Deuces Wild Crash

[WJCJR1]

Today we had Boy Scout's Day at our airfield. It sure was an awesome day, lot of flying and buddy-box galore. I am certian a few new pilots were born today. I know for certain a couple parents said that's it I am in!

Now in regard to the title of this post I had an unfortunate accident this evening. Attached are a couple pictures of my baby. I was asked to do some hovering so I did. I was having a blast of a time doing some hovering at about 30' maybe even a little less so quite low. The Deuces Wild although NOT a 3D plane has so much power it can easily hover. Well I was doing this great fun hovering when disaster struck. The Deuces rocked back and forth a couple times and with my elevator on LOW rates I was unable to hold her from rolling back and she rolled back over on me and I was unable to gain enough airspeed to pull her out. I stuffed the Deuces Wild into the corn like nobody's business.

I did try very hard to pull her out but she just wouldn't get enough air under her wings and she went in. At first when she fell backwards on me from the hover I tried to just pull out but did not have enough airspeed and she began a direct straight plummet. I hit the throttle but she didn't seem to respond as I wanted so I dove for a fraction of a second and nailed the go pedal unfortunately it was all too little too late and she bit the corn and went in hard.

Fuselage is in very tough shape, both nacelles are trash, one LIPO is probably junk as it got smushed, both motors may be unrepairable as they are banged up real bad, Nose cone gone. I guess what's not broken is the tailfeathers, wing and hopefully all servos, RX and ESC's are good.

I am upset at myself. This was a foolish error to be hovering at such a low altitude with a heavy non-3D plane, wrong elevator settings for such stunts and just plainly not being respectful to the airplane and the aerodynamics.

So here's a couple pictures. The Deuces Wild is an awesome airplane and this crash had NOTHING to do with a malfunction, bad tendency or inability of the plane. Fully PILOT ERROR

Wayne

[rcdude07]

Bummer dude. Not the first and not the last to bite the dust because someone else wanted to see something the plane was not purpose built for. Glad to hear the Scouts enjoyed the trip to the field.

[pinchflat]

Sad to see this plane banged up so soon. It was not in vain. Hopefully some of us will learn from your oops.

[WJCJR1]

I am extraordinarily busy with work, the fam., etc. so it may be a little while but I will get the Deuces back in the air.

I still have the E-Flite EXTRA 300 to build first then I'll be back into Deuces mode.

Wayne

[ATIS]

Wayne, sorry about the crash. I never make a plane do something it wasnt designed for...especially hovering. Hopefully you can get her back in the air without breaking the bank.

[liquid1]

Wayne, I just learned a good lesson..
1st listen to my Instructor
2nd Don't fly in to confined places.
I know your an experianced pilot and had a mis fortune and will have her back up soon.
I just busted up my Aprentice 15E broke the tail off all repaired Now cost me $12 buck and some ca and epoxy and packing tape. I hope my motor holds up its now a little noisey after me getting inverted and pile driving the nose into the ground. All is good and I enjoyed fixing the Damage..I was sick and pissed off at myself. After flying yesterday with Phantomphan my Instructor and him teaching me how to get better at my landing linups and the cool area we flew trough the trees to land. I'm back to having fun..

[WJCJR1]

Biggest lessons to be had here:

• Stay three mistakes high when performing maneuvers that are of high K factors.
• Stay within your planes design ability.
• Do not go outside your personal pilot skills unless you are 4 mistakes high

I broke all three of these rules and could have easily saved this accident from happening if I would have obeyed any single one of these rules.

In addition when I fell out of the hover I was trying to be fancy and come right back up for another hover. When she began rolling backwards on me I should have punched it and went straight north but instead I was planning on just looping down and out of it and coming right back into a hover. I had done this exact thing probably 10 times on this flight alone, no trouble at all. BUT this time when I was too low I did not have the altitude to gain that little bit more airspeed I needed and miscalculated and applied throttle WAY too late. Usually I am much higher when performing such hovers and when I looped down as I pulled up the loop being so small that created an immediate stall. Whenw\ I performed this same abort and re-engage from higher my abort loop was mcuh larger allowing for much higher airspeed thus NO chance for such an abrupt stall.

I am guessing the tassles of the corn grabbed the wings, props or even nose and pulled her in as I had plenty of airspeed after punching it. I was expecting a close corn rub when I punched it and dropped the nose to get out of the stall I was in but not for the corn to grab her. I was SHOCKED when I saw the tail go straight up, nose down and BOOM!

So consider this a service from HorizonRcFlyers, we fly and learn the hard way so you don't have to!

Cost to repair will be a new airframe(if I were to replace the entire airframe), I have an extra , and then probably two motors. Hopefully everything else will be fine. I will be thoroughly testing out the RX, ESC's and Servos before putting them into live flight. Looking at the Deuces Wild you may wonder HOW could those motors get damaged that far back from the nose that hit first. The nose buried itself so far into the ground that the face of the Nacelles is what stopped the plane from going wing deep. The motors sit just behind the face of the Nacelles and were buried into the ground. Both are dented up, full or dirt and horribly misaligned. I think they are trash, but will take a look just in case they just look bad.

Wayne

[phantomphan]

And here I was thinking the Dueces was your IMAC machine.
Seriously thou, sorry about the crash. Happens to the best of us ocassionally. I think to keep our heads from getting too big.
Lord knows Ive embarrassed myself a couple times this year already.

[WJCJR1]

.
Lord knows Ive embarrassed myself a couple times this year already.

I continued the embarassment yesterday evening and LVC'd the POGO into the ground from a stall on a full dead stick approach.

I wasn't doing anything crazy at all, was pushing pretty hard and hit LVC. Called out a landing came in and the POGO carries speed and with our runway only being a limited length there was no way I was landing. I aborted came about and and half way to my landing destination the battery quit for good and I was in trouble. I had a choice of trying to glide her in, the corn or the trees. I almost made the glide in by about 5 feet when I coudl not recover from a small headwind that stalled me out.

Damage is significant as she dropped nose square to the ground.

Talk about a CRAZY weekend of flying. Thoroughly embarassed and lost for words other than time to repair, get back at her and get air under the wings. Will post some pictures later,then the repair photos. Front of fuselage pushed in about 1/4" is definitely fixable all else looks good.

Wayne

PS. Trainer boxed a whole family yesterday they're onboard and looking for some good times at the airfield.

[phantomphan]

Wayne, do you ever use a timer while flying? Ive got a plane that has a high fun factor but very limited fuel. In my case it mandatory that I use a timer to keep from having dead sticks.
Just a thought.
James