Crash,burn and repair

[brucefinley]

After reading Leester's topic, it dawned on me maybe we need a separate forum board devoted to pics of crashed AC and repair.  Why it happened and so forth-- the CSI of the CL world (Crash Scene Investigator), or am I one of the few that will rebuild a smash-up?

[john e. holliday]

For me it depends on how bad the crash was.  The ARF Streak just needed nose put back on after pulling it out of the mud.  The Olympic was scrapped as there was just too much internal damage.  DOC Holliday

[Bill Little]

I have always (well at least until recently) had to rebuild my planes.  I enjoy it, and they rarely, if ever, turn out worse than as new.

My SV 11 wing/stab is making a comeback after 10 years in a new fuselage!  Pipe 61 now, and a Novi I fuselage/look.
It will be slightly lighter, and way more power.  Hope to make the June Huntersville meet with it.
And if you ain't there, you better set the trip wires around your house.     

You are much tougher than allowing a couple of meat heads spoil your fun.  If you need a *little* help getting your point across, grab me and we'll get it worked out.  I can be real persuading.

[Andrew Hathaway]

Crashing is part of flying.  Repairing isn't any different from building.  Just pick up all the pieces and puzzle it back together.  Or cut new parts to replace the badly damaged ones. 

Most of my crashes are straight forward, poor judgement, user error, or simply a poor flying plane pushed past its limits.  I can think of two hardware failures, one was a 3-line Brodak bellcrank that came apart, the other was a nylon horn that let go after 10 years of service and a rough life.

Many of my planes have been crashed.  I've also spent a lot of time in the last year or two rebuilding, restoring, overhauling older planes.  Usually a repair or rebuild is very quick and sometimes the repair isn't even noticable on the finished product.  As long as the wing is intact I usually can salvage it.  I have been known to reuse Skyray 35 fuselages though. 

[Paul Taylor]

Well to answer the question.

I think a section just for crash and burn would be good.

Explain what you think went wrong, so others may avoid the same error.




I know everyone crash I have done I have said the same thing...." well I am not going to do that again."

[Randy Powell]

Unfortunately, with the last couple of planes I've crashed, there was nothing left to rebuild. A little tough to reconstruct confetti. I do have one plane that broke in the air, but didn't actaully crash. Managed to get it down in more or less one piece (or at least only 2 pieces). Needs a new fuselage, but it will make a comeback at some point.