JCadwell
Key Veteran
Location: Richland WA/ Morro Bay, CA
| How often do you guys really crash, and what are you doing when you do crash?
Other than boomstrikes from botched autos (about a million, usually just a dinged boom), I've only had 2 real dumb thumbs that caused severe damage to helis, and 4 mechanical failures.
One dumb thumb I tried a stall turn when I wasn't good enough, and flipped the heli inverted, and applied full positive collective. I've never seen a heli suck towards the ground that fast. KABOOM. Wow.
The other dumb thumb I ran out of gas. My dog was outside, and chasing the heli around, trying to jump up and bite it, and I had to get her inside. I turned around to bring it down, and ran out of gas. Managed to do a sliding auto into the backyard, but I had skid stops on and flipped end over end a couple of times.
I've had a reciever die on the ground, rolling the heli into the ground, a tail rotor pushrod failure that ended in a tipover auto, a ball link failure (top of the link broke off flying in the cold), and a maingear on my sceadu fly apart ending in a hard botched auto (the first run of Sceadu gears tended to strip and break).
How much of our crashing is due to flying above our limits, and how much is really equipment. I have taken it REALLY slow, and other than autos, have had little crashing experience. Autos are like a siren song for me.  But in 25 gallons or so since I started, I haven't totally destroyed a heli yet. I've come close with one.
Thanks, John Cadwell |
