Crap

There is no more appropriate way to title this post. Today I had two serious accidents that have removed two of my favourite planes from the flight line, one of them probably for good.

The day didn't get of to a good start when on my second flight for the Zero I took of with my elevator "adjusted" way too far down. After struggling for control for a couple of moments she ended up in some trees and came down hard to the ground.

Here are the bits assembled later. The fuse is in two major pieces, the horizon stab and elevator snapped off, and the motor mount has been torn away from the nose of the plane. I reckon she will probably take 2-3 hours to fix, although I'm worried she will still have the elevator authority issue I was trying to fix when I got her into trouble.

So how did I get into trouble - after all an out of trim aircraft shouldn't be a problem. Simple - I treated it as a regulation take off when in fact it was effectively a remaiden. I should have given myself more space to takeoff, and also would have got her back in one piece if my flying had been a little more quick witted. I had enough elevator authority to climb slightly - I should have climbed out some more..., anyway - the day got worse.

I was testing on my new 3s 2200mAh battery in the RV4 keen to see what sort of endurance this battery would pull. Although I had gone loud for a few moments for the most part I was just flying a slow circuit across the field and back.

That's what I was doing when DJ's Typhoon flew into my flight path and collided with the RV4. The plane started to spin. I went loud on the throttle and tried to correct her, and for a moment seemed to have her recovered and in level flight, but then she stalled on the left hand side, rolled over on her side and nosed in.

It was a heavy hit, and the damage is extensive. I'm a realist about balsa. Having been through incidents of the RV4 coming apart before I have some experience putting her back together. But nothing like this. The front firewall is basically destroyed, the areas of the plane between the start and the end of the cockpit is in a dozen pieces at least. I really think I would stuggle to put this back together again.

Oh - to top it all - the LiPo took an impact and is probably ruined.

Seriously annoyed (and yes - stronger words than that too) but after all - at who or what? - mid-airs happen.

The left hand wing of the RV4 is apparently where the Typhoon hit her and did a serious amount of damage to the wing. Once again, maybe if I'd been thinking faster I might have gotten down, but it didn't work out that way for me. I guess it just acted like a serious airbrake on the left, which is why she was so violently rolling to the left.

Anyway, that's what I can write for the moment.