I guess I'll put this here, as the mishaps were to warbirds...

Yesterday was not a good day at the field.  I had many noseovers in my P-40 even after I adjusted the landing gear and installed new wheels.  I finally got it off the ground and she flew as great as always.  I flew my F-4 the first time and didn't have any problems... I thought it was low on power at one point but that could have been my imagination.  Checked the voltage of the packs and they had plenty of power left in them.

Second flight of the Phantom, took off no problem, and flew around for about 4 minutes.  Was flying low and fast, and I lost power to the motor.  I quickly brought it around for landing and dropped the gear.  I had my wits about me enough to keep my finger on the retract switch and pull the gear up if it looked like I wasn't going to clear the beans.  I cleared the beans and thought I was home free but stalled it about 3 - 4 feet off the ground.  The Phantom pancaked on the runway and broke the left main landing gear mount.  Tore up the underside of the wing but luckily it didn't punch through the top.  Joe King was there and thought it to be a fairly easy repair, and Mark offered to help me with it.  I'm thankful for that as a new wing set is $140!

Again, plenty of power left in the batteries.  The batteries were not puffed or hot, the motor was hot but hot too hot to touch, and from what I could tell, the ESC wasn't hot either.  Very strange.  I'm going to have to "fly it on the ground" before taking it into the air next time to make sure everything is OK with the power system.

Next I flew the P-40 again but during the takeoff run, the right wheel fell off and the plane nosed over.  The plane itself appears to be fine but the right main retract is shot.  I have to take it out to asess the damage completely but I think a new set of retracts are in order.  Of course, Horizon Hobby is out of them until some time in September.  All other rotating retracts are pneumatic and over $200 and I'm NOT spending that kind of money.  I did find a set on Nitroplanes.com for a fair price so I might try them to see how they hold up.  They just have to get me through October.... Mark said he's got a set on his Hellcat that I could borrow until finding a permanent solution so at least I have options.

A.B. had gear problems with his giant-scale P-47 also.... it was a dark day for the 913th!