Lynn S

Well......my last flight of my Extra was about 30 seconds too long for the battery pack today. I knew I had about 6 flights on it, but some friends came over and I had to give it just one last "short" five min flight. That short flight turned out to be extra long due to more fuel in the tank than I thought. It must have run close to 12 minutes. The engine finally died and it was headed on the downwind leg of the landing pattern. Just as it was over my house the servos went into the safe mode (turn) which is fine with rudder but not ailerons. It augered in from about 50 ft up. hit in the soft grass nose first and buried the prop and engine in the soft soil. The only damage was a broken the wing. I can pull it out and repair it easily, there was no damage to the fuse or engine.

....as they say when you ASSUME anything.....you make an ASS/U/ME.

I assumed it was out of fuel and added more fuel...I should have checked to make sure.. and also checked the battery with my tester.[:@]

flyinrog

My Feedback: (1)

yep have done that ASSUME thing myself, and I bet 90% of us would of done the same thing, too bad about the crash man, but hey at least you got other Ace kits to go through right, and sounds like this one can be fixed, last time I went to check the tiny connections on my batt pak it blew the fuse on my meter.....Rog

Lynn S

Rog, I have a spare wing, but I can fix this one easier than making a new one.
I forgot to mention it crashed right in front of my wife and her friend who were sitting in lawn chairs. They didn't hear it coming because it was deadstick when it went down....but no harm done, I'm thankful for that.
I got the foam wing removed and ready to epoxy three bamboo skewers inside to hold it together. That worked well on my last Extra. Its a shame, this little plane was doing so well and I have to bash it hard....but it will be back together in a few days ready for more.
I've got the inverted flying going good....just not ready to try it low yet.

combatpigg

My Feedback: (3)

HI LYNN! The best glue I have come across for fixing foam is GORILLA GLUE, or any of the other polyurethane glues. It expands and infiltrates all the nooks and crannys.

Lynn S

CP- I'll see if I can find it, thanks.

rrragmanliam

My Feedback: (1)

Hey Lynn, sory about the crash. Don't know if you remember this post to me re airborne pack capacity. Did you check your volts at the preflight? How big is your pack? Seven flights on one charge? WOW! These are the same questions I asked myself when I did essentially the same thing. Tuff to loose a plane for an entierly preventable reason but we've all done it. The thing I would have worried about was loosing control of the thing around spectators. I've never hit anyone with a plane and don't want to.

Once I've completed a plane, I'll discharge then charge the pack noting ma in. Then put two flights on the plane, and finally cycle the pack to see how much capacity was left. On average I can get 6 flight's on a 270ma nicd pack and still have about 30-40% capacity left. I stop at 5 and don't fly untill the packs charged.

Darren

Darren

Tim Wiltse-RCU

Lynn,


There is one very important thing to rememeber about R/C flying. When ever you say to yourself.."oh one more flight and I'm done for the day" stop right there and go home. More planes have been lost to the "one more flight" than any other reason. My Sniper contest plane got hurt pretty bad a month ago due to "one more flight".

LAter,
Tim

Lynn S

Dats true Darren and Tim, It would have been nice to throttle back and land, but this non throttle .049 just keeps on going. I was ok for 5 more minutes, but not 12-15......BUT....like I said I assumed the tank was empty when I added another half ounce of fuel.
Darren- My battery tester was in my shop, I know to test next time. It has a 250mha battery.
I've learned my lesson, I'll put the tester on after the 3rd flight next time...
...at least it was a mild unpowered crash and the yard is soft from all the rain.

SST

My Feedback: (2)

Went out to maiden my Goldberg Ranger 42 today. Flies great, but the Norvel .049 is still awfully new, only having 3-4 oz through it, and on the second flight it quit in kind of a bad position, without altitude to glide to the downwind end of the field, and instead of bringing it in in the wheatfield, I brought it in for a downwind landing on the runway. Everything was fine until an 'up the kilt' puff of breeze cought me about a foot off the deck[:@]...She nosed in and tore the engine mounting screws out of the plywood mounting plate. No serious damage, but I'm gonna have to get more bench run time on that engine...

Lynn S

Doug, I found that I have to run 20% castor oil or the engine will die after about 2 minutes. And that is after at least 2hrs running time. I thought it was the 6x3 master airscrew prop causing it to overheat, but it will die with a 5x3 cox prop too using straight 16% castor Bryons fuel.
I added more oil and the problem went away.

SST

My Feedback: (2)

I have had no problems with the 25% Byron fuel, but today I used some 35% Sig fuel, which is REALLY oily. In fact, that might have been the problem, since it ran better on the bench with the Byron. I bought the Sig fuel last year for my Cox reedies, and though the stuff made a hideous mess, the Cox's liked it, but perhaps my Norvels don't.

Lynn S

I don't think they recommend 35% nitro for new engines. It's overheating for sure.

Lynn S

Got the Extra repaired and flew it for the first time since the crash (July 4th) yesterday and two flights today.
I balanced it at 30% and it was in almost a constant stall after launch. I was lucky to get it back down in one piece. I had to land it under power between tip stalls....not fun but no damage.
I balanced it at 25% on the balancer. That seems to be the magic spot. It flew fine then. The bad news is I had to add more weight to the nose and I can tell its not as lively as it was. In fact I had to use a full size 600mha battery pack plus a large washer. It is slower to get up to speed now. I may have to put the .061 AME on it for more power.

Edit: Well now I think it is a little nose heavy. It needs a good bit back pressure on the stick in the turns to keep the nose from falling. It's not doing loops very well either. I'm taking out the washer and see what happens tomorrow. I may get it back to normal yet.

Well removing the washer helped and that moved the balance point back about 1/4 inch. Its doing much better, but still does not perform like it did.
I decided to put the .061 AME on it to see what happens. I have it mounted and did a test run this morning. I'm going to start out with a Master Airscrew 6x3 prop to hold the rpms back. It runs fine with just muffler pressure. As far as I can tell its just like running the .049 except its turning more rpms 16,500 vs 14,000 with the same prop. I'm sure it will scream with the 5x3 cox, but I will try the MAS prop first. I'll post a thread on running the AME after I fly it.[X(]