The Good and the.... Not so good.

This morning I finished up the wiring on the Morane Saulnier Type N. It came out great and looks awesome! All it needs is the cowl (awaiting M2 blind (T) nuts, and I'd like to matte epoxy the cowl and plastic top, but that may come later.

Scotch taped the cowl for pics.

And then I went to fly. I had been delaying because storm clouds were moving in and while winds weren't bad there were some gusts. For the big planes, the 26cc Pulse XT60 and the 35cc MX-Bach these shouldn't be a problem, but something just felt off. I went anyway, because if it was good to fly there would likely be no one there and I could fly the whole time instead of standing around waiting (tomorrow is going to be excellent but crowded). So, I went.

The crash is, of course, at the end. This was the first time I had flown it in over a year, as I didn't fly last summer.

On approach It got wobbly in a tip stall, started to recover enough I crashed nose down wings level. Initial butchers bill looks like the landing gear are toast, the firewall and forward motor box, a hole in the plastic canopy, the under cowl. All fixable though I am not sure how I am going to fix the plastic canopy.... Maybe fiberglass it?  Wings and the rest of the fuse are fine. Prop, of course, is toothpicked. A deconstruction will follow and I will have a better idea. This was a save, could have been a lot worse. Crash clock is nevertheless reset.

PM UPDATE: I removed the under cowl and the engine. The under cowl will need to be repaired and re-fiberglassed. The cowl mounts will need replacing as 3 out of four are broken. The canopy hole (rather curious) will need fixing and I suspect that will be fiberglass work as well, though I am not so sure how that will work. The engine is fine as far as I can tell, the 20x8 prop will be replaced with a 19x8 I have on hand. I changed how the throttle servo was mounted as it was in a tray I had made that wrenched loose and I don't like it. The firewall got broke-out attached to the standoffs. The wood is old and frequently drilled from the conversion from electric, so I am rebuilding it. I don't have my jigsaw anymore so will need to hack saw the edge notches. It looks like the firewall sprung out pretty cleanly. I will very much reinforce it, it will be sturdy. The plywood I have is a bit thicker than the stock so it will be stronger. I haven't looked into what I have for landing gear. Nothing as nice as those sweet carbon fiber ones. Such a shame. Glad they gave way and didn't rip out the landing gear hardpoint from the fuse. That would be a mess. All in all not so bad after all.