On September 13, 1998, 5 days before the FAA was scheduled to inspect my HB, I was high speed taxi testing my tail dragger (severe squirly ground handling problems appeared solved). I raised the tail, pulled back the power and found myself airborne. I did not apply power as I should have, but rose to perhaps 30 feet, stalled, dropped the right wing, right wing hit first, collapsing the extended (per plans) wing tip, hit the nose breaking the motor mount so that the motor was held on only by the cowling, then with considerably side force came down onto the landing gear, wiping the tail wheel support (a short, strong extension of the vertical stab. spar) into a 90 degree bend and laying the tail wheel alongside (and in a dent in) the tail cone, breaking the left main gear off at the end of the upper doubler tube and dropping the outboard right trailing edge onto the pavement with a little evidence of twisting of the left outer panel, and the left main wheel, attached only by the brake cable, damaged the inboard left leading edge. The a/c then spun around and backed the elevator into a runway light. When I started thinking again I shut off the switch and fuel, determined I was trapped, unhurt, not in immediate danger and waited for Ray Brown, who had been stationed as a crash truck, to come and rescue me. Ray was able to hand me tools and I was able to disassemble the "safety latch" and climb out.
I reported saying that it felt like I was falling into pillows as the structure bent and absorbed the energy of the impacts instead of transmitting the blows to my body. I live in Boeing country and many of my fellow EAA-ers are Boeing engineers well advanced in their careers and including structural and aerodynamic types. All agreed that the HB did just what it should to protect the pilot. They also credited the slow stall speed and the light weight with limiting the amount of energy do be dissipated. I have gone through a rough emotional fall from the loss of 3 1/2 years intense effort. I have gone through the whole "what shall I build now "mental game. I am rebuilding the HB, which means a whole new airframe (I may reuse the rudder), about 75% for damage and 25% because of the "if I had it to do over I would do this and that differently" syndrome. It is now August 1,1999. I have finally come out of the blues from the crash. I am concentrating on getting flying time so I will be current when I get the HB going again. So for now, good weather, fly. This fall, bad weather, build. Get that sucker flying for Spring 2000!There is no airplane any neater than a Hummelbird! and there are a lot of really neat airplanes out there!
