Ep 55: So, you crashed. Can it be fixed? And who’s Duellist was faster???

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In this episode

Join us for the main discussion, practical takeaways, and stories from this episode of RC Plane Lab.

It happens to all of us from time to time. Sometimes when you fly, you crash. But, how do you know if it’s a total loss, or if it can be rebuilt? Tune in to see what Ron and Tom have to say on the subject.

Also on this show, Ron and Tom settle a bet on who’s Duellist was faster during their maiden flights. You may be surprised by the numbers.

Episode 55 Transcript

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability. Timestamps are retained.

Read the full transcript [0:00] Hello everyone, welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I'm Ron. I'm Tom. So you just crashed. Can it be fixed? I didn't just crash, by the way. No. You threw me when you said that. I didn't crash. Nobody we know of crashed, but it happens. It does. And so we had someone text us, and they asked such a great question that I can't believe that we haven't covered this yet. Yeah, I know. And I'm actually excited. This is going to be a fun one.

[0:35] Yeah, so the text was basically, well, here's what they said. Hi, guys. Love the show. I'll here's what they said hi guys love the show I've crashed a couple of airplanes and was wondering how when they're repairable or if they just need to be thrown away thanks Phil so Phil great question thanks for the great question and show topic yeah yeah we're going to devote almost an entire episode to this subject so thanks Phil because it's such a great topic I

[1:04] can't believe we haven't talked about it yet. Yeah. So we'll give you our thoughts on that here shortly. But before we get into that, we have a couple other things to talk about. First off, I just want to say our listeners are awesome. I've been meaning to bring this up for,

[1:17] gosh, quite a while now. But I keep forgetting to. So back when the wives were on we mentioned that we had had been downloaded in every state except for alaska and we said maybe jokingly maybe seriously maybe seriously if any of our listeners knew someone who lived in alaska to ask them to download and listen to us so that we could have reached all all 50 states yeah less than a week after we released that episode we had quite a few downloads in Alaska, and they're still growing.

[1:48] And they're growing. So… So thank you. Yeah. To whichever one of you guys made that happen, thank you. We can now say that we have listeners in every state. Every state. And over 60 countries. That's crazy. Which I think is kinda cool. And thank you to our foreign listeners. Yeah. And hopefully watchers. Out of country. And thank you to our foreign listeners and hopefully watchers. Out of country. That's awesome. Yeah, I'm just blown away by that. Like, I can't get over that.

[2:14] It's humbling, honestly. Two ding-dongs talking about RC airplanes and people listen. Yeah, like I said, I'm blown away by that. But from the bottom of my heart, thank you. You guys all make this worthwhile. Yeah, definitely makes this easier to do, knowing that so many people are listening. So thank you from me as well. Greatly appreciated. So next up, if you don't mind, we're going to be giving away this radio right here, the Flysky FS-I6, six-channel transmitter and receiver combo.

[2:52] Just wanted to remind everybody we're going to do that. We talked about it in the last episode. I installed it in an airplane, and my first impression, the thing works flawlessly. Had a solid communication link between the transmitter and the airplane. Some quirks with programming that I'm not crazy about, but for the price, man, it worked great, which is a good thing that it worked great because we don't want to give away something that's total crap.

[3:19] Yeah, that would have been embarrassing to try it out after we say we're giving it away and then, yeah, this is not worthwhile. Yeah. Oh, here you go. So far, I'm impressed. We'll see what happens. I'm going to turn it over to Ron here after I'm done thrashing. He's going to put it in one of his electric airplanes and see how that works on the electric side. Yeah. So, you got your stick out and put it in there for a few flights. Yeah, and like I said, it worked flawlessly.

[3:45] So, stay tuned. We're going to do a full unboxing and review video. We'll post that to the YouTube channel here in the near future. Quick question on that, though. With that transmitter, can you get more than one receiver for it, or is it just bound to that single one? No, the thing has, I believe, 20 model memories, and you could have 20 receivers with this thing, and they're surprisingly cheap. I mean, like the radio. The radio is $48 on Amazon.

[4:12] You can buy a two-pack of the receivers that go with that radio for $25. Wow. Yeah. If you want the, and those are a hard-cased receiver, not like the soft-sided receiver that you'll see in the video that comes with it. These are actually, hard plastic-cased receivers. Two for $25, yeah. That's impressive. Yeah. That's a good price. It's a very good price, especially if you're wanting to, build a hangar's worth of, airplanes.

[4:40] You'll be able to fly them relatively inexpensively. And who doesn't want a hangar full of airplanes? I mean, really. I mean, yeah, I don't know anybody that doesn't, that gets into this hobby. Speaking of more airplanes, you have procured another engine for the TriMotor. I did. So I eBay this time for the win. Nice. Got an OS120 four-stroke, and this one's with a pump. So, we'll be able to mount this one in the nose of our tri-motor, and we can put the tank,

[5:12] because of the pump, anywhere we want and not have to worry about fuel draw issues. That'll be awesome. Yeah. Because then we can put the interior however we want it and not worry about a tank being in the way. Yeah, and yeah where the tank is at and then speaking of engines the plan the plan is kind of evolving we don't know what we're doing yet that's okay we know we know really for sure we're

[5:37] gonna stick the 120 that i just got in the nose and then here on the table we've got the the engine that will also be in a video an engine run video here, hopefully in the near future, if we can get weather to cooperate. But this is an OS91 that one of our friends, Reggie, gave to us. And the plan was to put this 120 that I just got in the nose and then two 91s, one in each nacelle. But we're kind of thinking we may go with a little bit bigger still. Bigger still.

[6:10] Which is Ron's favorite motto, go bigger. Well, 120 inches is not all that big. Oh, my gosh. I think we should do 130. Aim for that. Well, since that's sort of the direction we're going, I'm thinking to get the headroom we want power-wise, I'm thinking maybe a couple of more of the 120 four-strokes. So I'm going to be scouring the Internet for more 120s, and we may save the 91 here for a future project. For something else. Who knows what. But, yeah.

[6:42] Something else you build, because I don't like nitro. Something else, who knows what. But yeah, so… Something else you build, because I don't like nitro. And you figured it out on the scale that we're kind of looking at. A scale prop size is about a 12 inch or so. So 120, it's going to turn a 16.8 prop pretty good. Maybe a 17.10 if we can find something that unusual. But I think a bigger prop looks better than a smaller prop. So even a scale

[7:10] prop at that size, I don't think it's going to look right. So bigger props, I'm okay with. We'll see. We'll see. We just have to build the plane bigger. And we can always go with the three-bladed too, like the Ford tri-motors. No. The one I rode on was a two-blade. Okay. Well, I was going to say the five ATs, I think some of the later, the B and C models, I believe some of them were equipped with three blades and also had cowlings, which might look kind of cool. Oh.

[7:34] Well, we'll have to look into it more, too. If we're going to model it after the one that you rode on, then it's going to be a two-blade, and we're going to be looking at 16-inch props. So since we're going bigger than the plans we have up here on the board, that's not a bad thing. Well, maybe we can push it to 140 inches. Oh, my gosh. Well, we need bigger engines still then. Oh, these wouldn't do 140? Oh, they probably would if we kept the weight down.

[7:59] But that's a conversation for some of the time. We'll see what it ends up. But for now, yeah. For now, we're aiming for 130. But bottom bottom line i have another new engine coming on the way that i get to tinker with that's going to be awesome which is yeah i i like tinkering with engines obviously okay next up okay i have a bet to settle with you, do you remember way back when we were doing the duelists? Okay. We bet each other on whose was faster. Yes. Whoever's was.

[8:34] I do remember that now. Whoever's was slower was going to have to provide dinner for us the next time our families get together. Yep. So, should we find out who does the cooking? Well, so, yes, we should find out, and if you have some sort of proof, that's great, but I can tell you, having flown both airplanes, I mean, I know which one is faster, but you go ahead and let's provide the proof. Do tell,

[8:59] who's this faster? If, like, if I had to… Because i've not told you numbers yet so this is actually new to you so this is fast i feel like flying them wise i mean yours was fast no question about it but i feel like mine was faster okay well we are going to find out okay so we have a couple all right i can't wait to find out now so we have a couple. Go ahead. I can't wait to find out now. So we have a couple videos to play showing the official speeds we got on our Maidens. Really? So.

[9:31] Cool. the GoPros that we had on there actually have the GPS built into them so we can figure out. Oh, that's right. Okay. So we can figure out how fast we went. So. Okay. Should we watch it on this fake TV that's behind us? What fake TV? This one. Nice. Thanks. i thought so so i'm gonna go first okay you ready i'm ready here we go it's a really great shot yeah i like it too 95 miles an hour. I… Boy, I don't know. 95. And I'm going to be honest, slower than I thought.

[10:20] Oh, really? Yeah. See, man, my impression flying it was not that it was slow. It just so easy to… Yours was so easy to fly that it just didn't feel that fast. It's weird. Well, 95 is what I got. I'm actually a little nervous now. I was hoping for… I felt fast compared to yours, but damn. I was hoping for 100, but what? 95 is good for now. So, you ready to find out what you got yeah okay that's all right i love that sound

[10:59] so i will give you split second yeah 98 98. it's still not 100 no neither one of them that's a lot closer than i would have expected like i really no kidding having flown both of them i felt that mine was like noticeably faster but i mean obviously the numbers don't lie numbers don't lie. The numbers don't lie. You did win. How about that? So I will be cooking next time. However, the bet was who was faster on our maidens. You were faster on our maiden.

[11:32] I will fully give you that one. Under protest. Under protest. Okay, what's the protest? Camera position. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I could see that. So Tom had his camera mounted right behind yep right behind the canopy right on top of the fuselage and mine was right on the nose yeah so there was this huge square box yep on the front of my airplane i think the canopy on on my airplane probably blanked off some of the or at least smoothed out some of the air around the camera behind it.

[12:08] So, I don't feel like the drag of the camera on mine was probably as much, had much of an effect as the camera position on yours. Yeah, and that's what I'm going with. So, I would like to go out there sometime and try it again. Oh, yeah, for sure. Everything the same. There's more in both of them.

[12:30] Yeah. sometime and try it again oh yeah for sure everything the same so there's more in both of them yeah i mean there's no question tinkering with different things like the camera position or the props even tuning on my in in the case of of mine i i think there's i think 100 is reachable well i would like to try a two blade prop yeah like i think that would probably be a little bit faster. Wouldn't look as cool.

[12:45] You're right. You've said before that the three blades look better. I do like the look of the three blades. But I think the two blades will be quicker. I agree. Yeah, I think, well, the two blades are probably going to be more efficient, and they're probably going to develop more thrust. So, yeah. With an electric, it's weird, though, because, an with an electric it's weird though because with an electric

[13:05] motor the idea is to keep the motor in that in that that range where it amp draw versus rpm and all that kind of stuff so i mean you'd have to get the right two blade and i don't know what it is for those motors you'd have to know, get a watt meter or something like that. But on a nitro motor, yeah, I think there's, yeah, definitely more in mine. Maybe a smaller diameter prop with a little more leaning on the needles. Yeah, could be. Our plan is to both hit 100.

[13:39] I mean, and really, yeah, definitely. Like, if you're faster than me, but I still hit 100, I'm happy. Yeah. There's no question in my mind that both airplanes are capable of 100 mile an hour. Yeah. Especially with that close without trying. Yeah. And in the video, I mean, after going back and watching the video a couple of, well, okay, more than a couple. I like watching those videos, by the way. Those are really cool. Yeah. You did a really good job editing them.

[14:03] Thank you. those are really cool yeah you did a really good job editing them thank you but after listening to to the to the engines on mine it's it's funny how the day of they sounded fine and then going back and listening to the video or watching the video and listening to the engines like wow i really could have done a better job tuning them you so i didn't think anything about yours until i heard mine run so mine sounded like they spooled up a lot more than yours did. Yeah.

[14:27] Or more, if not a lot more. But, it sounded like I was running a higher RPM than you were, which I was not expecting that. And it may sound that way because of the different prop, too. That could be. But, yeah, they definitely sounded different. And I will say something that's probably very unpopular. I like the sound of mine so much more than I like the sound of yours. I so thought you were going to say you like the sound of mine, but of course not.

[14:50] Well, I like it, but not as much as mine. There's just, I don't know, and maybe it's the propellers or what. If I put the same props on that you have, maybe I won't like it as much. I don't know. But I just think it sounds cool. It does. I like the sound of them both. I like the counter rotating props too and looking at that video like i can't believe how fast yours accelerates well that's electric

[15:12] well that's true there's like it's like an off switch yeah it's right there when you need it it's right there that's true but it does it does accelerate really really quickly so yet another reason electric is superior to nitro boy here we go plus i don't have to tune mine how long are you trying to start yours and tune yours and do all this kind of stuff and i'm just sitting there like drinking a cup of coffee waiting for you to go yeah i didn't have to go

[15:37] out early to tune my motors nope you didn't but anyway i'm gonna bring you to electric one of these days. Hey, listen, I have never once claimed on any of our episodes to this point that there was anything wrong with electric. No, you're right. They are supremely convenient. Yeah. But I'm a hobbyist. I like to tinker, and electrics, they work so well. So what am I? Am I not? They work so well that you don't have to tinker with them. So am I not a hobbyist then? Is that what you're saying?

[16:12] No, you're a hobbyist. You're just not a tinkerer. No. When it comes to the engine. That's true. The power plant. When I'm ready for something to work, I want it to work. Exactly. And be clean. I mean, that's just,. Preference. Exactly. Which is why our team works so well. Yeah. And, like I've said before, I have a couple of electric airplanes, and I like them. I just don't like them as much as my Nitros. Yeah. Even though they do frustrate me sometimes. Okay.

[16:39] So, are we ready to get back to Phil's question? Back to Phil's question. Okay. Phil, how do if an airplane is fixable or if it's time to move on? And I'll add a little bit to that. If it's time to move on, what do you do with the carnage? I mean, right? Because if you've got to move on, there's still something that can be done with it. In front of us right here, this beautiful airplane is a prime example of an airplane

[17:09] what it is an airplane and it is a prime example of an airplane because it's an airplane sorry you tickle yourself it's a prime example of an airplane that was example of an airplane that was I guess we'll just say it had a rough landing yeah that's putting it putting it mildly this is the one I talked about a couple months ago on the podcast that was given to me by an older gentleman had the

[17:38] field he had the unfortunate mishap with it. To him, it was beyond repair. When I saw it, it looks to me completely fixable. And that kind of leads me to my first point of answering Phil. So the answer to his question is going to depend on who you're talking to. Some people will fix or try to fix almost anything. Other people will move on even just the simplest of fixes. They won't even try it. Right. So on this one, I will be repairing the firewall very soon.

[18:15] It looks a lot worse than it is. Yeah, and they usually do. Yeah, and I'll be doing a video on that. So kind of be looking out for that in the near future or not too distant future because there's really not a lot that goes into it. Yeah, I think our listeners would appreciate maybe some kind of a demonstration of how to repair. Not to sound bad, but for us to do repair videos on airplanes that have crashed, we have to have airplanes that have crashed.

[18:47] And we don't tend to crash airplanes. We have to get them from other people right now. Yeah. Which is not a bad thing. No, it's a good thing, but it makes it difficult for us to do repair videos on airplanes. It does. So, Reggie, if you're listening. Oh, no. Sorry, Reggie. Keep flying, buddy. He does. He flies a lot. Keep flying, buddy. He does. He flies a lot. Provide us with more. I don't want to say ammo. Provide us with more content. Subject matter. There you go. Yeah. So, Tom. Right.

[19:17] We crashed. Yeah. it's never a good feeling, after a crash. But what do you do next, right?? So I'll just get right into it. So immediately following a crash, I have experience at this, and most of us do. I do too. If you don't already know why you crashed, it's one thing if you crashed because you did something stupid, like I did a loop too low, or I tried to do something fancy to show off for my wife, girlfriend, husband, significant other.

[19:51] Or you thought you could do it. Or I thought I could do it, but I couldn't. Because you've done it on a simulator before and it's not the same thing in real life. Yeah, I could do it on the simulator. I can do it in front of me. Been there, done that. So that you already know why you crashed because you did something silly. But if you don't already know, you want to try to determine what caused the crash

[20:12] if you can, so you don't repeat that. And to do that, when you come up to the crash site, if the plane is mostly intact and the battery is still connected that's a key that's a key point try to operate the radio system if it's still operational maybe you can look at the at the linkages or to or check the hinges on the control surfaces for flutter or see if there was some sort of a mechanical failure that maybe or see if the

[20:45] servo isn't working or exactly yeah you have to be careful with servos sometimes they break gear trains in the crash so a noisy servo at the crash site is not necessarily an indicator of what caused it but it could certainly it could certainly maybe lead you down a path to finding, what the reason was. So, also something you could check is if, I'm not familiar with Futaba equipment or anything

[21:14] other than Spectrum really well, and other than FlySky now as well, with Spectrum receivers, they will, if it's still powered on when you get to the crash site, they will tell you if they got a hold or if there was frame loss by the number of blinking lights. And it's in the manual for every receiver that you get from spectrum. If they have that, it's flight log. And most of them have it. And most of them have it.

[21:51] But they will tell you, maybe you had a hold or maybe the radio system, had a brownout or a brownout is a loss of signal. Brownout is not a loss of signal as much as it's a loss of power. Loss of power. Excuse me. You're right. Yeah, loss of power. Anyway, if everything is intact and the battery is still plugged in and everything is still kind of working you can move through the control surfaces and check the airplane out

[22:08] mechanically and obviously if the radio is working you can kind of maybe look at the receiver if it's a spectrum and and determine if it's a radio issue if the unfortunate event is that the battery is unplugged when you get there well well, I wouldn't necessarily recommend plugging it back in and checking everything unless you are for sure confident that the LiPo isn't ready to just explode in your face. Yeah. Because sometimes, yeah. There's a difference between LiPo crashes

[22:35] and nitro crashes. Yeah, for sure. LiPos, if they get deformed in a crash, there's a good possibility that the internal short or whatever happens inside a LiPo battery can make it do its thing that you can't reverse. You mean catching on fire and exploding? Go up in flames and, yeah, potentially. So, if it's unplugged, leave it unplugged. Maybe when you get back to the workbench, plug it into a good battery and kind of operate the

[23:05] controls if you can to try to rule out any mechanical issues or anything like that. But sometimes you may never know. Sometimes you may have crashed and you just don't know what happened. It's been my experience when that happens, it's usually some kind of pilot error. To be honest, I've gotten disoriented before and crashed because of that. So usually if you can't find a mechanical reason or some kind of a radial malfunction, more often than not, it's some form of pilot error.

[23:38] Usually disorientation close to the ground is usually the culprit. Oh, and that reminds me. So not only is it disorientation, but sometimes things will happen, and you don't actually know what happened. So I remember it was my, I think it was my edge, that seagull edge that I had. The first or second time I flew that, when I was coming in for a landing, I couldn't tell you what happened.

[24:04] It just fell out of the air. I mean, I thought I was coming in for a landing, I couldn't tell you what happened. It just fell out of the air. I mean, I thought I was going fast enough. I thought I was in good shape. But luckily, it was on video. And even after watching the video, I wasn't sure what happened, but I think it was you and a couple other guys I showed it to. And you said I stalled. Would not have thought that at the speed of that airplane. That's pilot error. Right.

[24:27] But having it on video. Oh, yeah, that helped. Having it on video helped because then I could actually blame myself and see what I did as opposed to doubting that it was something else. Oh, I got you. Yeah. So that airplane obviously was different than anything else I had flown up to that point. That was a, that's a pretty fast airplane, aerobatic type airplane that you have to keep your speed up on. Yes. Like even with landing, you couldn't go under half throttle-ish

[24:55] or else it would just lose too much airspeed. Yeah. And that's another common, we're not, the focus of this episode is not to prevent crashes, but yeah, usually too slow on landing. That's another common reason for what they've got on the table. So what should you do next? So you've made it to the crash site and you've determined what caused the crash, whatever that is. What you should do next, if it hasn't already been done by the impact, you should unplug all the batteries.

[25:29] Like I said, lipos, if they get deformed in a crash, they can go off. Sorry, when you say all the batteries, there are some people that don't know what all batteries you're talking about because some of the airplanes we fly have three batteries in them. Right. Unplug them all. Whatever batteries in the airplane, unplug them all. Just to be safe. Nickel metal hydride type batteries like our regular receiver packs like we use in nitro

[25:55] airplanes or gassers even sometimes, those are usually a little more robust they can usually tolerate impact but i don't take any chances with lithium polymers lithium ions any of the lithium type batteries just unplug it put it someplace safe where if it does catch fire that it's not going to destroy anything else yeah any of the types of batteries that are malleable exactly that'll move anything that'll bend yeah exactly

[26:25] because that's what happens in an impact yeah exactly stuff moves when it shouldn't yeah so what you should do next after you've unplugged everything collect all the pieces and kind of get an overall impression of the scope even if you if you're not into rebuilding or you're you're sure you're not going to rebuild it, collect all the pieces and kind of get an overall impression of the scope of a potential rebuild,

[26:51] because you never know, you may want to. And you can kind of get an indication of how tough that's going to be by how many pieces there are and how big those pieces that are left are. And also pick everything up because somebody else might want to rebuild it. Exactly. Yeah, that was going to be one of the things I talked about next. Collect all the pieces. That's okay. Even if you don't plan on rebuilding it, collect all the pieces

[27:16] because you may change your mind. You may decide later on that you want to rebuild it and now it's two weeks later and it's rained and the pieces have blown away, or somebody else has picked them up. Or maybe somebody else might want to say, hey, listen, I'll rebuild that for you because I knew that meant something to you. If you don't have all the pieces, it makes the rebuild even that much harder. Yeah.

[27:38] But when you're looking at the pieces, you want to pay close attention to the tricky parts that might be hard to replicate. And that's usually some of the more tricky pieces, for me anyway, are the wing saddle area, like where the wing and the fuselage kind of come together. Yeah. If those pieces are largely intact, then that's a pretty good start on a rebuild. Because usually, as long as that area of the airplane is intact,

[28:08] you're not going to have to worry about wing incidents and things like that when you're doing your repair. So if those areas are really, really splintered really badly, then, yeah, maybe it's beyond rebuild and maybe you just need a new airplane at that point. Maybe it's beyond rebuild for you, but you never know. And the other thing, too, that makes a big difference is if you have the plans for it.

[28:32] We made fun of Tom before for keeping all his old plans, but, there's a reason for it sometimes. So if something happens to a plane you built. So if something happens to a plane you built.

[28:52] And there's, I mean, not to get too off topic, but there is a good argument for not hanging on to all the plans because of all the websites out there that have free plans and stuff like that. But not all the plans are out there as you've recently discovered. They aren't. And if you can't print them yourself, then it makes it a lot more difficult too. True. So it's funny how we've kind of switched switched positions on that

[29:07] so so next yeah collect collect all the pieces the decision to rebuild is going to depend on many many many things it's going to depend on the damage where the damage is at and like i said some parts are going to be easier to repair than others like honestly and i know not everybody's watching on on youtube but this plane that's sitting in front of me that's a great example this is probably one

[29:32] of the easiest repairs that we would have to make to an airplane it looks bad it really does it looks terrible but it's not going to be that difficult to fix it all. No, no, because you have all the pieces. For the most part, yeah. For the most part. Not everything. And the pieces that are missing are easy enough to, what's the word I'm looking for? Re-imagine, not reimagine, re-engineer. Re-engineer, yeah. Like one of the biggest.

[30:04] But you can tell the shape of the piece that it's supposed to be because the piece that's missing, is a key piece or is a piece that's just filler or whatever. So yeah, you'll be able to make the pieces you need and basically you'll have a new airplane. Yeah. Or a new front end at least on this airplane because you'll have the correct pieces in place.

[30:22] And there won't really be any reinforcement necessary because you'll have the correct pieces in place and there won't really be any reinforcement necessary because you'll be putting original type pieces where they were in their original location so even though it looks bad it's it's not right this is like i said one of the easiest repairs that we could have had to have done for an airplane it's not all like splintered up like like sometimes they can get. And like

[30:45] some of our other crashes. Yeah. And splinters are like, puzzle pieces. They usually kind of only fit together one way. And if you can recreate that part of the airplane by putting the splinters together, sometimes you can use that, even though that part is not usable, you can use that as a template to make a new part that is usable. Yeah. And I don't like puzzles, though. That's the worst part.

[31:14] Sometimes it's the challenge of it. Sometimes if you're up for a challenge and you want to rebuild something, sometimes that plays into the decision, too. It does feel good, though, when you break something apart. When I tried to rebuild the doula swing the first time after it splintered, a lot of those went together very nicely. I mean, like almost to the point where, the part that you put in, you could take your hand off of it and fling it around and it didn't fall out.

[31:36] I mean, it was held in nice and tight, even without glue. Right. So sometimes brakes are nice and clean and very easy to repair. Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah. brakes are nice and clean and very easy to repair. Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah. So, yeah. Sometimes the choice to rebuild is a personal one. I've repaired planes that other folks didn't want to mess with. And I've also given up on planes that other people have taken and repaired. So, the choice is definitely personal.

[32:19] Like if I can tell you that because the dualist means a lot to me, and I have a very fond memory of the original one, and now, I would want to rebuild my dualist if it had crashed. Just because I have that personal kind of connection. Connection, I don't know if that's the right word, but it means something to me. So I feel like it would be worthwhile spending my time putting it back together. Nostalgia.

[32:40] Yeah, I can see that. So, sometimes a plane brings back fond memories like a duelist and, a photograph of it's not going to satisfy the nostalgia that you have with that airplane. So, sometimes that may be a reason to rebuild it. And hopefully you never have to figure that one out. Yeah. And sometimes, in the case of this example here here it's a good way to get an airplane cheap

[33:08] if you decide to yeah to rebuild one maybe that someone else has given up on usually they're willing to give it away to somebody who will put it back together and that's how you got this one yep goose egg that's what i paid for it so this is going to be a great flying airplane too yeah i'm sure it will be i'm yeah i've always wanted one of these, so yay. Yeah, so those are some of the reasons or some of the factors that may play into the decision to repair

[33:30] or, maybe pass it on to someone else or just put it in the dumpster. Like the Telemaster. Exactly, like the Telemaster. Dumpster planes. Dumpster planes, yep. Oh, and you got that one for free yeah the the shrikes the shrines we haven't touched those yet but yeah nah those are going to be easy repairs though oh i think so yeah so one day speaking of repairs there's a few different techniques you can use to repair

[33:55] crashed airplanes basically it all boils down to reassembling the pieces and reinforcing the joints i mean that, that's, the larger the reinforcement, usually the stronger the joint. A few things to remember about repairs. Epoxy is heavy, especially if it, and it builds up pretty quickly on larger repairs. So me personally, I use CA wherever possible for repairs, especially if you have

[34:28] good tight-fitting joints. Yeah, it wicks in very nicely. Yeah, and it actually makes quite a strong joint, especially if it's properly reinforced. Yeah. A little something about covering. Most ARFs these days, they use a covering that is compatible with either monocoat or it's compatible with ultracote. And you can usually tell the difference by the sheen. Monocoat-compatible materials are usually really highly gloss finish, very, very shiny. And ultracote, for the most part, is less so.

[35:00] Not that it's dull. It just doesn't have that really ultra glossy look to it so that's something you would have to learn just by looking because i have no clue what you're talking about on that okay well i mean okay fair statement but i guess what i'm saying is if you another way

[35:20] you could tell the difference usually ultraCoat or UltraCoat compatible type coverings, when you peel it off of the wood, will usually leave its adhesive along with the coloring behind on the airframe. Monocoat sometimes will leave its adhesive behind, but UltraCoat does that more more and usually in larger sections like Monaco when you peel it off of wood you may get little strips like where glue was underneath of color Ultra code will

[35:52] leave big patches of color behind so that's why yeah that's a good way if you're peeling or peeling it off that's the other thing with this airplane which this is the Pilotis Porter PC-6. Did I say that right? I think PC-6, yeah. Yeah. Or 7. I'm not sure. No, it's a 6. I know that. There you go. But none of the covering got messed up. I know. So that's the other thing that makes it so much easier for a fix. It's all just plywood. And there was no cowl to worry about, right?

[36:21] No, the cowl was fine. That's awesome. Like it had a little crack in it that just got glued back together. Perfect. So that's why I said this is probably the easiest fix ever for an airplane. Yeah. Ever. One more thing I want to talk about repair techniques is try to avoid the use of plywood and hardwood and reserve those for really key areas like firewalls, And reserve those for really key areas like firewalls, maybe the wing saddle areas, because it's heavy.

[36:59] And balsa, when the joints fit well and when it's properly reinforced, balsa is actually quite strong and light. So, repair usually adds weight. You want to try to add as minimal weight as possible well it's a good idea to kind of try and replace it with what was there yeah so if it was light ply use that if it was balsa use that don't don't complicate things by adding a whole bunch of other wood and joints and

[37:18] stuff to it if you don't need to exactly yep all right so you've've decided that you don't want to repair it. No one else wants to repair it. It's way too far gone. Yep. So there's some things you can do, though, to help yourself before throwing it in the trash can. First off, see if there's anything salvageable and make it wall art. Yes. Right? It does make an interesting conversation piece. It does. Sticking out of my wall in the

[37:45] dining room. Yeah. Like I don't even see it anymore. I don't either. Actually, I forgot it was there until people bring it up. Yeah. So large pieces like that, they do make for entertaining conversation pieces. Like if you got a man cave, you can stick like a, usually the tail, it's weird. The tail usually survives to some degree. Well, it's because it's towards the back of the airplane. They usually crash, front end first. Front end first. That's absolutely true. Usually.

[38:11] But, yeah, they make for interesting things if you want to put in your man cave and then you can tell all your buddies what happened, how awesome the crash was. And hopefully have video of it. And, yeah, if you got video, even better.

[38:22] But, yeah, before you throw it in the trash can, there's stuff that you can take off of it, right? Obviously, you want to remove the expensive pieces because you don't want to have to buy them again. And if you decide that maybe that particular airplane, you're going to go bigger, maybe you're going to go smaller and you don't need those pieces, save them anyway, because you never know.

[38:45] them anyway because you never know like when your hanger starts to get bigger and more full maybe you'll want that size airplane again and you've got already the expensive pieces if they survive the crash and depending on what it is too like when i crashed my super sportster that was still one that was being made so i was able to buy a replacement airframe which really made the decision to repair or replace a lot easier yeah but saving all the

[39:07] stuff off that old airplane too gives me spares for this new one yeah and that's been a long time ago and i still have it yep so some of the stuff you can save servos but before you put any kind of trust in the in the serv You want to operate them, preferably, operate them with a load on them of some kind. Listen for noisy gears, things like that. That will usually indicate

[39:31] a shock to the gear train, so the gears may not live very long. So you're not obviously going to want to put that servo in another airplane, unless it's an expensive servo, which you can replace the gears or send it to get it repaired. You are much more forgiving with servos than I am. That's true. I am. Like, to me, a servo is such an easy failure point that they're so inexpensive that if I'm not completely sure, if it's a plane I care about, if I'm not completely sure about

[40:01] it, I'm just going to replace it. And I'm coming more and more to that same point of view that, like, I like to buy spectrum radio equipment. I like to support, the hobby brands. But honestly, in some of our less expensive airplanes, with the Amazon servos that we can get for $4 or whatever, yeah, I don't even – I'm getting to the point where i don't take the risk anymore either yeah it's because it just doesn't make sense and once again that depends on

[40:30] the airplane right right if it's a cheap throwaway plane four dollar servos are fine yeah it's not the 15 high-tech servos that are the same size or even better you Right. But something I will spend a little bit more time on, and that's the receiver. Spectrum receivers are much more expensive than, fly sky, in this case, receivers. Orange RX. Or orange or lemon or whatever your flavor of the week is. whatever your flavor of the week is.

[41:09] Because I spend the money on the goods, in my case, spectrum receivers, if it's one of spectrum's lower-end receivers, I'll check it out. I'll do a full range test on it with as much load as I can put on it, as if it was in an airplane. And if it passes a range test, I call that receiver good, and I put it in the next airplane. Now, I do have spectrum receivers that are not on the cheap end of the scale. And for those,

[41:37] luckily, Horizon is not too far away from us here. And they have a really good service department. So on some of my, like a PowerSafe receiver or something like that, if it's been in a crash, like a significant crash, I don't even risk it. I just send it to Horizon, let them do their checks. They can put it on in a oscilloscope and do all their cool stuff to make sure that receiver's okay. And really, by the way, it doesn't have anything to do with how close we are to them. You can do

[42:04] that no matter where you live. Absolutely. And I guess what I'm saying is we get a little bit quicker turnaround because we're closer. But they're pretty quick with their turnaround. Like when they receive something in the shop, usually they don't have it very long, two or three days, and they're shipping it back to you. So on a receiver, I'll range test on the sport receivers and the more expensive ones. I don't even risk it. I send it off.

[42:28] If it's one of the $15 Flysky receivers, I'll do a range check. And if I'm going to put it in a fairly inexpensive airplane, if it passes the range check, I call it good and I'll stick it back in. Yeah. No problem. So have you ever been charged for sending stuff back into Horizon? So in the many years that I've been doing this, I've sent stuff to Horizon exactly twice. And I have yet to pay for any service that they have provided for me. Now that's,

[42:57] I'm not going to say that's the norm. I've sent a transmitter. This has been quite a few years ago. I sent a transmitter in for them to work on. And it wasn't a transmitter that was a new one. It was not under warranty or anything like that. They performed their check. I think they updated it. I think this may have been like 1991 when we did the whole narrowband thing. Way back when. But anyway, no charge then, and then i did send them a receiver

[43:25] here a couple years ago and again no charge yeah so i've sent in a servo that was locked up like i knew it wasn't any good and they put new gears and did whatever they needed to do on that no charge which was nice and i sent them a receiver to check out too and they sent it back to me without any any invoicing yeah so yeah once, not saying that's the norm, but they're pretty good with stuff. One more reason why I don't buy the cheap stuff.

[43:51] I buy, I can't really say hobby-grade stuff anymore because even the cheap stuff is hobby-grade. I mean, this radio that we're testing here is a perfect example. It works perfectly. Yeah. But anyway, I'll stick with my spectrum stuff, and I'm sure Futaba people will stick with their Futaba stuff. But anyway, one of the other things you can save out of your airplane is the battery. In this case, I'm specifically talking about radio batteries, like a nickel metal hydride or

[44:21] a nickel cadmium, if you have the older chemistry battery. Like I said, those are pretty robust. Usually they survive pretty well if you can find them. I say that because I've lost an airplane because the receiver battery came out of the airplane. Yeah, that was, I mean, I'll talk about that in a minute. But yeah, those usually survive okay something you can do to check them do a cycle make sure it's still putting out

[44:52] the the milliamps that it's supposed to and for me personally if it passes a cycle then i call it good and stash it away for the next airplane yeah there's not a lot that goes wrong with those no not really obviously we've talked about it lipos different story what can you do to check those i mean is there aside from running a cycle on them and making sure it's not deformed and it doesn't puff

[45:15] up what other check can you do yeah pretty much that's going to be your same thing so if it's deformed i'm done with it like i don't want to i don't want to chance it yeah it's deformed, I'm done with it. Like, I don't want to chance it. It's not worth losing a plane to a LiPo battery that catches fire. Jeez, it's not worth losing an airplane to a LiPo battery that catches fire when you're flying. Or your house. Or your house.

[45:38] I mean, you store this thing in your garage, and it goes off in your garage. I mean. Yeah, so those are those are best i mean they really are inexpensive enough to where they're kind of disposable anyway yeah it's a consumable in my opinion so replace it yeah i agree yeah i mean that's if it if it if it's been in a crash and it doesn't look like it's been messed up i would discharge it charge it make sure

[46:05] everything works and then i would put it back in service i've done that before yeah but if there's any kind of deformation or anything i mean we've i've crashed a few foamies me too and i think i i don't think i've thrown any batteries away yet from a foaming. That's because they usually crinkle pretty easy in that the front of the foaming kind of makes it into an airbag.

[46:30] But some of these larger electric-powered airplanes, you get a big four-cell in the nose of one of these things and it goes in. Even if it's not deformed by the crash, I'm still very leery. Like, I'm still scared of lipos yeah i still have a healthy respect for them so i don't i don't risk it that's the best way to be yeah one more thing you can save off the crashed airplane is the the engine or the motor

[46:58] in the case of a nitro engine that's an expensive part of the airplane you want to try to save it probably in the case of a nitro two-stroke with the carburetor mounted on the front, you probably don't want to go up there and just start cranking it over. you don't want to pull all that dirt and stuff further into the engine. But if you give the crankshaft, a general rocking back and forth, you can usually determine if the crankshaft

[47:22] has been shoved back into the to the back plate pretty much rendering that engine useless at that point because so many of these two strokes these days are old like i like older engines but you can't get parts for them so in the case of this 91 here that we got on the bench that i got from reg, that's exactly what had happened to that. And, well, I've got skills, so I was able to, I was able to, I was able to bring this engine back to life, but

[47:50] the engines, you want to try to save them if you can, cause they are expensive. but yeah, if, generally speaking, they're, they're pretty, they're pretty tough. not all crashes are going to be, nose dives in from 300 feet. Yeah, not all are going to be lawn darts. Right. Sometimes it's just a bad landing or a wing tip touches the ground when you're landing or something like that, and the motor is going to be fine. Yeah, yeah.

[48:16] These things are constructed pretty beefy. they have large bearings on the crankshafts, and the crankshafts themselves are usually pretty stout. So generally speaking, they'll survive a crash so you want to save those now the big gassers like a 50 cc aerobatic plane that goes in even even just a prop strike sometimes can bend a crankshaft yeah so cheap insurance to send

[48:40] an engine like that to the service either da or dle or whatever whatever your favorite is yeah they'll go over them and make sure everything's working well and make sure the crank is straight they'll put a dial indicator on it make sure the run out is within tolerance you don't want to go putting a a big engine like that that's got a bent crankshaft it'll vibrate your next airplane to pieces yeah but electric motors you can

[49:06] i mean what would you look for on an electric motor well actually going back to the bigger engines on the on airplanes if you have a bigger engine like that on an airplane and you crash you're probably going to have more problems than like what we're talking about these small ones yeah the the bigger they are the i mean the harder they are to fix well they're constructed so lightly anyway

[49:25] yeah the big ones are which is not a bad thing but that's great they they don't happen yeah they tend to shatter in many many many little pieces yeah and then you get into foam wing foam core wings that are sheeted which are a little bit more difficult to to repair requiring a different type of technique stuff like that but yeah not impossible right but a lot more difficult to to repair requiring a different technique stuff like that but yeah

[49:46] not impossible right but a lot more difficult but yeah the engine's probably yellow like you said the engine is probably going to be least of your worries if you're going to be rebuilding an airplane of that size yeah anything of decent scale is going to be hard electric engines by the way there's really not much to look at on those. Are they engines or motors? Electric motors. Here we go again. I'm sorry. Whatever. That's fine. Electric motors. Thank you. Engines.

[50:11] They, like, really, the kind of only thing you're going to do on that is spin them to see how the bearings are. If the bearings seem like they're fine and not gritty after a crash, power it up, run it up, and see what it does. And if it sounds like it's running fine i use them oh okay i mean that's easy enough yeah there's not a lot you'll know quickly if it's going to be bad that's true and if and and the risk of putting a motor that's bad on an airplane

[50:39] even a nitro motor is low because if it doesn't run right or if it doesn't power up like it's supposed to obviously not going to fly it like run right or if it doesn't power up like it's supposed to, obviously not going to fly it like that. Right. So you'll know right away, just like you said, you'll know if it's good or not. Electric is just so much simpler. I mean, it's so much easier to deal with. You done? All right. Just getting started, by the way. Listen, finally, on the

[51:03] airplane, before you toss it in the trash can after you've decided not to rebuild it usually there's a fair amount of hardware that you can reuse i mean nuts bolts screws washers all that sort of thing wheel collars wheel collars push rods even sometimes clevises the the gosh darn it just spit it out what's it look like the thing that the push rods connect to at the control surface the horns horns thank you wow sometimes senior

[51:35] moment old age yeah it happens but yeah control horns sometimes most of the time, those survive crashes. And I've got like a whole, well, anyway, I'm kind of a scavenger. So if I see, if I'm at the field and I see somebody's crashed, recently, there's components in the trash can. I'll look at the components and if there's stuff on it I can use, I pull it off there. There's nothing wrong with that. That's money in the trash can. I mean, really.

[52:03] Well, it is. Yeah, essentially. If you had to buy it new. Right, exactly. But yeah, any hardware you can pull off of, it's going to save you money over time. And, the more of that stuff you collect, the bigger your part stash gets. So the next time you need a part for something, you don't have to run to the hobby shop, which is two hours away for us, to go get it. You got it right there in your parts stash. Yep.

[52:26] That's why it's always good to have a friend like Tom when you need something because he's a hoarder. I'm not a hoarder. And he's a keeper with RC airplane parts. I mean, like my – okay, well, I don't want to offend anyone, but my image of a hoarder is like you have paths to walk around and that's it. That's kind of where you are in your basement with all your hobby stuff. My stuff is well organized. It's organized, but there's a lot and it's hard to get to.

[52:53] Like when we were talking the other day and I said something about a spinner, you pulled out a box just full of spinners and you're like, would any of these work? Right? I have yet to find a spot for those so they're in a bag yes i suppose i could see why you would say that but i've cleaned down there recently well i don't want you to think i was saying it in

[53:13] a bad way and it's like it's a good hoarder okay a collector of all things arec airplanes well i do good with that yeah that'll work okay he's his own hobby shop so that's fine except servo extensions i just realized that i'm out of servo i have to make a trip to the hobby shop to get more and those are expensive i know i make my own i know you don't like that but i. Yeah. I mean, I've got the tools to do it and the stuff, but I just, I don't know. That's another show. Yeah.

[53:51] Anyway, what else? Is there anything else you can do? No, that's, I think that pretty much covers the factors. The crashes and what to do with them. Yeah, the factors that I use to determine whether to rebuild one and if I decide not to, what to save off of it. Yeah, pretty much covers it all, I think. Okay, awesome then. I'm finished. We're done, really? I think so. All right. If you haven't been to our YouTube channel yet, go there, check it out.

[54:20] There's a really great video that Ron put together of our maiden flights of the duelists. And there's a video that you put on there here just recently of your first flight with your huge yak. So, yeah, there's some stuff to look at, and there's going to be some stuff popping up there here in the future. So, if you haven't been to our YouTube channel yet, go check it out and smash that like and subscribe button. Really?

[54:45] I heard another YouTuber say it, so I thought, I don't know, maybe that's what they say. Smash that like button. Or just click it is usually what I do. I don't even know. It's around somewhere. Actually, I don't know. Hold on, what side? Yeah, whatever. It's right here. Anyway, just click like and subscribe and whatever else you're supposed to do. I don't even know what you do on YouTube. I just watch stuff. Yeah, me too. Okay, anything else now? That's it. That's all I got.

[55:11] Everybody, thank you for listening. Until next time. No, seriously, thank you for listening. Until next time. Until next time, I'm Ron. And I'm Tom. Good night. Good night. Good night. Thank you.