This is something I've always wondered about. I've noticed this problem occasionally for years, on different planes.
The aileron servo sometimes lags or even pauses. I've actually had the aileron stop responding completely for a few seconds. And sometimes, the servo just seems sluggish, like I input full aileron control and the servo accelerates a bit slow rather than (almost) immediately going to "full speed" as normal. I have only noticed this on the aileron servo, which leads me to believe it has to do with the extension cable and/or the frequent reconnecting of the extension as the plane is assembled/dsassembled. I've only for sure noticed it on the ground, and in the past I've connected and reconnected the extension a few times in an attempt to make it go away, but it's so intermittent I don't know if I'm affecting it or it just goes away on its own. I did lose my first 4-channel trainer to control trouble, ailerons were acting strange and eventually the plane spun in. I thought for a long time it might be due to radio interference as I could find nothing wrong with any components after the crash, but now I suspect it may have been due to a momentary "freeze" of the aileron servo. No in-flight troubles since then (at least, not servo-related
). For a while now I've been making a point of reconnecting the aileron servo several times before flying the plane, to scrape off any dust, grime, grease, whatever.
It's not been a problem for a long time but the other day when gettingh my old Cub going again and setting up control throws, I noticed the aileron servo did not respond immediately, it lagged for just a second or two. No problems after that, and I got in three flights later that day without incident.
I'm still not even sure it's a problem with the connection. I would think if the connector was dirty, the servo would only work intermittently, but during these incidents, the servos actually work, just at varying, below-normal speeds.
Using a Futaba 6VA Skysport, S148 servos. I also have a (no longer functional) 4-channel Conquest which I seem to recall showing the same problem a few times. And my first trainer had an AM Attack-4 radio....and it didn't even have an aileron servo extension, the aileron servo plugged straight into the rx. If it were an isolated incident I'd just chuck the servo, but like I said, it doesn't seem to be linked to any particular servo or radio.
Any ideas?
-Matt Bailey