Boomerang landed in the trees..

[Raam]

Had been to the patch little late yesterday, had almost 3 decent flights, fuelled up and started the 4th one.. did a circuit and a figure of 8.. then wanted to try a landing. From right to left, was losing height well before I made the last turn into the glide slope. My judgment was so very wrong that the final turn went into the trees..  It was a controlled one, nothing else to blame.. just my fingers.... I just couldnt judge the distance..  or I was concentrating more on the landing approach that I didnt notice I was going at the trees.. Titu was just amazed with my judgement skills.

This is my first ever crash..  I thought I was always ready to accept crashes and say "all in the game" but reality was different.

Damage Assessment: 3 Ribs damaged on one half of the wing, and the wingtip got smashed. And another damage on the leading edge in the other half. The fuse had a couple of cracks which I think I can glue them.




Lesson Learnt:
1. Decide on a safe distance to the trees and strictly follow them, until the judgement skills are improved.

Gareth/Phil,
I am left with no other choice other than to withdraw myself from the A test.

Next Steps:
I have no idea/experience of fixing. Probably this is a chance for me to learn, dont know. Can you guys suggest me whether this problem can be fixed by a beginner like me?
or
Repalcement wing costs around £40, the whole kit costs around £67.
or
Is there a possibility to avail the service from someone/hobbyshop and pay for their time?

I will decide based on your suggestions.

Thanks
-Raam

[Gareth]

Sorry to hear you lost the fight with the tree, i don't know anyone that has won yet.

That doesn't look too bad. I'm sure we could make up some new ribs and glue them in place and it would be as good as new. if you don't get any offers for help let me know and I'm sure we could get the ribs cut out and fitted in an evening and then all you would have to do is cover the wing and you will be ready to go.

Trainers are like the Black night:

Monty Python-The Black Knight

If you want a new airframe then by all means go and buy one but looking at whats happened there it should be easy enough. Do you have all the other bits?

Take it easy.
Gareth

[Raam]

Thanks Gareth,

Dont have the complete wing tip, found a peice of it. Thanks for the offer Gareth, atleast there are other ribs that we could use to create a template.. but the wing tip I have no idea.. probably rip the film off from the other half.?

-Raam

[Gareth]

we can use the exposed ribs (as its not a tapered wing) to make the new required ribs, slot them in and add some glue. apart from the covering not matching we could make it like it had never happened.

I have a scroll saw sitting at home that could run off a set of ribs in no time.

Let me know.
Gareth

[simonh]

Sorry to hear about the crash, Raam. With Gareth's help you will have it flying again in no time. Sometimes events like these can be opportunities as well - and it looks like a good opportunity to learn some repair skills which you will be able to use in the future.

Gareth is an expert at replacing wing tips..... 

[Raam]

Thanks Simon

Gareth,
I think the wing is tappered if this is what you meant.


Cheers
Raam

[Gareth]

Thats not the taper that i was talking about. the front and back of the wing are parallel so the ribs are going to be the same size. The wing tip can be built up like that one or we can change it round to make it look more fun and different.

Depends what you want.

We will get it all sorted. bring it down on Sunday and i will take a look at it and see what we can do.

Gareth

[Raam]

Super, will bring it down on Sunday.

Simon,

Yes this will definitely be an oppurtunity for me to learn some new things. I am up for the challenge

Thanks
-Raam

[Mike S]

Raam.

You will learn from the crash. The first thing is you admitted it was your own mistake, well done for that.

Gareth has lots more experience as a builder than me but after building a model this year that looks easy to repair.

I have had a few crashes with my tank (3D400) and it's needed the odd repair and looks like a patch work quilt.

The I only problem I can see is you will get the building bug.

[lionawa]

Hi Raam
               One  thing I have learnt in this hobby is to expect the unexpected. That is part of the fascination! The other day I was doing a supervised  flight  with Phil with my Multiplex Mentor which I  have been flying  for nearly five years without any crashes..On that day I lost control of the plane and it nosedived on the far side of the patch.It was quite a walk! To my surprise, it was still intact with minor damage  to the nose area and engine mount.I  don"t know what happened and how it survived the crash which I thought was quite  nasty. This is why I am a strong advocate of Elapor Foam on which cyanoglue performs miracles! and no ribs to cut!! After repairs my Mentor is flying even better!Good luck with your repair work.
                                                                                                Lionel

[andyb]

Hi Raam,

Sorry to hear about this; as a veteran tree-victim myself (AcroMaster & Habu, if you really must know  ) I know how easy it is to do...

A.

[Raam]

Thanks everyone,

Your inputs/comments were really encouraging. Had been busy at work this week, couldnt update the forum on time. As usual, Gareth was very helpful, he invited me over to his hangar on Monday to help me repair the wings. Was just amazed to see, the rate of progress with the right kind of tools and experience, creating and fixing the ribs just took under an hour, great skills. Tbh, I thought the wing was a write-off when I picked it up from the trees, I was proved wrong. Was really really impressed by the tungsten carbide abrasives [sanding block and needle files] from PermaGrit, that is a must have imo, will pick one up for myself soon.





The wing leading edge fix involved glueing two 1/4" blocks [not sure whether the thickness is right, lack of experience to measure by eye  ] and then it was sanded down to the shape.


Pending Tasks:
Create the wing tip. Will buy some 1/2" balsa from the hobby store. In order to ease the repair process, we are planning to remove the curved wing tip and instead having a flat one. Gareth suggested cutting 2 triangles out of the 1/2" and then sanding to fit, I think thats what he meant.

A slight reinforcement for one of the support frame in the fuselage, and a couple of glueings.

Filling and covering the patch work.

Lessons Learnt:
Have seen the basic repair/patching procedure
Importance of having the right kind of tools, imo, cheaper ones are false economy.

MikeS,
You might be right, I can sense the symptoms of the building bug. I have a few sheets of depron with me, will soon start looking at building one.

Gareth,
Thank you very much for letting me into your hangar and the experience that you shared with me, it had been very informative and encouraging. 

To sum up, it might be another weekend of "no flying", atleast I am happy that I will have something next week. 

[Mike S]

Raam.

Let me tell that many a machine has been hammered together in Gareth's Hanger. 

The current project of the Pushy cats is a case in point. Even my Whizzza has seen the Hanger at one point

[Raam]

Update:

After Gareth helped me replace the ribs and redesigning the wingtip, did some sanding and it was ready for covering. AndyB offered me to help with the covering and was very generous in providing me with advice and the covering material too. The covering of the wing was done in less than 1.5 hours, I was left with the other wingtip to test my knowledge that I had acquired. The finished wing looks like,

The wingtip which I did the covering for,


It was ready for a test flight on Saturday, luckily, Mike Amiss was on the patch on Saturday. Negotiated a couple of hours from the Mrs and was there for the test flight. To startwith, it was windy, Mike taxied it on the patch and powered up along the runway and off it went - airborne.. Mike had to apply some aileron trim due to the changes to the weight, but he said it was very minimal. Great!!.. test flight successful.. over to myself ...
After a fuel topup I took off and did a few circuits, it felt like new...after a break of 3 weeks... after a couple of circuits, I did settle down and began to feel it and enjoy.. Simon was kind enough to stand next to me for the next flight before I packedoff, he talked me through the flight and adviced me a few low pass throughs and to fly over the trees, it certainly did improve my confidence.  Final verdict the repair job was spot-on.. It was a great learning experience for me, thank you guys!!! 

BTW, I did add a few great tools to my kit, guess now I have all the necessary tools to get into building.. 

Once again thank you everyone for your time and support without which the Boomerang wouldnt have been airborne again, and also a successful closure of this thread. 

-Raam

[Mike S]

Great news to hear you nailed a couple of flights and got over the crash and also a big  to those that step up and helped you in you hour of need.

In this hobby a crash is not a crash it is a chance to learn to something new.