The Raven's First Crash (Hard Autorotation Landing)

Sunday 2-Nov-2008

0900 It after I had breakfast with my family at home, I headed to PHAF. The place is about 3 minutes drive from my home, pretty convenient.

Last night I have reconfigured few things in my DX7 radio, i.e.:
1. Setup dual rate according to the flight mode, Normal Flight using POS-0, where 75% of total, Idle-up mode uses POS-1 at 100% for all controls.
2. Added the gyro gain L=85%, R=110%, referring to a good Raptor webpage describing how to setup the Futaba 401 Gyro.

Ok, so at 0930, filled up the fuel. Then I started up the engine, fly a bit, check the engine temperature. I think it is a bit rich, and the temperature is bit cool, but it sounds good, so I continue to fly without changing any setting on HSN/LSN.

This time I took the opportunity to try out the nose-in hover. Yes, I can do better now!

Then I continue with Figure 8, first round it not that good, after a while it becaming more like the real 8.

I sat it down on ground to check the temperature, still ok and off it flew again.

At this time there was less than 1/4 of fuel in the tank.

Sunddently, while the Raven was flying from left hand to right hand side, just passed me, the engine stopped! O-O!! !! At that split second:
- I tried to process,
- What happened??
- What should I do?? Well, autorotation of course. I have been practicing autorotation in RealFlight G3.5 Sim, but that was like at very high altitiude and not while the heli in Forward-Flight!
- Well, I need to try my best
- How long did I spent thinking?? I need to do something.

Then I started to react by moving the throttle/pitch control accordingly.. however the forward speed was quite high, I don't think I can get it down in one piece. I managed to slow the vertical impact down, but the forward mementum at touch down has resulted the blade to strike the ground and bounced to strike the tail boom.

I picked it up and bring it to the 'pit' area. After quick inspection, found these are the result:
1. Broken Horizontal Tail Fin
2. Dented and bended tail boom
3. Bended splinder bar
4. A bit of scratch at the main blade


It is not that bad. Hopefully other parts are ok. I have not checked thorougly yet though.

Important lesson learnt today:
1. When the tank have less than 1/4 of fuel, refuel if still to fly some more, or else just finish up the fuel at low altitiude hover.
2. Need to learn more autorotation. The damage can be minimized further or avoided totally!