theKAT

My Feedback: (1)

...and the winner is...the farm equipment.

I'm flying a loaned plane tonight, having a great old time. Did some of my first IMAC sequences and was actually feeling some improvement. Beautiful weather, a nice soft touchdown, what could possibly spoil it?

When I went to shut down the motor, something happend, and I am still trying to figure out what it is. The plane went to full throttle and headed out across our flying filed toward a parked tractor with a cultivator on the back of it. Nothing I did with the TX created any kind of repsonse and the plane just keep accelerating until it impaled itself on the spikes underneath the farm implement. It's pretty much a basket case (me too).

wgeffon

My Feedback: (4)

Plane was mine and while it does suck I am just glad noone was hurt. It could have been much worse.
I set the radio up for Karl and programmed the Fail Safe for neutral controls and LOW idle. We verified this many times while doing so.
He had ZERO control as it was speeding away.


We will never know what happened for sure.
Bad stuff happens occasionally. Get back on the horse!

Shortman

My Feedback: (21)

Ah Karl that truely stinks, Wayne is a great friend and I'm sure he understands. Glad no one else was hurt. Old saying, S%&* happens[][&:][:@]

Kody

My Feedback: (19)

Man that just sucks.[]

wgeffon

My Feedback: (4)

Hey Karl,

Lay something down under that right stab. I dont want it to get scratched!

RTK

My Feedback: (1)

If you ever figure out what went wrong, let us know. That really stinks, on the ground and wait to shut down.

Jleyland

My Feedback: (1)

Hey Karl - Don't worry. My dad's got an awesome set of tools.

wgeffon

My Feedback: (4)

I doubt we will ever know 100%
My first thought was throttle servo. Nope. He had no control on anything else.
That leads me into FailSafe but I 1000000% know it was set up for low throttle.

I know people will have ideas what happened and thats great but lets not make this into a PCM, PPM, failsafe, no kill switch, I always use a kill switch, dual receiver, single receiver, I would never do that, I always do that, You should do this but not this, thread we so often see here.

JohnVH

My Feedback: (38)

man that really sucks. Sorry to see this!!

DKjens

My Feedback: (50)

Wayne, Karl, really sorry to see this, particularly after seeing the nice video of Karl flying this plane. I have had one Rx go into failsafe and stay for a 400' vertical dive into the ground on one plane, never found out why. Recently I saw another Rx go into failsafe and take out the plane upon final, don't know why. Obviously this was not a case of going into failsafe, this was just crazy, makes you want to shut down your plane A.S.A.P. after landing, does it not? I am flying ppm now, even my 2.6m Extra, and will with two Rxs on my 3.0m Extra. I'll rather have the plane show me something stupid, and me having a fighting chance of bringing it to the ground, than just watching it not respond at all. If a failsafe throttle position is needed, all I have to do is use a Hitec digital servo.
On a maybe slightly different note, these incidents are why I find it so important to follow certain guide lines with these 'monsters'. They are only controlled by electronics that are produced as cheap as possible in order for us to buy it, and s..t happens, no matter how well one tryes to prevent it. It can easily cost lims or lives, fortunately this fast moving cuisinart took off on a, well, almost clear path.
Again, sorry for both of you, but you both know s..t happens, hopefully this will pay your dues for a long time ahead.
DKjens

mu2driver

My Feedback: (15)

If its any consolation last Sat ia handed my TX to my good buddy to wring it out and after he flew like 12 min. he was landing my plane and it locked out on him.

No sweat, im just glad it was him and not me...LOL J/K

R.I.P. my 2.6m[sm=crying.gif]

Wayne and Karl im very sorry for the loss, may there be better things on the horizon....

Leardriver

My Feedback: (12)

Man this just makes me so bummed to look at! I feel for you guys. Wayne you are a true gentleman (of course I am sure we missed all the cursing seeing as I'm sure you had time to compose yourself before this post).

I lost my first 35% earlier this season and I know what it feels like. But like y'all said...get back up and ride boys. After all...it's ONLY money (It growes on trees out there right? I know it does here...er...at least it seems like I spend it on these things like does ).

Wayne...I have a phrase for ya.............SUPER XTRA! <----------instructions read "repeat until either ordered or you go blind"......either way is remedy for said condition......lol! Basically it was how I consoled myself after mine was so unfairly dismantled (5th flight). That is after I replaced my 2.6 <VBG>.

Oh yea ...uh Darcy...can I have rudder back now? Lol!

Seriously, I am very glad to hear that nobody was injured in any way. That really is the most important thing here. I think we tend to get complacent and forget what these could really do if an accident was to occur...especially with a runaway situation as you encountered.

PaulP

Darrinc

My Feedback: (5)

Sorry to hear about your loss.

I had my composites class's 19lbs 35% Extra go straight in after a slow, easy hammerhead. We found out later that it was a bizzare reciever problem. ( the tuning cap screw came loose)

They (a class of 6) built it in just 6 weeks and did a fantastic job, but most of them never got to see it fly.

I feel your pain!!!

CDignition

My Feedback: (9)

Oh man..that hurts to see...Darcy too..

It most likeley lost power, if the RX loses all power, failsafe wont work...maybe the batt lines came unplugged??..

Any new projects on the horizon??..another Composite??..

I think Darcy has Yak on the brain, hehe...after seening the 3.3M pics of JohnVH 's new plane, that one would be the hot setup..

rcavi8ter

My Feedback: (19)

Karl Get UP! You know the deal Karl the Carden or the CA are yours if you want them this weekend. Just come over and pick one up. I wish we had pics with it scattered all over the tractor. I think you can fix it. A little Duck Tape and you are good to go. Stuff works great. I use it to put props back together.[X(]

GoeKeli

My Feedback: (18)

Sorry for you loss guys. THe death of a plane is th birth of a new one. Nothing takes the sting out like building a new one ASAP!! It has happened to me on a smaller scale!~(

Joe

figueroa

My Feedback: (22)

Sorry for your loss guys, I know the feeling I lost my 2.6 on it's maiden 2 months ago.
I did replace it and I am having a great time with it. I am sure you will do the same.
Jef

taxman232ex

Man - sorry to see that. That just plain stinks........

Taxman

wgeffon

My Feedback: (4)

Thanks guys.

Loss of receiver power was one thing we thought before we even walked to the wrekage except that when we got there everything was still buzzing. We had a hard time even finding both RX switches to turn everything off. I finally wound up just unplugging the regulators from the RX.

Anyone ever heard of a PCM RX going into FailSafe and it not doing what was programmed?

wgeffon

My Feedback: (4)

Not really. One of us was upset when it happened and one of us wasnt. Its just an RC airplane. Stuff happens. Noone was hurt and that was the main thing. I havent talked to the one that was upset yet today. He better be over it though!


Not sure what I will do yet.
Maybe sell off the 150 and get another 100. Then buy a backup 35% RadioCraft. I actually like the 35% planes better.

Bryant330L

My Feedback: (126)

Man, this is a bad deal... Even knowing that he had no control, I know Karl must feel terrible simply because the tx was in his hands. I really don't know of anybody that would handle this any better than Wayne. Couple of class acts, even in the face of losing several thousand dollars.

going vert

My Feedback: (11)

I've heard of ghosts in controllers... You know what I mean. Send your controller back to be looked at ASAP!

rc4flying

My Feedback: (21)

Karl,

I am sorry for your misfortune, but I can relate totally. I had a similar happening with a 35% Carden Cap at Joe Nall several years ago. The plane had just landed and I taxiied up to myself stopping about 10 feet short of myself when all of a sudden the plane went into full throttle like your incident. The plane rushed straight at me with about 40 people behind me and all I could do was stick my foot and leg out to snag the wing. After ripping a section out of the wing the plane tipped up and killed the prop and engine. Like yourself, I was just happy no one was hurt.

Upon trying to figure out what had happened, this is what the conclusion was for me. At the time, I was using Futaba's Mini switches on everything. the plane had 9 standard 9402 servos, and one 3600mil battery. I had flown the plane for over a year. That previous winter, I switched the plane over to JR 8411 servos to see what the hype about digital servos were for myself. This was probably the 3rd flight of the dayand the new setup. I had also bought a new 9Z WCII radio upgrading from the earlier 9Z version. I manually transfered all my data with no problems. But I did no catch resetting the "Battery failsafe". The signal failsafe was working fine, but with the battery fail safe not set by me it defaults to the factory settings. Being I had to reverse the throttle servo direction of throw the servo went into full throttle instead of a low throttle setting that I had been setting up. It was mentioned that if the rcvr would see even a momentay volts spike drop as the result of the digital servo being held in an full up position or the servos vibriting at their centers and trying to hold there, the rcvr could have seen a instant volt drop in the form of a downward spike, but what also contriduted was the use of the mini switches which I had used with great success up until this time. The switchs may also not have been able to carring the current load of the digital servos.

All I did after the repairs was replace all the mini switches with Futaba's new HD switch which they had just came out with and I had bought and received 2 days before we left for the Nall and I was lazy to change them out. I switched the switches and did nothing else to the plane for two more full seasons and never had a problem like this again. If I did, it would have resulted in a low throttle movement and hold until I would cycle the stick. Being I relized my previous error with the radio program setup transfer, this throttle program was confirmed.

Just a possibility for what may have happened. Did you ever look or cosider the Battery Failsafe if the radio has one?

Joe

rc4flying

My Feedback: (21)

Hello Wayne,

Sorry, but my previous post should have been directed to both you and Karl. Sorry for your loss, but you may consider my earlier posting. Just a possible cause.

Joe

wgeffon

My Feedback: (4)

Joe,

Im not 100% sure about a battery failsafe.. Do you mean on the TX or the RX batts??
Either way, Karl's TX had plenty of juice left and without testing the RX batts (We didnt do that after the crash because all the wires and everything was such a mess) my guess is the batteries were at least 7.2V under a 1 amp load. The plane had only flown two times that day.
It was equipped with 2 4000 Mah Duralite + batts. Two seperate JR HD switches.
This plane had at least 70 flights on it with equipment. The only thing we did to get Karl in the air was to switch out his X-Tal and I then programmed his 8103 for the plane.
I think Karl had 10-15 flights on it before this happened.

????