runover1

My Feedback: (10)

I wrecked my World Models Super Sports 40 on Sunday August 17th. I was on my third flight and was coming in after my last leg when I lost all radio control. I was at 1/4 throttle and level. The plane went to full throttle, rolled left, knife-edged then left ruddered straight into the ground nose first. I was blown away and did not know what caused it. I was in Kansas with no one near. I am still a novice, but I still did not think this was my fault. I talked with some other local flyers the next few days and found out that another guy crashed that has been flying for 15 years and said he had interference. I asked what channel, just to make sure it wasn't me by some freak accident, I was 5 miles away and it was not my channel. I talked to one of my local LHS today and found out that over 24 different pilots he knew of came in and complained of radio interference caused them to crash. I talked with other LHS in the area and found more victims. The original LHS owner I talked to called the AMA. They told him there was heavy sunspot activity that day, so much that the military canceled flights. I was just wondering if anyone else has had this problem recently.

After picking up the pieces, and sobbing loudly, I assessed the damage. Fuse and cowl destroyed from front wing dowel forward, wing had no damage, spinner and prop disinigrated, only nickel sized piece left, engine bolts sheared from mount, firewall seperated from fuse, OS46FX had remote needle valve mount broke (easy fix) and engine had no other damage. From the middle of the wing back there was no damage. The muffler was still attached, a rarity with a full throttle nose in from 40' high. Thank God. I will be able to have it in the air again in about a week, need a lot of balsa and ply though.

Let me know if anyone else had these problems.

JohnVH

My Feedback: (38)

sun spots? Thats a new one to me!!

scottrc

Is that what is also causing these little brown spots on my face?

Oh no, thats age spots, silly me.

Thats ok, I was told that hot flashes cause radio interference as well. I think the old guy meant solar flares.

I flew for about 4 hrs on Sunday from 3 p.m. until 7 p.m. without any problems in radio activity. I'm in Kansas and fly between a cell tower and the Highway patrol repeater. These two places are not good to fly on FM around 5 p.m. because thats when the HP is shift changing and has a lot of transmissions and the repeater will boost power. Every now and then, we get hit. But no, nothing about sun spots. Even the TV reception was good that day.

Combat Addict

Is this an excuese?
j/k

I find this very possible, however if it was the cause, I would think that humanity would have much bigger problems then crashed model airplanes.

flyerdarren

Sun spots are a pretty common occurence. They can muck up all kinds of radio equipment, although most commonly attack the sattelite TV transmissions. I guess it may be possible that one of them shot you down, or maybe your Rx battery died.

Jim C.

oh oh oh oh oh ... looks like i got some research to do!!! i think that is what got me a week befor that....
hahahah ohh wait... no... crappy german radio.. i forgot.. my bad

TimC

runover1, your question is a valid one. A while back I was wondering the same thing. When I was a radio operator in the service, in periods of high solar flares, we were told we could experience comm problems. Recently I went to a ham radio forum and posted more or less your same question. I gave the freq. we operate at and the power of our transmitters. I was told by several of the folks there that there should be no problem. Given the short range of our transmissions, they felt there was plenty of signal strength to overpower any interference from solar flares.

runover1

My Feedback: (10)

I checked all the equipment after the crash, and besides the throttle line moving the seperated firewall, it all checked out good. I even did a long range test with a friend. It is just one of those things, and on final approach, you don't always have the room to correct it. I can't wait to get it back in the air.

Does anyone know what kind of covering World Models uses, I have some serious patching to do.

I hope I don't have a day like that again.

EagleOne

I had a similar crash a few days before August 16th, but it was just after the take-off. In my case, the reason was radio interference caused by 3 things aboard the aircraft. I don't really know which of them contrbuted the most, but they are the only things that cold have caused the airplane to crash. Copper tube joining the wings, Z-Bend on the throttle line and 300 grams of nails as ballast.

The copper tube is due to it's low eletrical resitance, which can cause interference (too bad I discovered after I crashed the plane)....The Z-Bend and the nails were kind of negligency, since I knew they could cause interference, but was too eager to fly and didn't want to change it. Hopefully wasn't beyonf repair and It's already rapired.

On your case, check for Z-Bends on the throttle line. If there are any, it's recommended to exchange for a nylon clevis.....

Hope it helps,

Jim C.

i use the quick connectors on all of my servos... when i first started out i had a z bend pop out of my throttle servo... and had to fly what seemed forever when your a newbie... i landed after it ran out of fuel and i got looking and the push rod was just hanging there... so since that day i use those other connectors and locktite and never had a problem since..

antslake

My Feedback: (1)

And now for the actuall explanation......

Sunspots charge the ion particles in the upper atmosphere. This creates a electric blanket over the earth.
I am an amatuer radio operator, and to us, the sunspots are desired for the effects that it produces. As a model pilot, I do not like the effect.

What the "electric blanket" does is aloow radio waves to bounce off the atmosphere and back down to earth, creating a skip effect. The radio waves then can bounce off the earth and skip again. Thats how I can talk to Australia from NY, via "skip".

As the sun spot activity increases in strength the skip effect moves up in frequency.
Most of the time we use skip in the lower frequencies to talk around the world.
It is also easier for single side band to skip than am, then FM is the hardest to skip.

When the skip is at its peak, you can talk on FM to places far far away like they were next door. I had a guy in Canada come in stronger than a guy 10 blocks from me in NY.

The frequency also determines the angle at which the skip returns. I think for 72 mhz it would skip around 100-200 miles.

So you could have got interfernce from someone 100 miles from you! During a peak sun spot activity.

Sun spots also cycle every 11 years.
They also just create radio interfernce in general, and either reason could have been the cause of your unfortunate crash.

I think the only way to be safe would be to have a scanner, and scan before you fly. Even then your not 100% safe, as anyone could turn on a transmitter at any time.

runover1

My Feedback: (10)

Thanks Antslake!

Live Wire

Skip conditions was and is common on CB Radio signals bounce and follow the curve of the earth this is some thing that has been prov-en. I have done this and FCC does not like it!!!!!

P-51B

My Feedback: (5)

Do you guys by chance mean Solar Flares causing interference instead of Sun Spots.

There has been increased Solar Flare activity lately, and that can cause interference...never heard of Sun Spots causing interference before though.

blkbird68

My Feedback: (19)

On the date in question, there was a K-7 or greater Geomagnetic Storm warning issued.

I work in the control room of a power company and we get alerts on this stuff all the time because it can effect our communications with some of our equipment.

Smokin Cap

My Feedback: (49)

This is freaky....the same day I was out in the late afternoon doing some flying and lost control of my Sig CAP 231 while doing some inverted tumbles. Had no control at all for about 4 seconds. Got control back just in time to pancake her on the dirt. So im thinking some type of radio failure and I will trouble shoot later...gotta fly my UcanDo before it gets too dark. Get up in the air and I start getting hits...small at first and then larger. Get the plane on the ground, check things out, swap receivers and go up again. Same thing....call emergency and land it in one peice. Swapp out crystals(37 to 39) and go up again. Same problem except its real bad now and lost all control twice before I got her down in one piece. Decided to call it a day because I had no idea what was wrong and dropped off my transmitter(Eclips-7) to Hitec the next day (and its still there). All receivers (3 total I tried) and 2 crystals were brand new and were used in varios combinations. 3 other guys were getting some good hits themselvs that night on various channels
In preperation for flying tomorrow I just got done swapping out my battery, switch and another new crystal. hope what ever my problem was it is fixed. Nothing worse than going to the feild and having those types of problems. Oddly enough we were wondering about solar flares that night but never persued it until now. Thanks for the info as a possibility.

antslake

My Feedback: (1)

BBSO Solar Activity Report 17-AUG-2003 17:29:35 UT
Sunny and warm with good seeing.
Solar activity has been low with NOAA 0431 producing multiple low level C-class events. Solar activity is expected to remain low with C-class events mainly from NOAA 0431.

NOAA 0431, S12W36. Beta-gamma-delta region. Region continues in slow decay but still maintains its strong mixing. Region has produced multiple low level C-class events. Expect C-class events with a chance for a M-class event.

NOAA 0432, S04E19. Single stable sunspot.

NOAA 0433, S20W14. Single small sunspot.

NOAA 0434, S23W00. Small simple beta region.

NOAA 0435, S18W51. Small simple beta region.

NOAA 043-, N08E73. Beta region coming over the east limb. C-class events possible.

Positions are for Aug 17,2003 at 17:00 UT.

RF

antslake

My Feedback: (1)

Solar storms or flares cause the entire Canadian power grid to go out in 1985.

So its possible that was the cause, if the date in question indeed had a storm.

antslake

My Feedback: (1)

http://www.bbso.njit.edu/cgi-bin/ActivityReport

blkbird68

My Feedback: (19)

gee antslake they must know more than anyone else in the world ....because everybody else has seen that geomagnetic disturbance storms have been unusually high this month

http://www.sec.noaa.gov/alerts/archive.html

antslake

My Feedback: (1)

Don't think that I am disagreeing with you. I am not. Thats awesome information you provided and most likely right on the money.

I only provided one example on that kind of information, as I was looking for it on the web through nasa's web sites.

I was trying to agree with you about what a solar flare can do to our power grid and why you would have that kind of info. I am glad you provided that link, rock on!

antslake

My Feedback: (1)

:Product: 20030817events.txt
:Created: 2003 Aug 20 0302 UT
ate: 2003 08 17
# Prepared by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, NOAA, Space Environment Center.
# Please send comments and suggestions to [email protected]
#
# Missing data: ////
# Updated every 30 minutes.
# Edited Events for 2003 Aug 17
#
#Event Begin Max End Obs Q Type Loc/Frq Particulars Reg#
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4310 + 0029 0034 0042 G12 5 XRA 1-8A B8.2 5.7E-04

4320 0410 0423 0423 PAL G RBR 245 190
4320 + 0419 0426 0436 G12 5 XRA 1-8A C2.1 1.6E-03 0431

4330 + 0839 0844 0848 G12 5 XRA 1-8A C1.9 7.1E-04 0431
4330 + 0844 0844 0856 LEA 3 FLA S14W34 SF ERU 0431

4340 + 0902 0906 0911 G12 5 XRA 1-8A B8.4 3.8E-04

4350 + 1205 1211 1218 G12 5 XRA 1-8A B7.6 5.1E-04

4360 + 2033 2038 2045 G12 5 XRA 1-8A B7.0 4.3E-04
4360 + 2035 2035 2036 PAL G RBR 245 310
4360 + 2036 2036 2036 PAL G RBR 410 270

4370 + 2339 2344 2351 G12 5 XRA 1-8A B8.8 5.3E-04 0431
4370 2341 2342 0007 LEA 3 FLA S14W42 SF ERU 0431







These are the exact events that happened that day, I wonder if you crash was in time with one of these events. This is through the web site that bird provided.

TimC

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'd asked asked at a ham web-board about this concern. It was suggested there, that harmonics from some of the ham freqs. could well hit 72mH. Some of those ham operators pump some wattage, so a first or second order harmonic would still pack a punch.

antslake

My Feedback: (1)

Possible but not likley, as anything below 72 mhz, hams mostly use ssb, not FM.

Again anything is possible.

TimC

antslake, I'm in way over my head here, but from what little I know of radio theory, I am thinking it doesn't matter how the signal is modulated that hits you. If it hits your freq., your in trouble.