Blond moment

[Sao]

1. First tentative hover in the garden with my first 'big' E Heli.
Check swash moves the right way, move stick right, swash moves right. Move stick back swash goes back. Ok ready for flight, walk back around to the tail of the heli and fire it up, Heli tips left, move stick right, heli tips more left, give it more right stick... BANG blades hit ground. Yup I was stood in front when checking swash direction.

2. Showing off to mates. Wanna see a loop? Watch this!
Hmm the headspeed seems to be dropping when I add negative... Lets try an inverted climbout then... Oh the motor is off... F*&k F&*K I have it in normal mode.

3. Fiddling with Eolo after tail repairs, Ok I need HH mode on the gyro which is in idle up, flick into idle up, heli spins up and the tail whips around into the tools I am using and breaks the pitch sliderI had just replaced.

I expect I have made quite a few more blunders in my time

[trebor27]

I have 1 confession....

Hmmm whats that loud buzzing noise....

Strange my canopy seems to be vibrating like mad! That's odd...
Yeah Look at my RX aerial that spans from the PVC tube to my tail! It looks like a skipping rope!
(At which point I hover the heli over to me to see if I can see what's vibrating like mad....)

Hmm definately looks wrong....

BANG!

Tail kicks 30 degrees, I manage to catch it and bring the tail back but now the heli is shaking like CR*P!!!!
I put her down in a hurry. As she spools down I realise there is only 1 tail rotor left, 1 tail blade grip and no aerial wire!

The aerial wire had chafed through on the tail fin (from the vibes) and went straight through the tail, removing a tail grip at the hub!

Tail blade and grip are poking straight out the lawn! Luckily not my head!

lesson.. If something is not right, land IMMEDIATELY and investigate! Don't hover it closer to you! It could have been so much worse!

Still don't know where the vibes were coming from to start with... I suspect the tail but don't know!
I'm still awaiting a new tail hub and set of blade grips! (1 month and counting! GGGRRR!)

[Janek]

My list would be soooooooo long !, but here's an example of a real plonker moment that lasted about an hour !

There I was at the field, having just arrived, models unpacked, fueled and sitting proudly on the bench, soaking up the sun, patiently waiting for me to dig out the glow driver, insert start wand into recepticle, and connect up the starter to it's attached NiCad's. All ready, TX/RX on, models on, fuel in, glow driver attached, start wand in model. . . . . . . . . turn over the starter. . . . . . .nothing. It turns OK, it just doesn't turn the engine over ????.

I manually check everything (almost !), and could find NOTHING wrong, except that the starter appeared to be slipping ?, even tried my other model, same symptoms. . . . . must be the rubber cup I thought ?. . . . . off to Skyline's (10 Mins each way).

Back where I started (or not !), new cup in place, starter inserted into model, turn over the starter. . . . . . .nothing, still not turning the engine over !!!!

%$£%!$"%!, WTF, where's the Cat, I need something to kick.

Coffee and a sit down. . . . . .calm is restored, I stare impatiently at the starter sitting on the bench, looking good with it's brand new rubber cup. . . . . . and red battery cable attached to black started cable, and vice versa. . . . . . .DOH

In my defence, this was in the days prior to Dean's connectors, and I'm as thick as Sh1t !

[Ashley Davis]

Connecting up a 10S pack on my parents carpet using two 5S packs and bullet connectors.

Plug black to red to wire them in series, then plug the next black to red because I'm an arse....... bang, black hands, and a nice hole in the carpet where the bullets melted straight through it. Thought I was plugging the ESC in, turns out I was dead shorting the pack out on itself. doh.

Decided to use deans after that.....much safer.

[Tim Procter]

Connecting up a 10S pack on my parents carpet using two 5S packs and bullet connectors.

Plug black to red to wire them in series, then plug the next black to red because I'm an arse....... bang, black hands, and a nice hole in the carpet where the bullets melted straight through it. Thought I was plugging the ESC in, turns out I was dead shorting the pack out on itself. doh.

Decided to use deans after that.....much safer.

Lets not forget the remembering to put helis in the boot before backing over them Ash..

[Ashley Davis]

thanks mate.....was expecting someone else to bring that one up

[xygax]

Trouble starting me rap60..done araido check and all was ok cept it wouldnt start... Persevere.... didnt cross my mind to lookk at the radio thar was set for shuttle.... The only diference was the direction on the throttle servo..!!!!!!! then it started...............!!!!!!!!!>>>!>>>>!>!>!!...!
oooops... by the grace of god i had hold of the blade grip.........by the time i got the fuel line off the clutch was on the floor.... The schuttle got changed that day....

Steve