I had a plane go wierd on take off a few months back, resulting in a gentile crash. The cause was in the battery circuit, but I know not where. How do I know that? The volt watch when I retrieved the plane showed a red light. The battery came off the charger about an hour and a half before. It was good on the bench just before the almost flight. The plane did an abrupt right turn and would not lift even with full elevator even though it had speed. I chopped power and nothing, suddenly, the engine quit, and the plane lifted off just clearing a fence and landing at the edge of the stock pond behind our field. When I got it back to the bench, and turned on the battery, there was a solid red light on the voltwatch. When I got the plane back home, I turned it on again and the same red light. I then took it to the bench do see what I could find and this time when I turned it on, I had a full charge indication. I pulled the battery and checked it. I cycled it, OK. I skinned it and checked for bad welds, none found. I could not repeat the failure. I trashed the battery and the switch harness. One of them was bad, the voltwatch told me so. A loaded voltmeter, or what ever else you plug into the switch would only have left me scratching my head. Seeing that the receiver was receiving a very low voltage probably kept me from loosing the plane again.

The voltwatch didn't prevent this incident. That doesn't mean that it made me less likely to trust it, but in fact reenforced my trust in them. They tell you what is happening right now under real conditions. Period.

Don