Extra 260 Onboard. Almost Crashed 3 Times, Thanks Wind

[Tony]

Okay so after a couple weeks of not flying and missing out on two perfect days to fly, I took my chance today since the weather said it was going to calm down. When I got there, it was "kinda" calm but not really. Either way, I was there, I had 4 planes with me (50" Edge 540, 40" Edge 540 Mini, 40" Extra 260, 30" Rogue 3D Bipe) and something was going into the air.

The first plane I tossed up was the Extra 260 since my mcpx is toast. I usually toss up my heli just to calm the nerves. But today, all I had was planes. So I put a battery in it to "calm my nerves" but the wind had another idea for me. Take a look at the video and see what I'm talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM6M1pIl4kw

 

[murankar]

Not to bad considering the conditions. You are lucky you were able to bring it in with out causing it to become many pieces.

 

[Lee]

Very close call. Lets see it from the wing tip view.

 

[RandyDSok]

Well... Tony's description of "kinda calm" is only relative for Oklahoma winds... lol

I got to the field just a little after Tony had about 4pm give or take, only enough time for him to have unloaded the 4 planes and take a few before shots...

That would place the time of the first flight as seen above, I'd guess somewhere close to 4:15pm ... The winds, according to Mesonet, were 14mph gusting to 22mph and I can say for certain that it was mostly gusts for the better part of that afternoon/evening. By the time I left, around 6:30pm.... the winds had only calmed down to 10mph gusting to 18mph... There were a handful of times when the winds dropped below 10mph but they didn't last long, perhaps minutes at best.

 

[coolgabsi]

DANG!! THat was awesome! lol.. third one was great as you could actually see the elevator full throw and grass so freaking close! man! you did good man!!


nice knife edges and flat spins!!!

its funny.. you calm your nerves with the mcpx and fly planes after.. for me.. i calm my nerves with my planes, and then fly my helis.. heehee

 

[Tony]

Yeah, it's a little bassackwards but I don't care if the mcpx crashes. I do care if one of these planes crash lmao. And in that pause I did of the grass, I had a shot that was closer, but it was a little more blurry than this one. All in all, it landed, not that great since I nosed it up, thank you grass, but it's still in one piece.

Randy, I'm sure you have seen, it was the wind that pushed me down and not a brown out. For those that are right now, the two times the plane started nose diving to the ground, we couldn't tell if it was a brown out on the Tx, or if it was the wind. To me, it felt like the wind, and the video proved that finally. I was getting a little worried that my DX8 and the AR6115 were losing signal. I was about to be very mad lmao. But, thank you wind, you were the cause. And I wasn't kidding about the "Pucker Factor". If I was in a car, I would no longer have a seat cover lmao.

 

[Tony]

Oh, and the knife edges SUCKED lol. There was a lot of coupling with this wind. The flat spin I had only done on the sim, and I thought why not doing it first flight out lol. After stopping the spin, I was getting worried that it was not going to pull out of it in time since I had 0 air speed. But added a little power and it flipped over and tossed the tail down enough to gain some lift. It was fun. I will be doing it more in later flights.

 

[breeze400]

Cant get any closer than that! LOL

 

[Tony]

Oh I could have, but I would have to learn how to fly without a tail lmao. When I was flying, I didn't think I got that close to the ground when I paused the video lol. I love video.