KAMS FALL Fly-In 2011

Today was the Koast Aero Modelers Societyn Fall Fly-In at their field in Ocean Springs. It was breezy, occasionally gusty, and sometimes calm. It was the calm that eventually got me...  More on that in a moment. Some pics from today! It was a small crowd, but the field was in perfect condition and our hosts very welcoming!

This little guy is called a Lazy Bee. It was anything but lazy!

So, about that calm. We, (Steve and I) were waiting out the windy day. Around 230 p it seemed to calm down, a lot. It sang sweetly to me.. it lulled me in... Most people had left for the day, the calm was present more than the gusts, but the gusts were still very brisk. I decided after a lot of hemming and hawing to take the Stearman up. Took her out to the runway, and during a long calm period fired her up. Immediately a gust came from her left as she was slowly lifting off, and she flipped left wing over right and nosed down and crashed.

Butcher's bill: Cracked the lower wing spar, again, the tab to the right wing (its usually the left, I believe), and most critically, cracked the entire motor mount right off. Now, I have rebuilt this before, so its already a mass of sticks and epoxy (man, I love epoxy). I reattached it with CA and then built a box of popsicle sticks around the frame, and epoxied it all snug. After it dried I looked at it from the top and noticed that the spacers on the right had sunk into the cracked frame a bit more than I thought, so I pulled the bolts, removed the spacers and reinforced that side of the wall with popsicle stick, and epoxied the crap out of it. Its drying now. I'll drill the mounting holes tomorrow, replace the electronics, the cowl, the wing and she'll be ready to fly! If the winds are good, I may try it at KAMS again.