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Post by nick on Jun 28, 2009 18:11:47 GMT 10
well i was flying the faser at dayboro today and sean, shane, garth, and chris were there, i had her about 500m away and about 300 feet up when i thought that was a good bump under one wing, wrong
i tried to correct to fly around but she kept on spiralling down,
then at mach3 i said to the boys standing nearby, oh i have no control, well i think i said oh? then it went just over the spur to the north still at mach 3, then about half a second later a bloody smash sound that makes you go oh s**t thats not good, a big thanks to shane and sean for helping me look for the faser for about an hour but no luck, it's tiger country, then we came back and i gave the skua a go trying not to make it two in one day.
after a rest i went back for another look and before even one minute i nealy steped on a 6 foot brown snake, not my day today.
i looked and looked but crawling under lantana and pulling ticks of ya as they crawl up your shirt realy isn't my thing so two hours of looking was enogh for me.
im pretty sure by the sound it was going to be a mess but it would have been nice to see the damage and get my radio gear back, well i had better wipe the tears out of my eyes before i damage my keyboard, lol
well the way i loook at it is no one is hurt and it's only a $1000
sorry but no winching for me for a while
have fun everone
regards nick
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Post by windsock on Jun 28, 2009 19:08:26 GMT 10
Sorry to hear the bad news Nick  Glad you missed the brown snake! That will make me look down in the future. Gerard |
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Post by thevon on Jun 28, 2009 19:09:16 GMT 10
Oh, Nick that is really no good. I am very very sorry for you - I have fond memories of that plane and have honestly missed it since I sold it to you! Man what a shame. I wonder what went wrong?? Not your fault obviously. Sounds like a power connection dropped out, if you had no control at all. It's not a nice feeling to lose a plane like that, I know. I was at the family BBQ at the Gap watching the wind in the trees, thinking you guys must be having a good time. Sorry it turned out bad for you. What a bummer.
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Post by chamm37 on Jun 28, 2009 19:32:59 GMT 10
Yer i am very sorry about your Faser ae  It was a really nice flier and a great plane in gerneral and when i was down there in all the lantana and heard a big bang with a follow through of minor crunches and bangs i thought to myself, "Who went down"  with a real sick and unsettling feeling in my stomach I looked up and could only see Garth flying his Starling pro and thought oh no, not the Faser... and my thoughts were correct as i finally got the bevo out of the tree and walking back up the hill to the guys to only find Garth flying  I asked him what had happened to Sean, Shane and Nick and he explained the story to me and my thoughts went out to Nick as i could just imagine what was going through his mind and his feelings on it all loosing the faser after a small time having it... Really sorry Nick for your loss and i am sure all of our thoughts are going out to ya mate  i will do a right up of the day and pics in the other post ;D, chris |
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Post by skyboyken on Jun 28, 2009 19:53:35 GMT 10
Hi Nick,
I just got back this arvo from the Whitsundays and saw your message.
BUGGER!!!
Are you going back for another look tomorrow, and do you want a hand?
Call me if so please mate.
Ken.
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Post by thevon on Jun 28, 2009 20:23:54 GMT 10
Yeah me too Nick. I have some work on but could flex it to get out there and find it. I've had a good strike rate so far finding peoples' lost planes! Nothing like a challenge.
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Post by sean on Jun 28, 2009 20:57:47 GMT 10
The wind was really weak today so I spent more time watching than flying. Nick and Garth were circling in a pretty strong thermal while Shane and I watched. As Nick said one wing appeared to drop then it just started a high speed spiral into the ground. It seemed pretty clear that the radio had locked out as Nick was moving the sticks around trying to get a response and it just didn't change attitude at all. It must have gone into an area with lots of trees as you could hear the sound of breaking branches as it went in. There was a lot of area to cover in the search - it was hard to know exactly where it went in. There's so much lantana and other undergrowth down there that you can't walk in straight lines, you've got to crawl under the lantana etc etc, that makes you lose your bearings a bit so you don't know exactly where you are in relation to where you're meant to be. Very sorry to see this happen Nick. I hope you can get something else going soon so we can see you back out at the thermal field  . |
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Post by ezza on Jun 28, 2009 21:38:07 GMT 10
OHH man. Really sorry to hear that Nick. I'm also glad you missed the snake!! Eric |
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Post by jirvin4505 on Jun 29, 2009 9:12:41 GMT 10
Nick- That is very sad news  Lost a model myself many years ago - A 3m woody that took me 6 months to build. Must have searched every inch of the Piliga Forrest looking for it It's a heart breaking experience. commiserations Jeff. |
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Post by mikey100 on Jun 29, 2009 12:17:47 GMT 10
Nick....sorry to hear. I know the feeling of watching a much-loved plane just roll over and spiral down. (At least I know I can blame myself for flying too long on a battery charge.) That Lemon Tree site is thick and wild like Beechmont, Mt Mee and just about every place we fly.
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Post by aussiejarred on Jun 29, 2009 14:18:34 GMT 10
sorry to hear nick... can i suggest mabye if you go to look for it again to take a compass or a GPS... this way your bearings wont be lost... i wish you luck... |
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Post by nick on Jun 29, 2009 17:24:47 GMT 10
hi everyone  thanks for all your thoughts and kind words im going out again tomorrow with a couple of die hard friends friends who know how to look and not give up, i will be taking a couple of cane knives and my overalls i will tell you how the search goes, wish us luck because we bloody need it regards the snake magnet nick |
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Post by nick on Jun 30, 2009 18:28:08 GMT 10
i reckon andrew has earnt himself a season pass to the strawberry farm photos to follow ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D |
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Post by jirvin4505 on Jun 30, 2009 18:58:21 GMT 10
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Post by thevon on Jun 30, 2009 19:36:26 GMT 10
Fortunately the fantastic Fazer was finally found. (Like the alliteration??)
(By the way, sorry for this being such a long report).
When I got out to the paddock after lunch, Nick’s ute was already there but no sight of him - he was way down the hill searching. His phone wasn’t responding so I tried yelling but no reply, so I garbed up with overalls, long sleeve shirt, boots, leather gloves etc and slipped the protective glasses and a compass into the pockets. Sounds extreme, but over the next 2 hours all of those things were important!
I headed from the dozer straight down the ridge and ended up in a thickly lantana-scrub choked gully. It’s overwhelming just how much scrub is down there. You could fight a war in there and never find the enemy. Spookily, I could feel the spirit of the Fazer in the stillness under the canopy, but there were no sightings. After about 20 mins of crashing, slipping, rolling and crawling I headed right up the ridge and emerged into clearer country. This time Nick answered my yells with a coo-ee and he and his mate Steve stumbled up from a wall of scrub. After a breather during which Nick described the likely direction we took a compass bearing and headed further away following a 320 degree path. It didn’t get any easier and after about 30 minutes of pushing, crashing and crawling through really tedious lantana we turned 90 degrees right and aimed back to the top of the Lemontree ridge, doing some more searching on the way, then arriving at the dozer and the cars and scoffing strawberries. Jeez, they’re the best strawberries I’ve ever tasted – never been much of a fan but these are good.
We drove back to the Bowl where Nick had been flying before the crash, and he tried to remember exactly the line that it went down. This is where the story could get too long, but in short Nick re-considered his belief that the Fazer went down a long way over the other side of the ridge, and wondered if it was actually a closer ridge. To me this made sense because everyone had heard the crash so loudly, suggesting it had been closer. So we headed back to the dozer then down the ridge near where we’d been, tried to find the spot on the ridge matching the bearing we’d just taken, then headed back towards the bowl along the backbearing. I kept climbing trees now and then which gave a great view down onto the acres of thick lantana, but no Fazer. We were getting deeper into the gully - dark and gloomy like a rainforest. We kept going and after a short while I looked up to the left and saw a blaze of white and fluoro orange in a tree!! I was ecstatic. It wasn’t that easy to see – you could only see it through gaps in the scrub, and I reckon I must have been about 20 metres from it in my earlier efforts before meeting Nick.
It was parked about 10 metres up, and seemed to be in one piece. Mind you, it took us 5 or 10 minutes more crashing and sliding to reach the tree. There was a bit of a clearing under it – and there was the nose cone. With some help I got up into the tree. It was the sort of tree with lots of narrow branches but they were tough and springy so I climbed further and further up and out, shaking to get the Fazer to come towards me. Getting a good look at it, the fuse and tailplanes looked undamaged, but there were multiple rips into the leading edges of the wings – about 8 rips I guess. Finally I got hold of it and with some jiggling managed to get the tip panels and tailplanes off and drop them to Nick, then gently lowered the fuse and centre panel.
Although there’s a lot of damage along the LE of the left tip and centre panel, and a bit of mashing to on tip, there’s no more damage anywhere! It’s just going to be a big panelbeating job to get the wing shaped again, but not a difficult job.
Nick realized that the battery pack wasn’t in the nose. Just as I was pessimistically saying that it probably shot out like a bullet and could be anywhere, Nick found it!
It looks like the plane went into the tree almost vertically, and all the force was taken on the leading edges as they simultaneously hit those hard wiry branches over much of the span. Quite a miracle really. And man, it was such a good feeling to have found it. After the hike back to the cars we celebrated with more strawberries.
It was 4pm by now and I showed off my new Espada RL. There was time to go down to the big slashed landing area next to the bowl, we range tested it, then I said “Ready” and Nick gave it its first gentle throw. The faint breeze was easterly, so we tossed it towards the Mt Mee road. Do you remember when you were a kid and built a balsa glider and covered it with tissue and dope? How it floated out of the hand? Well that’s what the Espada went like. It floated along. Next toss we tried spoilers/ crow, and Theo’s settings must have been perfect because it never needed a click of trim. Then we got game -Nick threw it hard and I did a circle over the bowl and landed back on top. The 3rd time was enough – I was happy to go home knowing that it flies. Beautifully.
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It was a really nice flier and a great plane in gerneral and when i was down there in all the lantana and heard a big bang with a follow through of minor crunches and bangs i thought to myself, "Who went down" 
with a real sick and unsettling feeling in my stomach I looked up and could only see Garth flying his Starling pro and thought oh no, not the Faser...
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