Post by Vanders on Aug 25, 2008 22:21:34 GMT 10
Sunday arvo with Geoff, Ken, Sean & Chris for a bit of winch practice. First launch went perfectly with no problems, next launch well thats another story................
Grabed my Fazer for Ken to launch, did the usual pre flight checks, all surfaces working as they should, ok I'm ready, loaded up tension on the winch line, Ken yells "launching" imediatlly after leaving Kens hands (he did launch it perfectly straight) it veered hard right under full tension, madly I tried to regain control with some rudder to no avail, after 1-2 seconds it was above the dense tree line then proceeded to continue a hard left bank into the trees below the line of sight, I still had my foot on the pedal driving the winch flat out,..........then an almighty crash of carbon into branches broke the silence going on in my puzzled mind. (All of this took maybe 3-4 seconds)
"Thats not going to be pretty" I thought to myself, as I stood stunned looking at Ken & Jeff for an explanation that could not be answered.
Oh well better go & look for what remained of my new pride & joy mouldie. As we walked up a path that passed through the trees we were looking for the winch line that would be overhead & would lead to the plane. No line could be found??? Someone then said they'd found it, as we walked in to look we were all amazed to see it looked in good order, WOW!!! thats unreal, after finally getting her down we could see what is in realistic terms was really minor damage. To have heard the sound of the crash it is unbelievable that the damage is only minor.
Once back to the field we played with the wires going to the Rx & it appears likely that the battery lead may have come off from the Rx at the start of the launch, I had foolishly noticed when I installed the Rx that the connector wasn't a tight fit onto the pins. Laying in bed last night thinking about it I realised the potential for things to have ended a lot worse, if power had been lost at full height best case scenario would have been an uncontrolable dive back to earth resulting in almost certain destruction, but another scenario crossed my mind, as we were surrounded on 3 sides of the field by roads (one being the Bruce Hwy) I could not have imagined if the plane spiraled uncontroled into traffic.
So overall I concider myself fortunate.
Grabed my Fazer for Ken to launch, did the usual pre flight checks, all surfaces working as they should, ok I'm ready, loaded up tension on the winch line, Ken yells "launching" imediatlly after leaving Kens hands (he did launch it perfectly straight) it veered hard right under full tension, madly I tried to regain control with some rudder to no avail, after 1-2 seconds it was above the dense tree line then proceeded to continue a hard left bank into the trees below the line of sight, I still had my foot on the pedal driving the winch flat out,..........then an almighty crash of carbon into branches broke the silence going on in my puzzled mind. (All of this took maybe 3-4 seconds)
"Thats not going to be pretty" I thought to myself, as I stood stunned looking at Ken & Jeff for an explanation that could not be answered.
Oh well better go & look for what remained of my new pride & joy mouldie. As we walked up a path that passed through the trees we were looking for the winch line that would be overhead & would lead to the plane. No line could be found??? Someone then said they'd found it, as we walked in to look we were all amazed to see it looked in good order, WOW!!! thats unreal, after finally getting her down we could see what is in realistic terms was really minor damage. To have heard the sound of the crash it is unbelievable that the damage is only minor.
Once back to the field we played with the wires going to the Rx & it appears likely that the battery lead may have come off from the Rx at the start of the launch, I had foolishly noticed when I installed the Rx that the connector wasn't a tight fit onto the pins. Laying in bed last night thinking about it I realised the potential for things to have ended a lot worse, if power had been lost at full height best case scenario would have been an uncontrolable dive back to earth resulting in almost certain destruction, but another scenario crossed my mind, as we were surrounded on 3 sides of the field by roads (one being the Bruce Hwy) I could not have imagined if the plane spiraled uncontroled into traffic.
So overall I concider myself fortunate.
