gyro
GSN Contributor
There was no rebuilding. It trashed a little of everything. Fuse was toast from firewall to turtledeck and more around the fin, one wing had several cracked ribs, one stab trashed, fin/rudder trashed and shoved into the fuse, cowling trashed, canopy trashed, bunch of stripped servo gears, etc. I was in a low rolling harrier, then went to full throttle to do a rolling half cuban to come back the other direction. As soon as it got vertical, PPPPPpppp! Dead. No forward speed, almost no wind, maybe 15ft above the asphault. It didn't quite get level enough for the inverted pancake. I knew it was done no matter what when the engine died. I put rc to the side after that around November, since I had nothing to fly and got back to finishing my PPL. Got that wrapped up in Jan.(and drained the bank account) and then had a major club issue that lead to me resigning my membership for the year. I do have my 104" Slick. It wasn't assembled then. I got it almost wrapped up but nowhere here to maiden or fly. Kind of a good/bad year. Might have to maiden the dang thing in Fort Smith, which also means breaking in a brand new engine so there won't be anything exciting coming from that plane for about 8 gallons. It's just been a bit rough lately. I'm hoping a FLI is just what I need to turn things around.
I FLI with friends will definitely turn some bad times around... I just finished recording a segment of our next podcast with Bivens, and we talk about how awesome the FLI series is for the friends and camaraderie.
-G