Christchurch and District Model Flying Club

THE END OF A CUB

That I am sadly out of practice at flying models rather than building was brought home to me rather brutally by the demise of my Goldberg Cub, last January. In the window of excellent flying weather over New Year a number of us had been up at Howard’s Field, and on the 3rd I managed a successful series of flights, each beginning in a moderately straight take-off and ending in a landing on the designated runway.

Thus encouraged, I went up again a few days later and tried again. Now let me explain one or two things: firstly, the Cub was made by Dave, my brother-in-law but never finished.  He gave it to me covered, with a .35 engine on the front and all the radio gear in it, but unflown. I took off the engine, bought Clive’s Plettenberg motor and popped that on the front, with 5 cells of Lipo power right behind it, replacing 16 Nicads that Trevor lent me to get the thing going. It now weighed 7 lbs, and with an 80” wingspan could be made to fly reasonably slowly and accurately. Not by me, needless to say!

The Cub as built by my Brother-in-Law Dave, some time in the late 80’s, with the hole where an engine should be, and how the Plettenberg fitted.

On the fateful day I had been flying circuits and pretending to land, but was just not getting anywhere near the right speed, time or place and was becoming increasingly concerned that I was never going to be able to land it. I fly with the opposite hand to anyone else, so could not ask Trevor to take over (the best option for a number of us in this position!). Here he is with my Cub, performing the first take-off

...and landing

Battery life was gradually leaking away and I tightened the cycle clips another notch. The next one was going to be a good landing, like it or not. Of course, you know what happened.  I got too low, too far away, and flew it smack into the ground, at the last minute my right thumb refusing to listen to my brain, which was bellowing “straighten up, moron”.  My thumb tightened the turn instead, shouting “don’t be stupid, Brain, I know what I’m doing and I have control”. The two have not spoken much since then. One last look at her in the big blue sky...

Those of you who fly at Howard’s will know what happens next.  You have a long trudge up to some rickety bridges over the stream, then back along the far side where, in a fold in the ground, lay the wing. A few yards away was the fuselage and spread between the two was a trail of liteply, cowl fragments, bits of this and that, the battery, the motor still attached to its mount and the prop in one piece. I switched off the RX, gathered it all up and trudged back.

The end result, as you can see, was a wrecked fuselage, cowl, windows and frame. Not worth repairing. But the wing was undamaged. Was it worth doing anything with it?  After a few days mourning, I decided to test it to destruction, using paving bricks to simulate flying loads. I supported each end rib on a brick and added bricks to the centre.  Each one weighs 5.75 lbs and over the next few pages you can see what happened.

You have to guess what weight it took to snap the structure….keep looking down the page...

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