there are no street lights and the road is dirt for the last three kilometres.
I will pay $100 for insurance [a few cents a day] just in case I hit a Rolls Royce or, God forbid, a person.

Now, my worst crash....I rolled a race car three times end for end at a dirt track speedway back in 2011.....does that count?
It did ring my bell a bit!

Regards and respect
Daryl

[MesRcPilot]

Hello Daryl , Australia is largely reliant on the UK judicial system so that through the club you can get basic insurance from most unpleasant situations on the ground .... that's my thinking and maybe I'm wrong.
I was in NSW and for Sydne and Newcastle I had some wonderful memories. Once again I wish you every good and many successful flights.
Josip

[wrongroad]

G'day MesRcPilot,
I agree with you about the other pilot. He should have offered to pay but he did not. I have watched him crash many more models than I since, some for no apparent reason except for Karma!;);)
Unfortunately, there is no insurance company in Australia that will cover model airplanes for crash damage or, to my knowledge, accidental damage. There are some companies that cover public liability to individuals but I have not ever heard of a claim being successful. [I will be interested to know if that is not the case]
I am a member of a club that is associated with the National body here in Australia and would not even attempt to fly if I was not.
I believe in living life as it comes. I love the good times and roll along with the bad. Things always work out for the best if you are a good person. And I am fortunate to be surrounded by good people and I count you as one of those people.
I thank you and Matt for your good wishes and wish good times and fortune for yourselves.
Regards and respect
Daryl

[MesRcPilot]

Dear wrongroad, I'm really sorry because you act like a nice and raised man but...but...but ''Ugly things happen to good people. '' I'll be short:
1. The owner of Sticka was obliged to pay off and pay the full amount for your P-51 from the bargaining and future good relations....at least ! (I guess you both have insurance)
2. Sometimes we can not prevent happening in life because ''The way to hell is tiled with good intentions''.
3. Remain the psychological problem, you are facing (one on one). If you want to be a RC pilot, you have to overcome this barrier ... even if you broke several more models.
I wish to you a lot of luck and health.......Chin up ...colleague.

[starcop]

G'day Dewey,
Safety is one thing I do bang on about at my club. [I am a safety officer] While I am pretty easy going, I get very frustrated when I see things that can injure someone and it can be avoided.
Look at old mate who took his head off in New York with a helicopter. I read in our newspapers how shocked first responders were to the fact a 'toy' helicopter had done this much damage to a human being. And he was considered to be tops at what he was doing.
This becomes the point. Model aircraft are not toys!
There have been several people killed by model planes around the world and, mostly, they are onlookers and not the pilot.
I have been to a couple of other clubs where 3D pilots have been given their own day to fly and a not allowed to fly with the general population of the club because they tend to not think of others.
Taxiing back into or along the pits makes me shudder.
I had to stop one pilot, at our number two field, one day when he was taxiing at high speed in the pits because he had 'steering problems' and was trying to sort it out. Steering problems...high speed.... in the pits....?????
I asked him what part of that, did he not consider dangerous. He blinked at me and asked, in reply, 'what do you mean?' As I said before, the mind set of some people!
As I rarely visited our number two field, the safety culture had gone out the window and it had become every man for himself. It was so bad we had to close the field before someone did get hurt.
If you do the numbers on a FMS P-51D 1400mm Mustang with a 14" prop. That is 1.1 metres [roughly] in circumference At 10,000 RPM, if it were a wheel [and all other variables not counted], that wheel would be over ten kilometres away in one minute.With a four blade prop, that is 666 bites per second if I have done the math correctly.
That is going to hurt if it hits you.
Perhaps I see things differently to others due to my background of competing in dangerous sports. My first job was a jockey and I have seen many friends killed and maimed. Then I raced cars, with pretty much the thing. My brother was killed by a drink driver 33 years ago. Some of these things could not be avoided but the ones that could have been make me angry. Especially the last one.
The big thing is being safe is often easier then doing it wrong!
Thanks for letting me vent.
Regards and respect
Daryl

Thank you, for sharing your story. I'm truly sorry to hear about the loss of a loved one. I'd say that is the worst thing that could ever happen. Again, thank you for the reminders, we ALL should consider safety, job one. Cheers! Matt C/S

[crankestein]

Its all good, I dont take it personal.

Your input is genuine and is for the safety of all who enjoy watching and do rc flights.

[wrongroad]

G'day Dewey,
Safety is one thing I do bang on about at my club. [I am a safety officer] While I am pretty easy going, I get very frustrated when I see things that can injure someone and it can be avoided.
Look at old mate who took his head off in New York with a helicopter. I read in our newspapers how shocked first responders were to the fact a 'toy' helicopter had done this much damage to a human being. And he was considered to be tops at what he was doing.
This becomes the point. Model aircraft are not toys!
There have been several people killed by model planes around the world and, mostly, they are onlookers and not the pilot.
I have been to a couple of other clubs where 3D pilots have been given their own day to fly and a not allowed to fly with the general population of the club because they tend to not think of others.
Taxiing back into or along the pits makes me shudder.
I had to stop one pilot, at our number two field, one day when he was taxiing at high speed in the pits because he had 'steering problems' and was trying to sort it out. Steering problems...high speed.... in the pits....?????
I asked him what part of that, did he not consider dangerous. He blinked at me and asked, in reply, 'what do you mean?' As I said before, the mind set of some people!
As I rarely visited our number two field, the safety culture had gone out the window and it had become every man for himself. It was so bad we had to close the field before someone did get hurt.
If you do the numbers on a FMS P-51D 1400mm Mustang with a 14" prop. That is 1.1 metres [roughly] in circumference At 10,000 RPM, if it were a wheel [and all other variables not counted], that wheel would be over ten kilometres away in one minute.With a four blade prop, that is 666 bites per second if I have done the math correctly.
That is going to hurt if it hits you.
Perhaps I see things differently to others due to my background of competing in dangerous sports. My first job was a jockey and I have seen many friends killed and maimed. Then I raced cars, with pretty much the same thing. My brother was killed by a drink driver 33 years ago. Some of these things could not be avoided but the ones that could have been make me angry. Especially the last one.
The big thing is being safe is often easier then doing it wrong!
Thanks for letting me vent.
Regards and respect
Daryl

[Dewey H Lee]

No rant kust the truth. My pet peve at our field is that some of the guys even taxi there giant 3d planes all the back to the pits rather than the burns we have in the place of a fence along the runway. I can just see one of those big 30 inch props cutting one of my foam planes in half our worst yet someone getting hit. :Sleepy:

[wrongroad]

G'day crankestein,
While I get what you are saying and totally agree with you from a safety point of view, the one thing we can not control is the mind set of individuals.:)
As an instructor, I am always trying to tell my students to get in front of their models from a flying point of view. It just takes a little bit of fore thought.
I encourage my students to have a flight plan in their heads and not to go out and bore holes in the sky. And the flight plan starts before the take off phase.
As ox recounts, his near miss was because the other pilot had his head down fixated on his own model and not of his surrounds. Situation awareness is as important on the ground as it is in the air.
Most insurance claims from model aircraft happen because of a ground based accident. In fact, it is as high as 90% here in Australia.
I think the flight line fence should be erected at every field.
I have one model that I will not fly if I have to take off right to left. Just in case.;)
Have you ever found yourself thinking, 'I can save this' ?
Especially when a landing is going wrong?
If you are in the right mindset, you abort and try again, if not in the right mindset [and I have been there] you bore on in and usually make a goose of yourself.
This is why it is important to have a plan.
I picked up two new students today and they seem to have a grasp on what I am telling them.
Now I am not just writing this to be aimed at you, but as a general appraisal of the over all manners of other pilots and it seems to be the same all over the world.
My pet hate?
A pilot who has landed and taxied back to the shut down area, walking in front of the pilots box and blocking the line of sight. GGGGGGRRRRRRRRRR.
It is one thing that I do chirp up at another pilot for doing and most of them do not realize that they have blocked your vision. It is often easier and much more polite to walk behind pilots who are flying.
Sorry for the rant. I am over it now!!:Whew:
Regards and respect
Daryl

[crankestein]

One thing recommended at the RC flight club is to never be on the left side of the take off as usually the prop rotation forces will push the plane to the left, and most likely on dragging tail planes.

Have seen it a few times on no rear wheel planes that the airplane takes off to the left. There is a section of a fence that was recently reconstructed just because of many airplanes hitting it.

[Oxotnik]

I had an 'almost'. Not my first flight or anything. I was a visitor at another club. I had my FlightLine P-38 and a couple other planes on the ground in the pits. An older guy fires up his gasser in the pits and starts taxiing. His plane is arcing around toward my P-38. He's continuing to fiddle with his rudder as the swinging prop is coming closer and closer to my P-38. I finally yell at him and he looks up to see what was happening. He kicked the tail of his plane and the prop clipped the wingtip of my swap-meet-find, beat-up Visionaire. I took the $20 that he'd offered for damaging my wingtip, which was just $5 less than I'd paid for the NVA. I wudda been pissed off beyond belief if he wudda cut up my prized P-38. Luckily, that tragedy was narrowly averted. Close call. Too dang close.

[wrongroad]

G'day gang,
I do not have any photos of this as I was too disgusted to even think about getting any photos at the time.
I was one of the first in Australia to get my hands on the FMS V7 1400mm P-51D Mustang, Big Beautiful Doll. I carefully took my time in putting her together and double checked everything twice. [quadruple check?]
Two weeks later I took her out to the field to do some ground testing just to see how she handled on the deck. I was not going to fly her. Can you all see where this story is heading? Yes?.......wait for it!!
Getting her ready, I asked another pilot to double check me again and we decided to add a couple of grams to get her slightly nose heavy. This is on top of what I had already put in.
Out to the flight line and I had asked for a bit of solo time on the runway for testing. It was granted.
Waiting for the aircraft that was in the air to land and I had BBD about five metres back from the edge of the runway and she was minding her own business and looking good in the morning light.
A couple of other pilots were looking her over and making very positive comments about the model and asking about pricing and the like.
I was casually looking out for the other model as he made his approach. It was a two metre Ugly Stik swinging a fair sized prop. If I had of even guessed what was to happen next, I would have goosed the throttle on BBD and saved her life.
The Ugly stik pilot made a mess of his landing and swung towards the flight line and was in lots of trouble. He did, in fact get behind the flight line and sort of regained control but, realizing that he was heading at legs, he went full throttle in an attempt to get in the air. I have always wondered why he thought heads were better to hit then legs.
He ploughed right through BBD. Cut her not so cleanly in half. The Stik managed to get airborne again and, thankfully, missed everyone. Trailing control rods and servos from BBD, the Stik managed a successful landing the next time around. He actually had to fly through the snow storm of foam that was still coming down.
My poor BBD had not even got her wheels dirty and here was a dirty great big sixteen inch gap in her belly, wings and most of her innards were hanging off the Stik. She had been mangled so badly, that it would have taken an act of God to fix. The impact had even broken the CF spar and had put a fair sized chop in the aluminium spar. The Stik did not even break the propeller.
Guess what the other pilot told me....'ah, well mate, you can put that down to experience.'
EXPERIENCE? I was too new at the club to really go off at him but he knew not to cross my path too soon and I do not find that three hundred dollars down the drain is experience..
To this day I refuse to go anywhere near the flight line when he flies and I will land if he comes out to play and make him wait while I do so.
There are some blokes that you just can not trust. Now, do not get me wrong, I like the man. I just will not fly with him.
There in lies the challenge, gentlemen. Has anyone else lost an aircraft before it has actually flown?
I can sort of smile about it now as a rather unique way of 'crashing' a model. And I can honestly say it was not my fault.
Regards and respect
Daryl

[crankestein]

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.

I know its an old reply to the above, but have seen plenty of drownings when the owner jumps into the water to retrieve their rc. The ones I have seen on the news are from rc boats, not airplanes...

[starcop]

I'm on my third Freewing F-86. I lost the first one due to dumb thumbs, the second was a loss of signal event. So far my third one is intact, she is a nice flying plane and one I would replace again if I loose it.

Both crashes were straight in at full power and looked pretty much the same.

Ah, dang it. I love my F-86 it fly's fantastic and looks very real in the gray skies. I'm sorry to see your loss. Hopefully you will consider replacing it. Cheers!

[OV10]

The A-10 will be the replacement. ....

Good call too........:Cool:just gotta hit the cash cow for 6S now :P ask me how I know LOL

[Dewey H Lee]

You Go Lon. Good replacement Bird. Sorry for the loss though. We all hate to lose good planes.

[Lon]

The A-10 will be the replacement. ....