Curse of the Spitfire

I won't be buying another Spitfire, no matter who makes it. Second Maiden of a Phoenix Model Spitfire brought down by an odd occurrence. It is simply fate. For me, the Spitfire is cursed. I think I expected this as it did not surprise me that it crashed, and I am kinda unaffected by its demise.

I lost my first one a few years ago in an accident at the end of the maiden flight, it clipped a tree coming out of an intended stall. A year later I bought another one, same model. It sat for another year, new in box. This spring I decided to just do it, and built another beautiful airplane, this time with an Evolution 10 cc engine. This entire saga is blogged out here in earlier posts.

So today I took her out to the field in fine conditions to maiden. Here's how it went down, literally.

Gorgeous Phoenix Models Spitfire with 10cc Evolution Gas Engine.

I had a feeling since the day I bought the ARF kit that there was a bad omen about it.

Pre-Maiden Walk around, started and running sweet! Controls surfaces fine, run up fine.

As Nick took the camera from me to video this maiden, he commented that doing so was itself a bad omen. A bit of over rotation on takeoff, recovered started to turn and the engine RPM drops...then it recovers within time enough the inertia let her restart: she had gone into fail-safe mode. The Fail-safe position is ignition killed. Fail-safe is set up when you program the transmitter for a model, and set what it will do if the signal between the transmitter in my hands and the receiver in the aircraft is lost. Usually controls neutral and engine stopped, to prevent it flying off. In this case a momentary "Brown Out" of signal loss is quickly recovered by the software, but by then the aircraft was in a stall spin and it was over.

Nick is noting that at the crash site immediately when we arrived, the satellite receiver was fast flashing, an error code usually meaning "bind" is lost, the unique connection between the aircraft's receiver and my transmitter. Given what we saw, what I experienced (no control) and this blinking receiver, we are confident that she browned out during climb out, she stalled, spun,  and control was impossible.

How we found her.

From the other side, before touching her.

Moved the wing to disconnect the flight pack battery.

Goodbye, Spitfire... May you rest in pieces.

So what do I do with an entire fuel/engine and electric system for a 10 cc airplane?   I am confident I will NOT be getting another Spitfire. I am thinking Corsair or Zero... For now, I am just leaving it on the floor and enjoying flying my other planes.

Resetting the crash clock, again.