Plane crash- My R/C Eaglet goes down

[darkred87T]

It took me weeks to build this thing and it's been hanging in my garage for a year. Well, I decided to buy a cheap RTF (ready to fly) trainer plane before I flew this one. The RTF came with a DVD simulator which I got good at and I also flew the RTF plane with success. I decided it was finally time to fly the Eaglet. After a few turns of the prop by hand, the little .15 engine kicked over and I taxied the plane across a vacant baseball infield. It took off beutifully, but when I got it in the air, it was all over the place. Out of fear of crashing it immediately into the ground, I took it up higher and tried to level it off. On the last turn, it just fell out of the sky and did a nose dive right into the ground. It's a total loss and if you look close, the carburetor is stuffed with infield dirt. I haven't tried to turn the motor over for fear of making it worse but I'm pretty sure it's a loss too. Oh well, I'm not looking for sympathy, but thought I would share some carniage pics.

 

[Pablo]

haha, sorry man

I fly RC planes too and I know how it is putting tons of work into one and having it be destroyed almost immediately.

Did you check the center of gravity both laterally and longitudinally? That tends to be the doom of a lot of planes I see my friend fly since he doesn't like to check those things. You also want to make sure you stay conservative on the control surface throws. If you set it up for a lot of throw it makes for a very unstable flight since every little twitch of your finger makes the plane respond excessively.

I fly electric exclusively, haven't tried gas yet, don't think I will since electric works so well for me.

Right now I'm building a GWS ME-109 that should scream, huge brushless outrunner and three cel lipo set up. Hopefully I don't wreck it too soon

It's a highly addicting hobby.

 

[turbojimmy]

I dunno. Looks like you might be able to fix that.

Darkred87T is my brother. He, my son and I have been goofing around with small electrics trying to get the hang of it. Having destroyed 4 of 4 Firebird Phantom planes we figured it was time to begin breaking bigger toys. The Phantom has a design flaw that has the fuselage snap just in front of the rear tail very easily. This renders it a total loss.

Mike had been talking about taking that Eaglet out for weeks. I just wish I had been there to see its demise. It took him forever to build that thing. I could have at least videotaped its first and final flight. We could've analyzed the data to see what went wrong.

We just moved up to a cheap HZ Super Cub (electric). Hopefully we can give that a whirl today.

Jim

 

[darkred87T]

The controls might have been a little agressive but something was seriously wrong before I even touched the rudder stick. The wings were tipping pretty violently. I built airlerons into them but had them disconnected. Being a beginner, I didn't want to use them. The only thing I can think of is that the ailerons were a little out of joint. One was warped as to where one side was slightly up and the other was slightly down.
The fuselege has some pretty serious damage around the windsheild area where the wing was held into place. that's the only serious problem I see. And like I said before, I doubt the motor is any good but I'll clean it up and try it.

 

[Boost231]

its fixable if you want to do it. and let me tell you that motor is fine. pull the carb and clean it out. i crashed my RC exteamly modded into a curb at over 80mph the engine flew out of the truck and landed down the road. reinstalled the motor and ran great till someone broke into my apartment and took all my stuff

 

[darkred87T]

Soory to hear that. Maybe I'll try and put it back together. It's still intact for the most part.

 

[jwillettgn]

Been there crashed that. LOL I hate it for you but it happens.
I put a .25 S in my Eaglet and just over powered it. It broke somthing in the elevator control and started doing loops. Finally it would loop and go behind the tree line then come back up on the top of the loop. Then it went behind the trees and we heard a wack and it was over. A man that saw it said boy you were really flying that thing until you hit that tree. I did not have the heart to tell him it was out of control. :smile:

Jim

 

[at7we2]

my R/C plane story (thread hi-jack warning!)

Nice pics! Ouch! IMO, the engine should be salvagable. I would NOT try to turn it over. The way I see it, you ahve a couple of options:

1. Take it to a local hobby shop and have them check it out.

2. (better option) Get the manual and dissasemble it. Clean and inspect it, then put it back to together. If you don't already have one, either buy or build your own test/break-in stand. After you clean and reassemble the engine, run it on the test stand and see how it does. It will probably be fine.

The plane looks like it might be toast. Difficult to guess what happened. Did you recover the flight recorder?

I learned to fly on a Goldburg "Eaglet" when I was about 12. Awsome little plane. I crashed it a few times and dad managed to patch it back up... until one fateful day. I was practicing touch-and-go's and well....a gust of wind caught the left wing and I ended up doing a barell roll up and over into the ground - ouch! that was her last flight. dad and I built and flew several other planes after that, but I lost interestest in the R/C planes when I got to high school (started tinkering on cars and chasing women - imagine that!)

I've recently been trying to get back into R/C planes with my 5-year old son. I've still got a couple of my dad's old kits, several engines and a couple of radios (they're FM but not PCM). I've only recently discovered how much the hobby has changed. It's amazing what is available now as far as electric power and RTF stuff goes! When my dad and I were flying, you'd buy a kit and open a box full of balsa sticks. I purchased a RaidenTech electric Piper Cub on sale for about $70 and it came with everything except transmitter batteries. I'm hoping to start there and work my way back up to gas .40 and .60 size planes.

The last plane my father and I flew together was a Goldburg "Falcon 56". He passed away many years ago but that plane is now hanging in my sons bedroom.

Rob

 

[darkred87T]

Good story. A good freind of mine that I grew up with bought a trainer kit when he was about 12 and built it but never flew it. We could never get it running. Somehow it wound up damaged even though it was never flown so he gave me the guts out of it a couple of years ago. The .15 engine is so smalll it was a challenge for me even to find a plane that would be compatable with it.

Anyhow, the engine ran great before the crash. It would start right up with just a couple of manual flicks of the prop after priming. I cleaned out the carb and reinstalled it, but I can't get it running now. Maybe I'll upgrade to a slightly bigger one.

I think the rest of the plane is salvagable. Most of the structural damage occured around the A piller/windsheild area and Iv'e so far been able to peice most of that back together. the rest shouldn't be too bad.

I