Brush with danger... Death Cub for Lukey

The video says it all. I need to do a better job being safe...

Flying my just repaired Exceed J3 Cub 4 ch foamie. Winds were light, but gusts were 10-15 mph. The winds here are usually from the south. The aircraft got too close to us as it would not turn upwind on an attempted landing, and blew over our heads. Once it passed I could not get it to stay down, then it lifted with a gust. When the gust passed the aircraft suddenly dived and crashed. Luke did an exceptional job filming.

Icarus

NTSB FINAL REPORT
AIRCRAFT: Exceed Piper J3 Cub 4 Ch EP Foamie
LOCATION: Biloxi, Mississippi
INJURIES: 1 bummed but eerily excited


The day prior to the accident the pilot had ground flipped the aircraft sustaining minor prop damage but bending the prop shaft. It was repaired and a flight waiver granted to allow flight awaiting parts and final repair. The aircraft was in otherwise excellent flight condition.


Weather on the morning of the accident was clear, calm, air temp 57 degrees. Flight was conducted under visual meteorologic conditions. No TFRs or METARs were in effect in the flight area, and there were no children or vehicles to avoid. There were no other aircraft in the area. The flight area is an uncontrolled field. The novice light sport pilot is a member of the Academy of Model Aeronautics (# 957918). He has had less than 1 hour of flight time, and all of that in type. He is in good health, but probably should have been drinking...


The pilot reports the plane departed from the lot behind the Pentacostal Church on Popps Ferry in Biloxi, MS, at approximately 0745 hrs, heading west with only the imaginary pilot on board. The aircraft flew well over the entire flight area in excellent control and appeared to fly without any difficulty. The pilot skillfully executed basic flight maneuvers, much to his surprise and pleasure.


At approximately 0749 hrs, the aircraft was seen flying directly over the pilot heading due east, at an altitude of 30 to 40 feet AGL. This newbie mistake caused momentary disorientation, but controlled flight was maintained. However, shortly after reorienting himself the pilot realized he could no longer see the aircraft due sun blindness as the aircraft continued east. Aware that the tree line along the east end of the airfield was fast approaching, he made a slow blind turn to the south. The pilot reports that the aircraft suddenly appeared in the shade in a fast descending right hand turn. The aircraft impacted the ground in uncontrolled flight. Witnesses report the pilot was smiling, saying "Wow... 4 minutes of totally controlled flight!".


The aircraft is substantially damaged but repairable. The pilot sustained no physical injuries, however he is a little mental, and his hands could be seen shaking mildly at the crash site.


CAUSE OF CRASH: Pilot error. Continued flight into terrain after pilot lost orientation of the aircraft due to sun blindness while flying directly into the rising sun. Proper flight planning would have avoided flying the aircraft north and east of the airfield preventing him from needing to navigate the aircraft into a blinding rising sun. Moron.

CRASH PHOTOS:

The crash site is approximately 150 yards behind the church in an open field.

The debris field is limited. 

All of the a/c parts are accounted for.

The tail section of the fuse was still connected to the forward part only by the ESC wires. The motor was still at flight idle.

Starboard

Port

The prop shaft repaired the day before separated forcibly from the motor. The motor was removed from the a/c for inspection. 

It is in excellent condition other than the broken shaft.

The fuse is fully severed at the passenger seat. Top down.

Port

Starboard

Underside

The aircraft is awaiting parts, but most of the original parts will be reused until the pilot learns to control the aircraft properly. It is easily re-buildable (thank goodness for foamies). The pilot is excited about repairing the a/c due to the challenge it presents. He is still smiling and telling anyone, "Did you hear that? 4 minutes of fully controlled flight!"

CopterX Arises, But She Is Parked...

Fixed the CopterX, but I don't intend to fly her for a very long time. I rebuilt her and set up her CCPM again. The main shaft was bent, and you can see the flybar is all wacky, but curiously the feathering shaft was entirely fine.  I want to recheck the tail before I fly her again, but as I mentioned, that will be a while. I took her AR6100 out and put it in the Cubby, which flies very nice with it!

So, all my helis are up and ready to fly, except as noted, the missing receiver from the CopterX.

Working on Radd's School of Rotary Flight. Planning to put up a video series of the steps as I do them. I think I am up to Battery #7.

Here's the CopterX with her receiver laying beside her before I swapped out the Exceed one in the Cub.

Stearman Unboxed!

The Stearman arrived and is unboxed. Waiting for the ESC and motor, then I can start on the build. She is beautiful. This kit is top notch! It is amazingly light. I am completely unready to fly her, so there is no rush with the build, but I love that I have her!

Right now she is tucked away and waiting for me to learn a couple of build techniques and get those parts.

Bent Shaft on Ground Flip

Yesterday morning I took the Cubby out (today I did too... see the account above). I was trying out the regular EP prop. It was a little breezy and the Cub was twitchy, never got her off the ground as I couldn't control her on the roll out. To prove the point on the second or third attempt she tipped forward suffering a blade strike, bending the shaft (the heavier EP prop sustained very little damage). I brought her home and could not figure out how to get the shaft off (now I know, see the account above). So I simply grabbed a pair of pliers and straightened it out. was able to get her so straight there was virtually no vibration at all and the blade tracking was tight! This pic is pre-repair. Looks like only a small bend but the prop wobbled something fierce with about 5mm to 10mm disparity between the blades in tracking.

Glad I fixed it, but at the time I had no idea how to get the bent shaft off a perfectly good motor, to say nothing of how I was going to find a replacement.

Hanging by a thread...

The other day I broke the prop on the Exceed J3 Cub 4ch. I went back to nitroplanes.com and found replacement 8x6 (8 inches, 6 pitch (6" per revolution) slow flyer props for $3, but shipping was going to cost me $9, so $18 for 3 props. No way... shopped around and everyone is not-in-stock. I go to eBay, where I usually start for these very reasons and find I can get 5 for $8 and shipping is free from rctimer in Hong Kong. So, $16 later I have 10 coming from China, but that's not helping me now. I call my LHS this morning and they have one 8x6 prop, but its not a slow flyer, however it is for an electric plane. That's the shiny new silver one on the Cub in the pic, nicely installed. It means my Cubby will be rather fast, which isn't likely a good idea as I am just getting the hang of it. But Daddy wants to fly, and as we read in the previous post, he has piss poor judgement, so I bought it and put in on the Cubby today.


The housing rubbed a little, and I could tell it was because the motor wasn't precisely centered, so I took the fairing off to widen the hole a bit, when I discovered that the motor was hanging by a thread... one bolt where three were supposed to be. (I've turned it on that bolt to see the holes where the other bolts were supposed to go. You can see they are pristine). The other two holes were virgin...no screw had ever been there! Jeez... I couldn't figure out how they mounted this thing since you can't remove the motor without the mount, so I tried to work a couple screws in the existing holes without direct access. Maybe that's why the guy who put it together cheated out the other two? It worked, but it ain't pretty. I had to use a smaller screw under the motor, a larger one I just couldn't drive. So I repaired that, and I installed the prop. It has a slightly shorter chord at its widest point than the slow flyer blade it's replacing. Its also a bit stiffer. We'll see just how much difference this makes tomorrow.



All fixed. You can barely see the tiny black screw.

I need to go back to work so I stop crashing my aircraft...

4 Seconds of Flight, Maybe 5...

Maybe its the Pentacostal's because that's all I got today flying behind their church. 4 whole seconds to a spinning death. It was breezy again, but not a bad day. I set up the CopterX 250, and spun her up. The first clue was that she wanted to rotate left again while still on the ground, just like before. This time though the tail rotor headspeed was quite adequate. That's when I should have stopped. But I thought... (yeah, I was thinking...), "I can compensate for it", so I throttled up. She went up about 5 feet into a twisting hover with a determined yaw to the left, rolled to the left as she nosed down hard, and continued the 360 right into the dirt as I hit throttle hold. Parts flying everywhere, one blade flying about 15 yards in front of me arcing about 30 feet into the air, the other flew over my right shoulder at head height and winged deadly silent past me 10 yards behind. I just stood there. Yup... I... was... still... thinking...  I went over to the heli about 10 feet away and she was on her side rotor head all twisted, a servo screaming in pain becoming silent as I picked her up... All that excitement in 4 seconds! Booya, this is fun! So I collected the parts pieces, took a few memorial photos and a vid, and put her away quietly.

4 Seconds... A Day in the Life of CopterX 250
"Phoenix" I refer to is the Phoenix RC Flight Sim.
The video is of the after crash walk of shame, not the flight itself.
Its only worth watching if you want to laugh at me.

Being stupid I pulled out the newly airworthy EXI 450. Now it was quite breezy. I set her up, powered her up, stepped back with my finger on the throttle hold, and a voice spoke to me.

"Don't fly..."

I heard it, softly, again and again, quiet, undemanding, persistent. Scenarios of my past flight mis-adventures flashed slowly through my mind. Uncertain, I paused... I looked around at the sky, the beautiful unbroken heli, listening and feeling the wind die down encouraging me. The voice was still there. But now that it had my attention it said, "Its not worth it. Stop for today, we are tired of repairing helis based on your wicked bad flight skills and piss poor judgement. Use good judgement this time, spare us the whining and the gnashing of teeth. Just stop. Just stop this insanity..."

Another moment went by in silence.

Wait a minute... that's not in my head! My 450 is negotiating with me!

Chagrined that either the madness had returned, or that this is what common sense sounds like, I stepped forward, set down the transmitter, pulled off the canopy and disconnected the power. Enough for today. Enough.  Lets go home...

I went home, finished repairs on the ERazor and set up her CCPM, put a new prop on the Cubby (the only one I could get while I wait for the 8x6 slow flyer props to arrive from China. The ones from nitroplanes were $3 with $9 for shipping. To hell with that... so I checked out my LHS and he had one 8x6 prop, but its not a slow flyer... I may regret this).

Then I flew the Phoenix sim on the "true model" settings. I wasn't aware I was flying on "stable, 50% fake" until I read a post on Helifreak... Now the sim flys just like I do. 4 seconds, duck and cover, clean up my trash.

Tomorrow we're flying the Cubby!

"Trying is the first step towards failure!"  ~ Homer Simpson