Beautiful Plane, Sad Ending, Better Rebirth!

by Daniel Moree
(Hartsville, SC)

The P-51 after the rebuild, ready to go!

Well, to start this off right: I've been flying for a year and a half. Built my first plane when I was 9 or so, but my parents divorced and I no longer saw my dad who helped me get started. So I had to do it on my own. Built it with tender care! And realized last year it looks terrible, but it flies. But back to the story.

About a month and a half ago, a few of us regulars were out at the field. A beautiful day; 5mph wind, no clouds, 80 degrees, PERFECT!
Well, we all did our circuits with our planes when the club prez brings out the stunning P-51 Miss America he built like 15 years ago. Several of us helped get it together and on the blocks. After preflight checks we noticed a problem causing the throttle to stick open. Major problem, so we put it back on the stand, tore it down and did some checking. Turns our there may have been some oil in the throttle pushrod guide. Little dab of fuel and it seemed to be fine. Put it back together and did another test with refuel. We got the ok from the rest of the 4 members helping. So we put it on the ground for fly out.

The prez taxis it out and gets lined up. Throttle goes up! And it nosed over. So I walk with him out there to crank it back up and do a quick throttle check.
Back at the pilots stands we do a quick check and throttle it back up. Off it goes. Man that thing was moving. The prez lets it run flat out cleaning out the year of sludge in the engine.

After about 5 or 6 passes he starts his left bank and it starts to spin in. He recovers! Whew that was close! He climbs out at full throttle. He starts to spin in again! THUD! It buries in the field. Everything from the front of the wing forward is dust! Only little bits held to the Monokote are left.

Now the entire field is at a dead silence. He puts his radio down and says, "Oh well." He starts walking out there so I ask if he needs help. The plane was in many pieces. "Sure!" he says back. We get the plane back and all crowd around to try and come up with a solution to the problem. Battery checks fine. Maybe it was interference, but, it was 2.4GHz?

Solution! Trash it. Pull the good parts and trash it. So he looks at me. "You love building these things. Do you want it?" "Sure!" I say back to him. I pick up all the pieces and put them in the bed of my truck. 2 weeks later, 3 rolls of Monokote to match the color, one box-o-balsa from Tower and a few bottles of CA and Epoxy later and I have a great P-51 Miss America running a GWS 61!

Sunday is going to be a great day! The first time it's back out in view of the public, other than the original builder, who has now attributed his crash to not enough airspeed. He is really impressed with the rebuild and so am I. Hope everyone likes it!

This was just a story to show that, yeah there are lots of crashes, but for someone who likes building, there is always a silver lining to any crash.