RC aircraft mishaps

[steph]

Just had a motor failure while hovering a new Pathfinder 2 hexacopter ( those of you who've been feeling the urge to get one, you've been warned :lol: ) .

While a big fan of RC planes, I hadn't experimented with multirotors before, so I figured a hexa would be safer since it would be able to land on four engines if anything went wrong. Well....almost right. The gyros tried to keep it stable, but it still ended up doing a hard landing, with the dead engine impacting first and the "feet" taking the rest of the shock.
Might be some sort of controller issue, since other engines stopped as well while testing it on the ground after the crash. And when I managed to get the dead one reluctantly going, its opposite would stop :rofl:

Edit: being of the cheap chinese drone variety, I wasn't expecting very much of it. It had a "return home" function which pretty much sent it flying away in a random direction . Perhaps it was trying to go back to China :lol:

Not that this would be my first ever RC incident...some of my other achievements include ripping the wings off an RC glider during an attempted low pass (too much G, I guess), and plowing my brother's RC Cessna nose first into the ground after stalling while trying to climb vertically :tiphat:

What are your RC stories?

 

[RisingFury]

I have a few scary stories...

When learning how to fly, I had three dangerous incidents. Twice nearly sending my plane into a house and once nearly into my friend. They're actually caught on video.

First time flying:

The nitro engine was poorly tuned to the point where if I decrease power, it gets swamped with fuel and takes some time to get up to speed and you have to increase power slowly, otherwise it stalls.

It was also incredibly windy. So when I start reducing altitude to come in for landing, I kill the power. Then I realize I can't land, I make another turn and the engine doesn't come on. I end up flying the plane unintentionally between two buildings.

Ended up landing in a tree.

Nearly hitting my cameraman:

Well, at least this time I didn't nearly send it into a house, but into my friend instead. He was filming and I came in for a landing. Didn't go well. It's near the end of the video.

A mid flight aileron servo failure, with an uncontrolled dive:

The servo started failing and I could feel it, so I wanted to come in for a landing, but before I could set it up, it failed completely mid roll. Came down very near a house without control and what saved it was landing in the mud. The plane was stuck into mud as if it was a spear.

Inverted aileron servo:

The next flight after repairing the plane from previous crash. I screwed up the setup and the aileron servo was inverted. Left was right, right was left. Didn't notice until the plane was already flying.

Flew above buildings and while the plane was flying away from me I was fine and regained control. But when I turned it around I lost control of directions again and ended up hitting a tree hard. Took extensive repairs afterwards.

The engine with the engine mount were ripped out, the tail came loose and wing had a serious dent in it. Had to cut it out and replace it.

There was also another time not caught on camera, when my friend was tuning a nitro engine. Engine at full power and he accidentally stuck his finger into it. You do not want to do that, let me tell you! Blood everywhere.

It was his ring finger and luckily only the end, but messed it up quite bad. When it healed, the base of the nail was damaged enough to where his nail started growing out kinda weirdly bent.

 

[steph]

Thermal engine...never managed to motivate myself to try one of those....too afraid of badly crashing it . A friend of mine had one once, but it burned after a crash. He somehow managed to strike the ground at a low angle at high speed, and the thing almost instantly caught fire.
How much do the servo batteries last? I assume most models don't have generators for the electronics

 

[Andy44]

Engine at full power and he accidentally stuck his finger into it. You do not want to do that, let me tell you! Blood everywhere.

I did that once on a nitro engine, too, but I touched the flat part of the blade from the back of the propeller, so it didn't cut me. Just smacked me pretty good. Almost like hitting your finger with a hammer.

Learn the hard way.

 

[RisingFury]

Thermal engine...never managed to motivate myself to try one of those....too afraid of badly crashing it . A friend of mine had one once, but it burned after a crash. He somehow managed to strike the ground at a low angle at high speed, and the thing almost instantly caught fire.
How much do the servo batteries last? I assume most models don't have generators for the electronics

The circuit is very simple. Batteries -> Receiver -> Servos.

The batteries serve power to a receiver, which gets the signal from the radio and then feeds the instructions in the form of PWM as well as power to the servos.

The servos don't require a lot. Most receivers at the time worked on 4 AA rechargeable batteries, so 4 x 1.2 V = 4.8 V and they lasted for hours of flying.

Though the common practice was to discharge and recharge them after every session just to be sure.

There are no generators aboard.

I did that once on a nitro engine, too, but I touched the flat part of the blade from the back of the propeller, so it didn't cut me. Just smacked me pretty good. Almost like hitting your finger with a hammer.

Learn the hard way.

Propeller strikes are surprisingly common with nitro and petrol engines. The largest nitro engines are typically about 20 cc and can reach several horse power. My small 6.5 cc engine had around 1 horse power.

The small engines aren't enough to sever your finger, but the large multi-horse engines are. There are quite a few stories of people tuning 50 cc petrol engines and losing their fingers.

Another common propeller strike is when you're turning the engine on. There are two ways of doing it - using an electric starter or the "chicken flip", where you quickly flip the propeller past the point of greatest compression in the hopes the engine will start.

Most of the time it doesn't, so the immediate reflex is to put the fingers back into position. But sometimes the engine starts, but you accidentally stick the fingers back into position anyway. You get a good smack, but it usually doesn't break skin.

 

[Andy44]

Another common propeller strike is when you're turning the engine on. There are two ways of doing it - using an electric starter or the "chicken flip", where you quickly flip the propeller past the point of greatest compression in the hopes the engine will start.

Most of the time it doesn't, so the immediate reflex is to put the fingers back into position. But sometimes the engine starts, but you accidentally stick the fingers back into position anyway. You get a good smack, but it usually doesn't break skin.

Once when learning to fly I sat on the brakes while my instructor hand-started a Cessna 150, Red Baron style. Same idea, but screw it up you might lose a lot more than a fingertip. Glad I don't have to do that on a daily basis.