A Profound Sadness

...collateral damage by stupidity

Having returned home, I was overcome by a profound sadness at having inflicted such wanton damage to such a lovely aircraft. It was like a nice pet being given to a bad home, and I was the culprit. Oh dear.

It may seem silly but I really felt gutted by the sequence of events; the effort I'd made, aspirations thwarted and damaged caused for no gain. A sorry waste for no benefit at all.

I pondered the situation and decided on two things. Firstly, as damaged as the Phoenix was it was still repairable to a flying state. Secondly, I would get a smaller and more novice-friendly aircraft.

For the Phoenix it was spares-shopping and improvisation. The nylon fuselage was up-ended in a jug of boiling water and left overnight, in the hope that relief of residual stresses would help to straighten up the wrinkles.

The original kit had included a fixed spinner, if no motor were to be used. This I modified to adapt to the spinner-base and to clear the propellor mounts. The battery tray, which had shattered most impressively, I tried to reconstitute after the fashion of a jigsaw-puzzle but then abandoned as folly, fabricating another out of modelling ply.

The wings mounts I superglued together and reinforced with fibreglass mesh. Ailerons were remounted, using hinges to replaced the ruptured EPO hinge and, as a bonus, I "activated" the moulded-in flaps giving them the same hinge treatment as the ailerons  and installing servos in the ready-moulded wing recesses. A new battery to replace the compacted original 1800mAh completed the repair process.

Now all I needed was the skill to fly the recreated Phoenix...