Has anyone crashed a Stratus yet

[Zilly]

Does anyone have any experience of how the Stratus holds out in a prang yet?

z

[tyuditsky]

Yea, all the parts from your old kit break just the same. Rudder servo still gets trashed and the elevator needs a new servo wheel. Mainshaft still bends, spindle still bends, boom-tail-blades-misc carbon fiber still appears to explode.... However, everypart included in the upgrade kit survived, even the fuel tank found about 25 yards away.

Did i mention you can have all this fun while only getting it off the ground 2-3 inches? I will testify to it's discustingly sick roll rate. in mere inches, after the radio locked me out, it managed to roll itself past the 90 mark before losing a tiff with terra firma.

I'm sure i'll dump it again soon, maybe this time i'll actually be airborne, so i'll let you know how it fairs with some altitude.

[WayneBrown]

I've seen one tailslide from 200 ft, enter a chaos at knee height and have the t/r servo unplug all in one heartbeat. Normal parts broke, none of the new goods did. It hit a hard one too, right on asphalt.

[Scrub]

Planted mine twice already. The typical stuff needed replacing (fly bar, spindle, main shaft, boom...) On both crashes the battery tray broke even though the nose never hit the ground. Frame assembly held up very well.

I wonder how well the new CF landing gear would hold up in a crash or hard landing and the cost to replace just a strut or skid.

[tyuditsky]

I can see the battery tray breaking on almost any impact. I'm sure the 1" extended tray will make it snapping even more likely.

[EricLarson]

Well maybe I am lucky, but I have not broken the radio tray. That thickness of carbon is extremely strong. You will be surprised at what it takes to break it :)

Not sure what will break on the gear yet. I have not had the chance to crash it yet :mrgreen: I have beat it around pretty good though and it seems very strong. Each strut and skid is replaceable and after talking to Tim you may be surprised at the price. I think they will be pretty reasonable. We are just finalizing the height of the gear right now and getting some more flight time on it. Right now I like the new landing gear quite a bit.

[Dr.Ben]

If that gear is composed of several pieces, then they'll be able to cut a bunch of them from a sheet of carbon with minimal waste. That keeps the cost down. That's a good thing <g>.

Ben Minor

[3DME]

I had the elevator servo lock in the full forward position and it hit hard. It was stuck in a forward tumble and I tried to hang with it but with CCPM it is hard to save it. The tail hit the ground on one of the tumbles and it broke the tail boom off and tossed it. At this point the rest of the machine rolled over and when the main blades hit it spun the canopy(mechanics) around at least 500 rpm, when the blades rabbit eared the whole spinning mechanics slaped the ground very hard.

It damaged the usual suspects but it also broke the left side frame between the throttle servo and pitch servo. Also broke above the pitch servo. Please keep in mind that this was a very hard impact, extremely hard. I swear I could feel it in my ankles when it hit. In my opinion the machine held up very well, I thought there was alot more damage. By the way the side frame is easy to change but cost 75.00.

Mike