scottsey

Sorry this may get a bit long but I want to give everyone the history which may help resove our problem. Last summer my 12 year old son wanted to start flying. I used to fly but had been out of RC for about 5 or six years but I thought this would be great fun to build and fly with my son. We purchased the Tower trainer 40 ultimate combo package. After building the plane we charged charged the batteries according to instructions then we flew the plane. On the third flight the plane went nuts! Fortunatly I was able to get control just before hitting the ground which saved the plane. Not much damage. I called Tower and told them I thought we had a problem with either the transmitter, receiver or batteries. We sent it in for them to check and they found no problems. I wasn't convinced but I thought OK we'll try again. This time I decided to fly at my dads farm which is in the middle of nowhere thus eliminating interference from other radios or whatever. Same results this time on the first flight shortly after take off the plane went nuts and this time went in a nose dive to the ground and destroyed the plane. This time I did find a stripped servo on the elevator after the crash. I thought maybe this was our problem but I just didn't trust that radio system .I told my son that I would get another plane. This time I purchased the Nextar 40 package with new radio, servos etc. We flew this plane with zero problems. My son has done very well and flys this plane now with no help from me.

Now here is the problem. We decided to build the Pheonix Funstar for his second plane. We used the engine from the Nextar but I used the radio and transmitter from the Tower plane with three of the servos from that plane and two Futaba servos that I had left from my earlier flying days. Last night we were ready to give the Pheonix her maiden flight. When we did our preflight radie check we had sever servo chatter from only 60 feet away. I thought here we go again this radio is just screwed up. So we went home and switched the transmitter and the reciever from the Nextar into this plane. Went back to the field and started again. This time on the preflight radio check we had just a little bit of chatter at about 100 feet. OK here is where I screwed up....shouldn't have flown the plane but I thought OK the chatter isn't bad we'll just take a quick flight and not get to far away. Yes I should have known better! The plane tracked down the runway perfect requiring almost no rudder to stay straight. Took off perfectly only needed about 3 clicks of down elevator! Did a slow circle to the left about halfway around the plane decided to roll right and head straight down. I got control again and decided to land right away. Just before hitting the runway it did it again but still landed pretty good all it did was hit one wing tip which resulted in a slight tear in the covering. No big deal. Very lucky that this was the only damage.

I am going to change out the servos from the Tower plane and put the Futaba servos from the Nextar in this plane as well as the battery pack from the Nextar plane. If anyone has any ideas on what they think could be going on or any suggestions we would really appreciate it. I could tell on this very short flight that this is going to be a great plane!!!!

Thanks for your help.