I broke my plane. I done broke it good’n'proper. Photographic evidence follows.
How did it happen? Well think of it like this: when you toss a long object in the air, like a bat, or a hammer, or a juggling stick, you want it to spin an full integer number of times so you can catch the handle when it comes down. Same thing with aileron rolls. Unless you’re going to fly inverted, you want to flip once, twice, three times, but not 1.5 or 2.5.
I had the aileron throws up really high, and was doing some insane aileron rolls, probably at the rate of 2 per second, about 3 to 4 metres off the deck. All fun and games, and I did a good 5 or 6 passes back and forth across the landing strip. Last time round, I sent her rolling… flip flip flip niiice…. flip flip half-flip pull up to gain height BOOM. It was that fast. Just plain old “dumb thumbs”, pulling the elevator stick instead of pushing when inverted, and not enough height to recover.
The electronics seem mostly ok. Strangely although the wing is intact, both wing servos seem to be stripped. They were cheap. Elevator and rudder were still operational after the crash, as were the motor and speed control, but the motor shaft was snapped so it just spun impotently.
I could probably piece it back together, but I needed to replace the wings anyway, so I might as well buy a new kit and swap the electronics into it.
Sigh. At least it was spectacular and observed by many spectators.
You need a forward mounted camera on the plane if you’re going to do that again
Isn’t that why you do aerobatics at reasonable altitude?
Stu: yes, but where’s the excitement in that?
I’ve been flying 3 or 4 mistakes high for ages, but had recently got to the point (especially with this plane) of flying zero to 1 mistake high. It’s the risk you run, but it’s a heck of a lot more fun, interactive, and exciting doing aerobatics where you can really see the plane.
Oh the humanity!