For a second time I've experienced a transmitter failure on the Airtronics RDS8000. Once before a wire broke inisde the Tx gimbal resulting in the total loss of the model. Today, it appears that the same thing happened on a second RDS8000, though luckily this time on the ground.

I've been getting my Sopwith Snipe ready to fly again and noticed something odd about the aileron setup. It appeared to be just fine and then the next time I switched on it was as if the settings had changed. That seemed weird enough. But then the ailerons stopped responding completely even though the rudder, elevator, and throttle were still fine. So to confirm my suspicion that it was a Tx problem I tried with another model. And sure enough, the rudder, elevator, and throttle worked but the ailerons went to a non-neutral position and then ceased functioning.

And the functioning never return. So I believe that if I open up the RDS8000 I will find a broken wire on the aileron gimbal just as I did before. I'm lucky that this happened AFTER the first flight.

This is definitely a quality-control issue with the RDS8000. Sure, I have used this radio for many years, but the wires are really thin and the attachment points don't deal well with repetitive stress. Eventually, the wire WILL fail.

*****

At this point, I don't know what I'm going to do. It seems foolish to get another RDS8000 (which amazingly is still on the market). I could upgrade to the SD-10GS, but frankly, I don't know if they are any more reliable unless Airtronics has specifically addressed this concern while designing the SD-10GS.

Alternatively, I could make the move to Futaba or JR. But that would mean also buying a new set of Rx units.

Looks like I won't be flying for a while.