My own fault  Me and my father went down to a little elementary school that had an open space. When we launched it climbed and flew smoothly until it started to jink ...

High Wires  I've been flying the same plane at the same field for 3 years. I know the power lines are about 1200 feet to the right but for some reason I made a wide ...

Seagull Cap 232 and Radio Interference?  Seagull Cap 232 with an SC .61 2 stroke. At about 120ft the plane seemed to stall then spiral with a small amount of elevator inputted.
Moving the controls ...

Spitfires like to keep on the ground  I bought a great rc spitfire the other day and I got my dad to help me out with it. We had completed right with experts help and took it to the park for ...

First Nitro Plane  Bought a really nice new model trainer - was an ARF - couldn't be bothered taking it to an rc flying club (bad mistake!) so took it off from a country ...

Crystal crash  A rookie error on my behalf, crashed 2 planes in 20 mins, an F-18c Tiger EDF Jet and a FW190... I know I should have gone home.
It wasn't until I collected ...

Learning to fly RC sucks!  I am very new to the pastime. I bought a $30.00 foamy from the local electronics store and enjoyed flying it in a soccer field. I decided that I had such ...

I destroyed my first RC plane myself!  I was flying my 2 flights old Boomerang ... all of sudden somebody turned on music in a car parked nearby; I was preparing for my landing at that very ...

Raptor 30  I was flying the Raptor 30 around and did my first flip ever. Then I did another... the 3rd one I tried flipped fine, however I burnt off to much rotor ...

Remnants of mid air crash  First flight of the day, only two planes in the air..... and we found each other....

Beautiful Plane, Sad Ending, Better Rebirth!  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 ...

Hand launch gone wrong!  I was getting ready to fly my Hobbico Superstar EP, everything was ready to go. I decided to hand launch it because it was its first flight and it was ...

Thank God for soft mud!  Something went real wrong and I spun in and crashed in a real soggy field. The photos show what I found when I reached the crash site.
Because of the ...

Blender in the Basement SebArt Suhkoi 50S  I had just finished building a SebArt Suhkoi 50Ss. It was sitting on a stand in my basement. The batt was hooked up and the plane was armed with the transmitter ...

Dumbthumbs and Duraplanes  I own several Duraplanes, they are tough but very breakable. Coming in for a landing I was bringing it in toward me and made a rookie mistake; a gust of ...

Snowing foam  My friend was flying a 30% Cap 232 and he didn't see the small Slo-V parkflyer and the foam profile plane flying 20 or so feet in the air.
He came around ...

RIP RTF ParkZone Spitfire  Being in the Military I wanted to get a small electric rc plane so I could readily fly when I wanted to. With help from my wife I opted for the RTF Spitfire ...

Some you hardly find  Fingers, thumbs and dumb newcomer stalled somewhere on landing approach into pine forest surrounding our field .
It took five days of searching using ...

No Comment!  What went wrong? Pilot error.

Flames in the Sky  Many years ago as a keen teenager hoping to learn more from the ancient ones, I gazed in awe at a two meter Mig 15 that the Prof had built over many months....

My RC Electric Glider  It was a nice sunny wintery day, and there was a nice northerly breeze blowing. It was that good I didn't need to use my motor, just use it as a glider....

Learning to fly RC  I mastered my Slow Stick and figured I could fly my Avistar 40 just fine...
My Avistar was designed to be powered by a .40 glow plug engine, but I decided ...

Afraid of heights with a Piper Cub!  This summer my twin brother and I decided to build matching Piper Cubs. After a few weeks of building we were finally ready to hit the field...
It had ...

Crashed on first flight... without flying!  I just finished building my PT-40 Trainer from the kit, my first time having anything to do with flying or building rc airplanes.
I had an experienced ...

Injured Seagull Arising Star  My Seagull Arising Star gas plane (follow this link to see it pre-crash. Unfortunately it doesn't look that good anymore.
A word of advice for all you ...

Aeromaster Heartbreak  I bought a beautiful Aeromaster bi-plane already built from a hobbyshop. It was flown a couple of times before I got it. I took it to the field and took ...

Rocket powered Spitfire  So, we have all been there, walking towards the broken wreckage of your plane thinking "Why did I ** insert stupid manoeuvre here **?!", but as I hinted ...

Bad luck with 4 channels and 60 engines  I had built a real nice plane that flew great. Where I fly there is the field and then a step down to the woods.
The day of the crash I started the engine ...

My Blade CP Struck a Pigeon!  I was flying and a pigeon attemped to land on the canopy!!
Of course, my reaction was late and I moved, just in time to have the wretched bird hit my ...

5 O'clock Charlie  I gave my son Jake his first RC plane for Xmas, unfortunatly the local hobby store sold me an advanced plane and not a starter/novice one. My mistake for ...

First ever flight!!  Too excited to worry about the wind, I set out to have just a quick fly with my Parkzone P-51 Mustang...
Launching the plane went well and controlling ...

RC Car Crash - Noooo!  My dad came ripping around the track and hit the dirt ramps sideways on! The rc car rolled four or five times, and finally landed on the front right tire,...

Density Altitude is real!  I was headed to the mountains for the day, it was summer hot but nice, so I thought I'd bring my plane and see if I could find a level place for take off ...

P40 mishap  A beautiful flying day at the field, my friend Ted and Jerry showed up with their Fokker Wulf and P-40, Ted flying the P40 as well as myself flying an ...

Extra Anger  My friend spent ages trying to get an Extra to fly. After what felt like hours, we checked the CofG, undercariage position, fuels system etc and eventually ...

Learning to fly  Well, I guess the first thing that went wrong was no buddy cable, and only one transmitter. That in itself should conjure an image of a game of hot potato....

Aerobird Swift - Everything Destroyed  I was flying my Aerobird Swift a few days ago, when I pushed the plane a bit too hard an it stalled at a pretty large height. Following that, the motor ...

Inspect your plane often, look for loose parts!  One of my first flights was with my Duraplane - I finished my first flight and was setting up for another and I noticed that my aileron servo was a bit ...

Falling apart P-39  I bought an old P-39 Top Flight kit and set it up as a Russian plane. It flew great until I made one to many high speed passes. The horizontal tail surface ...

Lost Firebird Commander 2  I was flying my plane, HobbyZone Firebird Commander 2, in a big 30 acre field on a windless day. It was all going fine when suddenly something got jammed ...

Aerobird Extreme-Gs!  My first 3 channel plane was an Aerobird Extreme, now known as the Aerobird 3. I wasn't the best rc pilot at the time, but I could do some basic aerobatics....

My Giant RC Plane  In 2004, I bought a gigantic 84 inch wingspan rc plane. About 4 months later I was about to do my 1st flight... It lifted up fine, but after about a minute ...

At-6  My friend Phil Camp and I had built an At-6 that took almost a year of weekly building and beer drinking.
It was a Top-Flite Gold Edition balsa build ...