Well, I have been waiting for this day a long time now.
It had to happen eventually...
Me and my buddy were out on a parking lot as he is still training his hovering. In between his flights, I fired up my 450 and showed off a bit - it was going very well. I was flying big, doing loops and inverted hovers close to the ground. Just as he had used up all his packs, I was just gonna drain my last pack before going home. At this point I was getting real confident and a little bit "frisky".
I had been hovering inverted between a parking sign and a giant lamp post many times - maybe 5 feet off the ground. It was after doing some tic tocs, I came down to the same place, decided to flip it back to inverted in the same spot. In the backwards flip to invert, I realize I'm waaaay to close to the ground and choose to abort; I instantly try to flip it forwards while it's loosing altitude, the bird's straightening out and she glides backwards into the left sign post.
The bird was tail inn, and backed towards me fast! The tail of the bird hit the back of this sign.
Could clearly see where the tail guard bracket had smacked into the sign.
Yes, there was a big bang...
AND THE LUCK! OH MY GOD THE LUCK!
The tail bracket snapped off, flying out in cosmos.
My buddy was shouting; "LAND, LAND, LAND".
Unbelievable enough, the bird was still flying!!
I a panic, I just set her down in the gravel around the sign post.
The bird seems very much whole and working
Damage report:
Tail bracket.
Tail blades.
Front tail gear stripped.
Maybe bent boom.
She's on the work bench now, being disassembled.
