When Disaster Strikes,,,aka Crash Report

[1BADAIR]

Originally Posted by johnbs8

what metal head parts are you using and how did they hold up in the crash??

e-flite. bent the grip a little where it goes to the mixer but bent it back.
the thing I am noticeing is that the bearings in the aluminum e-flite stuff is junk.
lost a bearing in the e-flite alum tail today(maybe 10 flights) and the bearings in the grips are notchy(not the thrust bearings)

[Fat Corgi]

First off, my FPV plane get's stuck in a tree on the most perfect flying day. No wind at all, so it will probably be there a while. To try and make it more windy I decided to take my Blade out for a quick spin (usually a sure fire remedy for wind). Rolled over flying nose in. Nothing drastic, but still mighty annoying. Lesson learned....
Don't fly when I'm worked up over something.

[Rotorjim]

Originally Posted by Rotorjim

Well I didn't take any after photos after, but I smashed my Blade 400/H-500C today. Wasn't my brand new one, this one had about 15 batteries on in hover only ( Hovering figure 8's) I just finished up all the installation of the blade (no detail like decals and door glass and the like. I was too discusted after words and just drug it in and started tearing things apart. The body wasn't hardly scratched but the rotor system was totally wiped out down to the drive gear (Except the blades were undamaged) I tried the maiden flight from the grass so I wouldn't scuff the skids up. What a big mistake! Left front skid got caught in the grass I guess and the helicopter once light on the skids just rolled forward and to the left. I feel very let down so put it away for a while. Will try again later. At least I have some more spare parts!
Here it is just 30 minutes prior to test attempt:

This wasn't enough punishment for me, so I took another Blade 400 (CNC CF frame)out the next day pick it up and hovered for a few minutes. Was a little difficult to hold smoothly over a spot and then all the sudden it just decided to backup on me and countering the action was un responsive. It hit tail low then smacked the main blades a ripped itself apart. Took me a while to find the battery but the only piece I didn't find was a single bearing and screw out of the seesaw. Total parts cost come to $47 at LHS and I have most of it back together but I am just going to get it flying and trimmed and then it is going to go back in another attempt at the OH-6 Cayuse.

The amazing thing, it didn't damage a single servo

[heli-c]

A beautiful sunny morning, wind 3-5mph, absolutely perfect conditions for my first real outdoor session with the Blade. Flying site pretty lively, about 20 planes and a couple of other heli pilots. I'd been waiting patiently for today all week, having resisted the temptation to try out all my new settings in the living room, and monitoring the MET office weather reports daily. 1st battery the heli settles into a hover and initially, I am amazed at how well I'd managed to get the stock gyro and servo to work; it was holding really well and not wagging like before. Then I become fascinated by how the new throttle curve and increased headspeed have improved the cyclic response. Excellent! time to fly it out a bit. Big mistake. First real outdoor session, remember...




This happened a few hours ago, and at the time I was absolutely gutted. Now I've had some time to reflect on what happened, this is what todays session taught me:

• Patience in rc heli's (or indeed any pursuit) truly is a virtue. I must have read this a million times on this forum alone.
• Just because its possible to fly out a heli on the sim does not mean its as easy in reality. And, if I'm crashing on the sim regularly I'm gonna be crashing in reality. Regularly.
• Crashing your model is an opportunity to improve its setup, make it better than before. And downtime is a great opportunity to work on the above.

Fortunately I have most of the spares to hand; I have this forum and the Blade400 bible to thank for that.

I've been humbled today. Humble pie never tasted so sweet.

Man I love this hobby
Cheers

[ted_wears_a_hat]

A positive attitude indeed heli-c.

I'm perhaps overly cautious but patience is certainly required for me to learn this heli flying business! It's far from easy that's for sure but oh so sweetly rewarding when you master something new.

Good luck with the re-build.

[heli-c]

Thanks Ted...if I could just get this flybar out! Those few seconds i was flying it were total bliss...even fighting it back to the ground was a rush...the genie is definitely out of the lamp, no turning back now

[Jimmy!]

Use dikes to cut off the bent end of the flybar so the rest ca be pulled through

[schoep]

After you dyke it file off the pinch points or it wont pull through.Some times you have to do it again after you get the fly bar cage off. NO BURRS.

[twistedgrim]

GAH ZIE AUTO DOESNT WORKZ

had 3 great autos and like 3 not so great autos.. last auto very not so great kinda broke landing gear and bent flybar/main/spindle

[BradMorris64]

B400 Crash 1...

Sat morning I crashed the B400 in a muddy field when a gust of wind turned the tail around and I over corrected. The crash didn't look too bad compared to me dumping it in the street once. But when I got to it it was devastated...

broken frame
landing gear
spindle
main shaft
main gear
canopy
1 stripped servo
tail rotor blades
blade grips
some how the main blades were spared

It took me almost 8 hours of work to get it back it the air 3 hours of which was using a dremel tool on the frame to get the two sides to line up. The 3 bearings down the center of the frame were so far out of alingment with each other I had to force the main shaft in until I fixed it. Booooooo to Horizon

B400 Crash 2...

This morning I was out getting the 400 dialed back in and just about had it in a hands free hover. Until the main rotor blades popped off During re-assembly I forgot to tighten them down and the screw came out

Once again the "landing" was almost upright and I didn't think the damage would be too bad...

all 3 main servos stripped
2 broken blade grips
spindle
broken fly-bar rocker
two long control arms bent at 90 degrees.

CP Pro 2 Crash...

After crashing the 400 Sat morning I decided to go ahead and fly the CP Pro 2. I was buzzing around pretty well and figured I'd try idle up. I got some altitude, flipped the switch and the thing went crazy! I immediately flipped it back but it was too late, the thing was already in an unrecoverable position and crashed hard...

main blades
main frame broken in half
canopy
spindle
main gear
landing skids
both stabilizer fins
ect, ect.

Total replacement costs for the weekend....

Nearly $200

It's going to be a couple of days before they are flying again. I need to rebuild all 3 main servos in the 400 and wait for parts for the CPP2...

[levelflight]

Well......, if you were looking for something to do............

Or a reason to go to work and get paid..

Looking at these crashes and related comments has me ripping with laughter because I know how I feel when I crash my nicely tuned beast! Those are some scrunched machines! The heli brotherhood sure falls hard!!

The aftermath can be a bit overwhelming to some, but the upside is that usually a few dollars (or quid) and some fiddle time later, you're up and running like it never happened.

Kudos to Heli-C and the rest for getting right back on the bike. Wahooooo. (And our wives think we're crazy; what is their problem?)

[mr2mkii]

+1 Kudos to Heli-C for the cool demeaner in the face of a crash. It takes time indeed, from several weeks to months. The crashes will bother you less and less, and you'll be crashing less and less as well. Keep up the cool attitude, take your time, don't push yourself, use trainers, and TH is your friend!

[diredave]

Broke exactly the same thing on my heli in a hard landing (had the gyro gain set far to high and the tail wag really put me off), rest of it was fine and it stands up ok as a tripod, so manage to fly without incident for the rest of the day. Fixed already, £5 damage not too bad.

[Sky1trek]

After a couple months of winter hibernation I was ready to get it back into service. Wanted to check my new deans plugs from the ESC and like many times before, spooled it up in the living room yesterday evening. All checks out and I spool down and then momentarily decide to spool up again. It must have been two months of flying my CX2 inside and I must have throttled it at a jump in the throttle curve because it torqued violently (and you know there was no ramp up because it had just been spooled and ready to go - INSTANT power!) Long story short, even though I immediately cut power, skids caught in the carpet, the heli flipped over, and did a brief chicken dance. Thought everything was okay but on second glance the flybar was bent at almost 90. Yep, there's power in that head! Finished the repair today but was surprised that:

• I couldn't get the flybar set screws off. The stock hex wrenches stripped them. LHS used some hardened tools and took it off no problem. Shows the value of good tools.
• The flybar threads had CA on them from the factory going into the paddles. One of my paddles wouldn't thread onto the flybar so I used CA as well.

Tomorrow will tell how the heli faired when I take it outside. Feathering shaft, main shaft looks okay.

[RaZz0R]

Originally Posted by Sky1trek

Tomorrow will tell how the heli faired when I take it outside. Feathering shaft, main shaft looks okay.

Just finished testing a repair myself. Kinda landed in to a bush as soft as I could in my back yard yesterday while doing nose in hover. Thought the main shaft looked ok but pulled it to check & yep - bent, enough that it would cause problems, fly bar looked fine, yesterday's test hover showed a tail wag but other wise ok - I pulled the tail shaft & it was dead straight. Looked at the fly bar & since I had a spare decided to pull it & check - yep - bent a fair bit - didn't even look bent on the head.

So you might want to pull & check that main shaft

[Snapper0923]

Sorry I don't have any pics, but I do have a B400 story if anyone's interested:

I'm about 6 weeks into flying heli's. I flew lots of planes about 8 years ago, but got into heli's recently. Went from a $20 Air Hogs Havoc Heli to a Blade MXC (sweet chopper!), to a Blade CP Pro which I promptly destroyed because it sucked, to a Blade CP Pro 2 (now THIS is a nice little heli!), to a Blade 400.

I can't fly yet. I can only hover a CP heli with daily practice on the Real Flight sim. I'm hovering pretty good on the CPP2 with trainers on. Since I read larger heli's are more stable, I decided to hover my brand new B400 in my single car garage. I was successfully hovering for a while... until suddently I lost it whe it dipped to the side and plowed into my lawn tractor. That thing smashed quite a fit and I ducked low thinking I was gonna get myself killed, and in the process forgot to drop the throttle, which made everything worse. Had to replace these:

Main rotor blade
Blade holders
Main shaft
Feathering shaft
Flybar
3 servos (I stripped and burned out 3 of the 4)
Tail rotor blades
A few other parts for the tail

Cost: about $50 Time To Fix: about 6 hours, and it still needs to be aligned preoperly.

Oh well. Next...

[odam2k]

Originally Posted by audiracerj

WTH happened?!? Did it fall out the back of your car and get run over?! You thrashed the frickin head block! WOW You must be one of those who crashes with style

I was doing a loop and it went up and over the top, but wouldn't pull out at the bottom, and nose dived into the frozen earth at full speed...

[Djedi]

Well, have this pic up here already, but looks better in this thread.
She was coming around beautifully and I thought I was clear of this large lilac bush...
Then it jumped right out in front of my heli!!
Took a while to get all the snow out.
Bent shaft, one set of servo gears, two custom made landing struts, and then attaching new gear and tail supports directly to frame without the tabs (which sheared off). Head was damaged enough that I decided to replace with the new metal Copter-X head I had bought.
Hey, imagine getting involved in this hobby and not being somewhat "handy"? Big Bucks!
Djedi

[Helihangover]

Well I got a little dicombobulated a couple days ago while flying. I was doing pretty good. The wind was about 10 to 12 mph gusts. Wasn't bad like i figured it would be. Anyways I got a little too proud and thought I knew it all and proved myself wrong again..Glad I love the rebuilding..
Parts- Feathershaft. Mainshaft, blade grips, blades, landing gear, and 3 servo sets.
Got the wreck on tape. Gotta love the cloud of dust at the end..

Blade 400 crash (1 min 10 sec)

[Helihangover]

Almost forgot. I left the 2 screws out that hold the Aileron servo in. Didn't notice til after the crash. It kinda had a quick jerk to the left every now and then but other than that I really never noticed it.. To bad I can't blame the wreck on that..