EP Super Sportster Eats It
After many exciting flights my Great Planes Super Sportster EP bit it Thanksgiving morning. It was a gorgeous day with 0-2 mph winds so I went out with the SS and Tiger Moth. I got this nice 3150 3s LiPo that worked great in the Tiger and I was dying to try it in the Sportster. Performed a radio check and took off, oh man did it climb. About 3 minutes in I was coming off a hard right turn and was preparing to do a low photo pass - it never came to be. About 100 feet up I heard this noise like a power surge and all controls went dead. No engine or response from anything. I flicked the power switch on the radio and still got nothing. All I could do was watch in stunned silence as the plane which was flying straight and level at the time, started to descend towards earth. She nosed in and buried the spinner, and flipped onto her back. The wing seperated from the fuse and cracked both tips and the seat. The whole tail section cracked from the fuse but is intact as far as the stabilizers go. The electronics and battery and motor are fine. The gearbox is shot as well as the fuselage. After Inspecting the damage I found some fried wires leading from the ESC. What happened was I soldered a JST connector on the end of it to fit my batteries. The LiPo had a deans connector so I got a deans.jst adapter. Well on my solder joint I didn't have heat shrink covering so I used electrical tape. The tape was a little loose and I think it vibrated/ slid off the solder joints. Next thing ya know, the joints touched and ppppssssssssshew. Fried wires. That was such a gorgeous looking plane. I will miss it.