I got luckier than anyone ever did

[DethWshBkr]

Flying my Somthing' Extra this past weekend, as I just got it used about two weeks ago, did a bunch of work, and I am enjoying the RELAXING flight time of an airplane.

Pushing out some hard full throttle full elevator figure 8s, and all the sudden I lose control. Aileron inputs are all kinds of bad, but she is just flopping around in the air about 150 feet up. I thought it was radio losing reception, so I started running towards it. Next thing I know, she's in a full fledged floppy dive straight into the ground.
My dad, next to me was yelling "chop the throttle!!!" Well, I instinctively hit "throttle hold" which of course, did nothing!!! I DID neutralize the throttle/collective stick, as I would do in the event of a heli malfunction. About 25 feet off the ground, I actually chopped the power, and she went in.

Ran down to it, and NOT A SCRATCH ON THE AIRPLANE. Not a hole in the monokote, not a broken prop, NOTHING. The spinner and prop were covered in dirt, but I picked up a fully intact airplane.
The ONLY thing I saw, was the right wing trailing edge was down about an inch. It appears as though the locator dowel (opps on my part for not gluing it into the fuselage!) pushed out of the right wing, and it was able to just rotate a little bit around the main joining spar. The fuselage did have a slight break where the wing attachment hook was jamming into it, and the main spar tube in the fuselage was slightly loose.

UNBELIEVABLE.


I filled in the flight fuse hole, and epoxied the main wing tube, and added some plywood gussets, just to be safe. I just cannot believe I did not walk away with toothpicks that day!!!

[memosteve]

That's super-lucky!!! You should hurry up and buy a lotto ticket!

[WillJames]

+1 on the Lottery Ticket. Go ahead and get two of them.

Glad to hear you took home everything in one piece.

[Mike2112]

One time I had a Cap 232 nitro that I stalled on approach. It would up entering a spin and fell behind a school building. When I got there, not a scratch at all. Weird how that kind of stuff happens. About a year later I taxied into a basket ball post and destroyed it beyond repair. 5 knot taxi, did it in.

[Twill]

That's my wreck i lost power servos and all I freaked hit throttle hold like heli stupid smash wish I would have thought to drop throttle. Lol

[veloflier]

It's just trying to make the switch to one thing from another. Sometimes the brain just doesn't want to co-operate! lol.

[codfish124]

iv set up a hold on most of my airplanes. i did it cause id bump the throttle almost chopping off fingers but have hit in in a crash

[jdr00ejr]

Originally Posted by codfish124

iv set up a hold on most of my airplanes. i did it cause id bump the throttle almost chopping off fingers but have hit in in a crash

Not to get too off topic - but out of curiosity - what Radio - and how did you do it?

To the OP: Awesome to hear you didn't toothpick it!