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So I took the PBY out for her first flight today! And the good news is she returned in tact! More or less...

See, I got excited, skipped the waterproofing thinking it'd be fine for one test and then decided to nose her into the water pretty hard shortly after take-off. The plane itself is fine, no damage at all to the airframe and it appears most of the electronics survived as well. I've got the ESCs in rice and had to leave the receiver in front of one of my diesel heaters, but everything else seems to be totally fine including my custom nav lights. (I was more worried about those having to be replaced than anything else, lol)

So as of now it's in the shed pretty much totally disassembled, but not broken. I removed one motor thinking it was damaged as it wouldn't spin correctly during subsequent tests, but I now believe it's the ESC that took the damage, thus the rice. If that doesn't bring it back, I'll just order another set. 30A ESCs and 1100kv motors are not hard to find or expensive.

After a short investigation by myself and my friend, the cause of the crash was found to be a loss of thrust caused by the props not being properly set-screwed down. As the plane slowed down, the right wing dipped and stalled. With such a low airspeed, low altitude, and no throttle to power out of it, she just did a nose dive into the pond I was testing at. It was still pretty low and slow, and it even was able to get back to shore under it's own power despite the props slipping (I did also bring a kayak just in case) The props where fine for the first few seconds, then they basically just spun free and the shaft was just turning freely with no "bite" on the props themselves. That's 100% my fault.

I just got excited and hyper-focused on not leaving anything behind and just forgot to put the set screws in.. It's OK though, the plane survived and will fly again. The next few days will be cold and shitty, and I have some work to do before it's ready for it's next flight; But the fact she's getting a second flight at all is better than I've ever done before. For the few seconds it flew, it flew amazing and looked even better as she rose out of the water. Hopefully, the next flight will be smoother. A lot of good data was gained regardless.

I stopped at the store and got everything I need to water proof it for the next flight, just waiting a day to see if the ESCs come back to life or not. The next attempt might be next weekend, of course weather permitting. This time I'll try and remember to film it and make sure everything is tight.

Description
So I took the PBY out for her first flight today! And the good news is she returned in tact! More or less...

See, I got excited, skipped the waterproofing thinking it'd be fine for one test and then decided to nose her into the water pretty hard shortly after take-off. The plane itself is fine, no damage at all to the airframe and it appears most of the electronics survived as well. I've got the ESCs in rice and had to leave the receiver in front of one of my diesel heaters, but everything else seems to be totally fine including my custom nav lights. (I was more worried about those having to be replaced than anything else, lol)

So as of now it's in the shed pretty much totally disassembled, but not broken. I removed one motor thinking it was damaged as it wouldn't spin correctly during subsequent tests, but I now believe it's the ESC that took the damage, thus the rice. If that doesn't bring it back, I'll just order another set. 30A ESCs and 1100kv motors are not hard to find or expensive.

After a short investigation by myself and my friend, the cause of the crash was found to be a loss of thrust caused by the props not being properly set-screwed down. As the plane slowed down, the right wing dipped and stalled. With such a low airspeed, low altitude, and no throttle to power out of it, she just did a nose dive into the pond I was testing at. It was still pretty low and slow, and it even was able to get back to shore under it's own power despite the props slipping (I did also bring a kayak just in case) The props where fine for the first few seconds, then they basically just spun free and the shaft was just turning freely with no "bite" on the props themselves. That's 100% my fault.

I just got excited and hyper-focused on not leaving anything behind and just forgot to put the set screws in.. It's OK though, the plane survived and will fly again. The next few days will be cold and shitty, and I have some work to do before it's ready for it's next flight; But the fact she's getting a second flight at all is better than I've ever done before. For the few seconds it flew, it flew amazing and looked even better as she rose out of the water. Hopefully, the next flight will be smoother. A lot of good data was gained regardless.

I stopped at the store and got everything I need to water proof it for the next flight, just waiting a day to see if the ESCs come back to life or not. The next attempt might be next weekend, of course weather permitting. This time I'll try and remember to film it and make sure everything is tight.