1bosshog2

2nd time out w/ the super cub today. 1st time resulted in a smashed cowling and propellor. Today everything looked good pre-flight. I let her take off from the ground, all went well. After it was airborne it tried to bank left and nose dive everytime I gave it a little left rudder. It had a hard time when I gave it right rudder, it eventually kept spiralling down and left into the ground= another broken prop. and a cracked cowling. I expect this as I'm new to this. I adjusted the settings on the radio controller and noticed that the rudder would not go to center and stay there. It stayed offset to the left. Is this my problem? Is there an adjustment I need to make to the linkage? I realize it could be user error, but from what everyone says this plane should be fairly easy to keep airborne and not go into a spiralling nosed dive everytime it goes up.

Thanks for any help/suggestions,

giddyuperic

Do you have the trim set on the radio??? If not then you need to check the servo horn that is the thing on top of the servo that is holding the control wire. Make sure the is at 9 oclock, then make sure the rudder in in the right place and adj the clevis so it lines up with the tail you can screw the clevis in or out to adj it. And when it is all lined up then hook it on the horn on the rudder. Make sure to do all of these adj when the radio is on and the plane is on too. I am sure you know to turn on the radio first and then the plane right? And always turn off the radio last. Okay I hope this help's and I am sure that other people will have so advice to.

patnchris

It sounds like it is stalling. Try flying with a little more throttle......Pat

sportrider_fz6

when I got my SC it was pretty close out of the box, but I had to move the trim on the TX all the way to the right to have the rudder straight by eye. I powered up the TX and plane set the trims to center then used the clevis adjustments to center the control surfaces. when flying the plane was really close to spot on I had to use the trim adjustment from the elevator and move it up a few notched to stop the plane from always wanting to climb, and on the rudder I moved it just off center to the right and it flies perfectly straight if there's no wind. I still have plenty of adjustment left on the TX so no worries there. just take your time and set every thing as close as you can get it and you should be ok. unless your trying to fly to slow and stalling like patnchris said.

rmenke

My Feedback: (13)

1bosshog2:

It is vary important for your control surfaces to be centered along with your servo arms and transmitter trim prior to flight. Use a streight edge on the elevator and rudder and adjust the control rods clevis to get to this position. If you have to modify the control rods/lines, do it. If your control surface is off center, you are automatically forced to compensate with the stick yourself, something you do not need as a novice or experienced pilot. Servo control horns need to be positioned 90% pirpendicular to the mounting surface so that the arm travels equally in both directions, and the control surfaces travel equally. Its a geometry thing common to all our birds and becomes more important with precision and 3D flight. When your bird is trimmed out correctly, it will fly hands off all buy itself. A couple of pics would help us help you a bunch. EJOY

1bosshog2

Thanks for the all the info. I manually adjusted the control rods on the rudder and elevator, by eye they look good. I also found that the engine mount was cracked and pulling away slightly from the fuselage, I glued that back and it seems to be holding. I will take your advice rmenke about the straight edge. Also, I'll try to get some pics tomorrow. Can you back off the throttle at altitude or does this plane require full throttle throughout flight?

Witterings

If you say that the rudder wasn't straight in the 1st place that sounds as though it's where your problem is, make sure when you do centre them that the trim is in the middle before you start so if when you next fly it's turning one way or the other you've plenty of adjustment left to get to hands off flying, also if you're motor was coming away from the mount it would change your thrust angle meaning the plane again wouldn't fly straight.

Other thing to bear in mind is wind speed under the wings causes lift so as you make a turn the wing on the outside of the turn will be travelling faster than the wing on the inside (pendulum effect) which will give it more lift making the one on the inside dip taking the nose with it towards the ground, after a while it'll become second nature to coordinate a little up elevator in your turns to compensate.

If you're just starting out would highly recommend a cheap simulator as well to help with the orientation if nothing else, personally I used the E-Sky and at a later stage as I became more advanced downloded more aerobatic planes from the internet.

To answer your other question it'll fly quite nicely at 50 / 60% throttle which will also increase your flight times quite considerably but would still use full throttle for take off.

Hope that helps, any more queries let us know !!!!

davemac2

If the rudder was originally centered ok with the rudder trim adj. mid point BEFORE the crash, then this can indicate a bent push rod or the rudder servo has come loose inside the fuse, or some other damage. Always make sure you re-inspect your servo mounts after a bad crash until you feel they are well secured. If you have not re-secured your servoes from the original SC white caulk used, then I would advise you do so using epoxy or something that holds better.

dave mc

1bosshog2

Both servo mounts had come loose from the original white caulking. I would guess from the 1st day of crashes. It definitely looked like that was affecting both rods. I glued them back in place and re-attached the rods to the rudder/elevator while the radio was on. The rudder and elevator look good when responding to the radio. Will probably have to wait for the weekend for a chance to fly.

Thanks again for the help.

kenh22

I didn't notice anyone refer to the SC ACT system, we fly over the desert and flying with the ACT activated can cause some serrious control issues. Most of us have permanently disabled the ACT and have had less problems with the plane going out of control. The other thing that we have discovered is that since we fly really close to an Interstate Highway we often have interference issues that we assume are caused by CB radio traffic several people have converted from the Hobby Zone Transmitter to the Spektrum DX 6 and are very pleased with the results

1bosshog2

I have kept the ACT turned off since the 2nd time out. How do you permanently disconnect it? Do you do it on the plane or the radio? I don't think there's any kind of interference where I fly it. I still haven't had a chance to fly it since I glued the servo mounts back in, I'm hoping to try Tues.

rob737

My Feedback: (3)

one day i noticed my supercub was really sloppy. same thing, the servos had come lose in their tray. i used silicone and now they are in there for good. you can unplug the anti-crash technology right at the esc.......give it a yank and you won't have to worry about it again! good luck, let us know how it flys..........

eagle727

1bosshog2 ,Have flown the super cub after re-gluing the servos and adjusting the trim?How did it it fly?If it is still not trimmed right,what I do do is:Turn on the X-mitter,plug in the cub's battery,set the trim sliders on the X-mitter to center.Look @ the Very end of the elevater,it should be perfectly aligned(straight)with the Horizontal Stabilizer(the fixed part of the tail).And do the same with the rudder and the fixed Vertical Stabilizer.If not turn your threaded clevis ends while removed from the control horn on the rudder or elevater,and reconnect them repeat untill your control surfaces are straight with your fixed stabilizers.If while in flight it tends to pitch or roll,use the trim sliders on the X-mitter to correct the issue.Hope your flight goes well.

mad web tv scientist

[8D] bosshog, please check your CG fore and aft and side to side. Many "RTF airplanes" are tail heavy from the factory. This is a "good thing" for the manufactures because they can sell more replacement parts to unsuspecting newbies who will inevitably fail to carefully check their CG location and will order new parts before finally figuring out what their problem is. Side to side CG is not as important until you start pulling Gs, but it is nice to have it right just to make sure.

I like to test glide my Cub and practice dead stick landings. If the plane will glide straight and everything is properly trimmed it should fly straight under power and control predictably.

Hope this helps.

madwebtvscientist [sm=lol.gif][sm=cry_smile.gif]
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