2 Close Calls/Same Day

[strat1960s]

I'm at the local flying field with some friends. One friend is flying his 700 class electric when I notice it start to piro and drift down the field. Then he auto'd in for a landing. Kind of odd. I've never seen him do an auto before. When I asked, he showed me that the screw came out of the tail servo and the servo arm had come off during his flight.
So then I'm flying my Trex 600E when it starts to piro. I don't do piros on purpose! Lucky for me, I was only 10 feet off the ground when this happened and I landed before things got too crazy. I looked my heli over and sure enough, the screw came out of the ball connecting the push-rod to the tail control arm.

Two potentially dangerous and costly events that could have been prevented. I normally look over the head, linkages and electronics before a flight. I do check my tail, but fell into the habit of only looking it over when I'm done flying, during my post flight cleaning and lubing. You can count on my doing a 100% pre-flight on all my helis before I plug in the lipo from now on.

Ted