[Micojek]

This is too funny with rc trucks

I decided to do the testing and maiden at Juan de Fuca rec centre for the soft grass area. What I did not account for fully was the many, many 100 ft tall light standards.

The toss test went great. Plane was perfectly trimmed. Launched her and took her up. Wanted to stay low because there is a lot of floatplane activity there and a heli went right over before I launched her.

Plane flew so swift and graciously. The launch was breathtakinging vertical and fast! Banked her around the end of the field to come back. But my skill at spotting the relative distance between a plane and a 100 ft pole at 300 yards out wasn't what it should be. I had the goggles ready but was not flying FPV yet, was going to do a circuit or two first by line of sight.

Well the worst thing happened – the left wing clipped the pole at about 90 ft up. keerayst! dropped to the ground in a hail of balsawood.

Now I have 2 gliders in the hospital. One with a crunched left wing. Everything else is OK (the tail feathers popped off fully intact and the motor is unharmed). The other with a crunched front fuselage. You know what that means? In medicine we call it an ‘Allograft.' Seems the Passer-X will be getting Phoenix foam wings. It will add a few inches to the WS but unfortunately the wings are thicker and 120grams heavier. Might order another Passer-X just to obtain a new wing for the least effort.

In retrospect I should have put the goggles on right away. The depth perception of a line of sight flyer is severely impaired compared to the view from the FPV cam – I would have avoided the pole for sure if I had put the goggles on.

[Auteur]

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