33% RC Yak Midair Collision with a .40 size trainer!

What happens when two planes, one very large and the other small, meet in the sky nose-to nose in mid-flight? Well, they say a picture is worth a thousand words. In the RC hobby it is common practice to treat these types of events as a “no harm, no foul” thing. In this case both pilots shook hands and walked away with a story and a desire to fly again.

The real amazing part of this story is that the pilot of the Yak was able to land the plane after the collision. You and I can only imagine what that must have looked like: A loud collision, pieces everywhere, one plane in pieces falling towards the ground, and a large Yak with its nose in shreds pulling up and coming around for a clean landing. WOW! Congrats! A few parts and some minor repair and the Yak will fly again soon. Unfortunately, David did not beat Goliath in this case, and the small trainer is a goner. Oh well, it’s all part of the fun.

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(Photos courtesy of Marty Jones)

Caught a crash on video.

I had some great flying this weekend.  I took a lot of video, and here is a highlight.  I hate to see this kind of thing, but it happens.  The good news is that the jet will fly again.

At the Sun Valley Flyers club in Arizona, I caught the unfortunate crash of a beautiful F-16. On a landing attempt the pilot decided to go-around. However, the Jet ran out of fuel, causing a crash. The Jet is repairable, and I am sure I will see if fly again.

Why does it look like pilot error? Jet engines take a while to spin up. So when the pilot decided to go-around, he expected a few second delay before the plan began to accelerate. Unfortunately, with no fuel left, the acceleration never came. With a prop-powered plane it would be immediately obvious whether the plane was out of fuel or not. You can see the Afterburner lights (red LEDs) on full-blast, indicating the pilot was giving full throttle.

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The worst aspect of our hobby…

It was a bittersweet day at the field.  The sweet part was the really great practice flights I got in with my plane.  It was flight 5-8 on the Extra, and I am starting to hone my precision flying skills.  Today it was hammerheads and 4-point turns.  The trick to both is rudder control, and throttle management.

The bitter part…

A young man named Christian showed up and introduced us to his remarkably beautiful Yak ARF running a 50cc engine.  He spent 3 months carefully putting it together this Extreme Flight Yak 54, and we spent some time admiring the beauty of its construction.  He decided to maiden the plane with some help from the regulars.  Dustin did a check-out flight and trimmed it up, then Christian put it through some basic paces. 

(Stock Photo from Extreme Flight)

http://www.extremeflightrc.com/html/74yak54.html

Unfortunately, after a go-around attempt, the engine quit and he attempted the “dead man’s turn” back to the field.  The plane stalled and quickly sank into a pancake position in the dirt.  It was bad – and no one was happy to see that.  Apparently in all the excitement the fuel tank was not filled as it should have been, and the bad timing of the engine stall caused a very tricky maneuver to turn into a damaged plane.  As much as I hate to do this – I will post pictures here.

Christian was obviously very disappointed.  He moved here from Washington, where he had assembled the plane, and cared a lot about it.  Crashes are a (practically) unavoidable aspect of this hobby.  Everyone with any experience has tales of their crashes, (all you have to do is scroll down a ways to see my experience first hand), and the causes are always quite varied.  Sometimes it is an obvious miss, other times it is an open case mystery.  I think the key to surviving a crash (figuratively) is to understand that it will always be an aspect of the hobby you have chosen, and the ONLY course of action is to move forward with a new model as soon as you can.  The phrase “get back on the horse” is perfect.

Think of crashes like this – you get a brand new plane to fly, and a new story to share.   I promise, someday it will be at least kinda fun to tell.

+David

Extreme Flight Yak after a dead-stick failure.

Christian and Dustin inspect the damage.

The Pulse’s Second (and final?) Crash

 

Second crash, Ebel’s Pulse 40 (12/27/08)

On my second flight on this beautiful flying day, I noticed that my radio was being locked out during a roll at a pretty high altitude.  This had never happened before, and I recognized it only because I have been practicing with RealFlight G4.5 simulator and using the “Flight Failures” feature, which often simulates just such a lockout.  I immediately called for a landing and headed in.  Unfortunately, just as I turned for final the radio completely stopped responding. 

The last time this happened it was because I failed to check the battery voltage, or charge it prior to the flight.  My first thought was “there is no way I could have made the same mistake twice!”  And after a very long walk, search, and recovery, I tested the battery to find it was holding an appropriate voltage.  So the cause of this crash is a mystery.  Perhaps, as I have heard more than one friend say, the DSM receivers need 6 volt batteries, not the 4.8 volt ones I have been using.  It could be that for some reason on that flight the draw on the battery was too much, and caused a momentary lockout.  With DSM radios, even a short lockout can affect the plane for many seconds, becasue they take longer to reconnect than typical 72Mhz radios. 

I don’t think I will rebuild this Pulse.  It’s been a great plane, but I have my sights set higher.  In fact, while hovering over the wreckage, I happened to ask Dan if he knew any large scale planes for sale.  He said he had one, and I stopped by his place to take a look at what may be my next plane.  It’s a step very close to my end goal (flying a 40% or larger composite arf).  It is an Extra 330 35%.