Well, I had a good time flying my AW Ultimate for three flights today, until the engine quit on some vertical manuever that I don't recall. I had enough altitude, but did not rush to make it to the runway. The plane is big and tricked me, it seemed closer to me, and I thought I already crossed the wheel sprinklers. NOPE! In retrospect of course I should have landed parallel to the pipelines, but I really thought I was north of them already. But luck was with me because it could have been really ugly. I landed hard with wings level right under the pipes on wheels. The wing made it through, but the ensuing bounce caused the plane to jump up into the pipe. The plane hit the pipe right on the last 6" of the canopy, causing some damage to it and the turtle deck, and then sheering off the top few inches of the fin, and knocking the rudder off most of its hinges, yanking hinge mounting blocks out in several places on the fin and rudder. Looks ugly! Also squashed the aluminum landing gear, but amazingly there was no bad damage to the pants, or cowl!
I came home and spent all afternoon trying to repair the fin. It is not pretty, but I got the woodwork done except for final sanding. Got the rudder fixed lots faster, under an hour. Then I will cover both and rehinge it. It was tough to get the fin to be aligned correctly again. After my first attempt at gluing the shards back together, the fin was not aligned good enough to me, so I busted it loose and tried again and again. I got it done good enough. Hope I did not add too much weight with extra wood, some epoxy, and lots of thin and thick CA!
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