I had the great misfortune of stuffing my Diamant into the hillside yesterday. I was cruising around just fine, enjoying it's beautiful and stable flight. The only problem I had was that it kept wanting to climb in the excellent lift at Yorba last night. So I'm nearly spec'd out after practicing my thermal turns and decide to scrub some altitude by doing high banking turns. At about 800 feet, my nose weight must have shifted. The Diamant started doing these huge hammerhead type oscillations. Down 600 feet, up 500 feet, stall. Repeat. There was no way to control it, I gave full up elevator while it plunged, full down elevator even before it rose up into that awful climb. I tried dropping flaps/butterfly. Nothing worked. I had full aileron control, so I tried to corkscrew the plane towards the hill (I had been heading away until then). That worked, but I still had no control of elevator. Desperate, I tried to time the oscillations to bring me into the hill while climbing. Didn't work. The hollow molded Diamant went straight in at over 100 mph. It was making that cool "fast" sound on the plunge down. The damage is less than I feared, but un-repairable as far as I'm concerned. My new Don Richmond wing rod held! The fuse split along the seams at the nose. The tailboom has a semicircle crack around the circumference. The horizontal stabs have a carbon capped spruce spar inside that split down the length. The pin that went into that spar, through the tail, to the other stab bent. All this is minor and can be repaired, and I have a spare set of stabs. But the molded right wing suffered a "buckle' at the break in the dihedral on the outboard section. I don't know how the wing servo's faired. The fuse servos seem okay. The canopy just pretty scratched up went it went completely into the soil. So what do I do? The fuse can be repaired, though I have no interest in doing it. The tail can be rebuilt with the replacement parts I have on hand. But what do I do about the wing? I had this plane for sale for $450 or best offer with all servos and battery. I'm now willing to let it go for whatever you think is fair. Please make an offer. You can see it B.C. (Before Crash) at http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Court/5147/ I'll update the site later this weekend of photos of the damage. Images can be emailed upon request. Nathan Woods Temple Hill Slope Squadron Orange, California <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
