RIP Easy Star...

Winds were blowing a strong 30mph, with gusts higher. Was periodically blowing over my camera tripod. I wanted to test out my new Oracle Diversity switch and 8dbi patch antenna, and drove 20 miles out into the desert to get away from signal interferance and traffic. I was also trying to fit a new 2600mAh lipo in. It didn't fit well. Got it hand launched, despite the wind trying to rip it out of my hands, and the Eagle Tree OSD Pro had come unplugged from the data logger. No GPS or data signal, but was getting video. Got it back around and landed, and got it all plugged back in. But still not fitting well. Wind blowing more. I almost bagged it, as I kept thinking nothing good can come of this... The last few frames of video show what caused the final death dive. Camera pod popped out and was laying back near the motor after I panned the camera right. Lost video shortly after that due to having the patch pointed SE, but I was flying NE of my position by now, due to the wind.

Stripped both the aileron servos, the tilt servo, bent the motor shaft (from hitting the Tx antenna), which bent the Tx connector and broke the decoupling cap to the center lead (repair has been unsuccessful thus far), ripped the berg receiver wire in half, demolished the fuselage and easy pod, and the new lipo is actually accordianed up where it impacted, though seems to be holding a charge and working ok on 3 flights in the T28, now. OK, so the airframe is probably not completely toast, just feels like that when you recover the pieces. Note the GPS ground speed about 2:40 into the video. At this point I'm flying about 90' to the wind direction, but still making about 62mph ground speed. This plane only does ~35-40mph max on level flight full throttle, and I'm still not fully with the wind direction.

Stupid...a lot was rushed and a lot of things not fully working. I pushed and crammed electronics to fit in and taped the pod on. I flew despite feeling like anything could go wrong (video Rx tripod kept blowing over ven with rocks and trying to prop it against stuff. Wasn't keeping the plane SE like I had planed to fly (mostly because of the dang sun and wind blowing). (video)