A-10 Rebuilt After Inflight Failure Disaster

A few weeks ago, I took my latest scratch build the FT swappable A-10 out to fly. It was a mild June day, the wind gently rustled through the tops of the nearby trees. It was the third time that I had flown this airplane. This had been one of my easiest airplanes to fly. I connected the battery, then checked all the moving surfaces everything was normal, or at least it appeared to be. I then got it up in the air and everything seemed to be going great.

After being in the air for a bit my Radio Master TX16 began to say, "RSSI low... RSSI critical." At first I ignored it, but as it persisted in telling me that the rssi was critical, I began to get nervous. I then felt a delay between the airplane's response and the movement of the transmitter stick. The delay continued and was getting longer and more frequent. I then decided to bring it in for a landing before something worse happened. Everything was going well with the landing, until disaster struck. A few seconds before it hit the ground it froze in a turn and then crashed. The damage wasn't to bad because the split second before it hit the ground it unfroze, so the it the main source of the crash was on the belly.

The right power pod was crushed in the crash.The propeller was sticking through the rear edge of the wing

What I wanted to do is take this opportunity to make something good out of something bad. I wanted to rebuild it better then it was before. First I had to rebuild the power pod and glue the fuselage back together.

The nose and the left vertical stabilizer were a bit damaged as well.

I then could implement the "nicer"changes that I wanted to do.The first was to put a detailed cockpit in.

The old one had to go first

What I did was I cut out the piece were the old canopy was and then turned it upside-down and build a cockpit on top of it.

Real A-10 dash

I then cut some strips of foam for a canopy.

Had to include a pilot's chair

I also included a canon at the nose.

Last of all some classic decals.

She looks prettier then ever!

Thank you for reading, I hope something like this never happens to you.

Stone