If you're flying RC aircraft then eventually you will crash. It's not a matter of if you will crash it's when. The sooner you realize this the easier it will be to deal with it. I recently lost one of my favorite daily flyers. My 3D Hobby Shop 47" Yak 54 went in after hundreds of flights over 3-4 years. While it's sad to loose a plane I had become so used to flying and was very comfortable with I'm also okay with it because of two things. The plane gave me many hours of fun, and I learned quite a bit about aerobatics on this plane. But secondly I'm okay with it because I know why it crashed and I can learn from that. In this case it was the RX had reset in air due to low voltage supply. I had just taken off and started my routine roll to the left when it happened. The plane had no hope as failsafe set in with idle power and neutral controls. It simply stayed in knife edge with no power and fell to the ground. While I could be very frustrated with the radio failure and say it's not my fault I'd rather deal with the loss and learn from it. I checked the battery after the wreckage was picked up and it looked okay but I want to test the pack under load. I have had a few cases of early cut off due to weak cells in lipo packs. The take away here is we all need to do some preventative maintenance on our planes. Check wires, and screws to make sure things have not come loose. Check glue joints to make sure there are no stress cracks. Tighten up the covering before it flies off in a big chunk right after that impressive snap roll or blender. Doing that preventative maintenance can prevent you from loosing that favorite airplane and keep your enjoyment of this hobby going strong.
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