At the flea market today, I see this cheap styrofoam plane sitting new-in-box on someone's counter. Hey how much, $15? Sweet.
Take it home, assemble it, couple "Oooohs" and "Ahhhs" as its my first RC plane, I anxiously wait 30 minutes for the included NiMH battery to charge up..."Ding!" the D-cell powered charger tells me, Woohoo ready to go!
get outside to my front field, wind is calm, looks like a perfect time to fly. Check the controls, Both motors are running smoothly, one powers down for turning, looks good. Throttle up, give it a little throw...
Holy Crap It's FLYING! Ok, its going pretty straight, throttle up to get some altitude..."Oh crap it stalled, crap crap crap crap" as it nosedives back to the ground. Full throttle, maybe I can save it...YES! it pulls out before becoming a Styrofoam crater and soars back up into the sky. Now I try to turn it around, bring it back, easy, easy....Comes around on me and I let off the throttle to keep the nose fairly level. Heres where I find theres 100% throttle and no throttle on the stick, as it nosedives again. Its ok, I've got lots of altitude, pull up and I'm ok. Gee, I'm pretty good at this! This is kinda fun!
Pull around for another turn, bring it in tight this time, and WHAP!
...Wtf?...
My brand new $15 plane managed to take out a bird, ripped the wing off.
Well I have to say I am a rookie when it comes to flying. I have been flying for a total of a year. Just say around the hobbie shops, I am known as $30 John, because everytime I crash it costs about $30 to fix it. I Have crashed my cx3 at least a half a dozen times and have taken the thing totaly apart, a half a dozen times. Anyhow, the first flight I had with my cx3, I got it 6 feet in the air and all of a sudden a huge breeze came by and blew the cx3 over my head and hit the only stick in the area. I ended up bending the inner and outer shaft, braking the upper and lower blades. It truely sucked when It was fresh out of the box and used it for about 2 minutes. well just say it was out of service for a week till I could fix it. But I will never forget that calm and still day that ended up costing me $30 because of a gust of wind.
I'm still really new to RC helis, but I have had some good flights, but also one crash. I started last year, in summer, about this time. I managed about 18 flights, of mostly hovering, till I tried some forward flight, which went fine, and then brought my heli into a side-in hover. At that point, my brain just locked up, even though I had done much side-in hovering on the sim, and my fingers should have known what to do. Anyway, the heli started drifting to the side, and backwards, and I just sat there and watched it go in, tail first! I think I was trying to figure out how to level it out, to stop the sideways, not really concerned about the backwards drift, and in she went! It made a great crack, and luckily the crash was light enough that I only wrecked the torque tube and shaft, a main shaft bearing, all the blades, and I stripped out a couple servos. I was up and flying again, within a week, including order, and waiting for parts to show up. I learned that day, to push one's self to try new things, but to take baby steps. I should have done more side-in hovering, before attempting any forward flight. I hadn't done enough to be completely comfortable with it.
When I think about it, I could have done any number of things to save the heli. I could have swung the tail around to fly tail-in, and level out the heli, with which I was very comfortable with flying in, I could have punched the collective to get some altitude (for more thinking time), or I could have just transitioned back to forward flight, but when you are in that situation, and you realize you might be crashing, you really freeze up.
Anyway, she wasn't to bad. Here are some pics. The worst part of the crash - I was instantly out $100 for main blades. Probably shouldn't have been using the nice carbon fiber ones. But they were factory balanced, and held together, which really does make them safer, if not more expensive.
When you get the first crash out of the way, flying gets easier. You don't have to worry about crashing, once you've already done it.
Ok, its going pretty straight, throttle up to get some altitude..."Oh crap it stalled, crap crap crap crap" as it nosedives back to the ground. Full throttle, maybe I can save it...YES! it pulls out before becoming a Styrofoam crater and soars back up into the sky. Now I try to turn it around, bring it back, easy, easy....Comes around on me and I let off the throttle to keep the nose fairly level. Heres where I find theres 100% throttle and no throttle on the stick, as it nosedives again. Its ok, I've got lots of altitude, pull up and I'm ok. Gee, I'm pretty good at this! 
This is kinda fun! 
Damn birds.
But they were factory balanced, and held together, which really does make them safer, if not more expensive.
Similar Threads