blindguarden

Hello all,
the story goes like this......but let me say that I have been flying for about a year now.
about two weekends ago I went to the field to fly my LT-40, being that I have not been to the field in about two weeks.
so I went out and decided to take the LT out to do some easy flying. Well that lasted all but about 2 min. lol .....let me explain what happend ...I lined the LT up for take off and gave it steady throttle to full and then proceded to lift her off the ground slow and gentle so I thought...she lifted off almost to a vert climb that cought me off guard..the plane started to go wild and I had a very hard time controlling it (it was rolling, fliping,up and down ) and I ended up planting it nose down at full throttle. After all was said and done I packed every thing up and went to the house to look things over to try to find out what went wrong. I did not find anything out of the norm. everything looked and checked out good. (other than ALOT of damage). Now the funny part about that....After the 2 week repair job I went to rest all the controls in my 9c and retrim everything and I noticed that I forgot to turn the triple rates off before I tried to to take the plane in to the air lol. I guess that was a good lession on my part to ALWAYS check your switches before take off to make sure everything is set to low rates.
Well the next weekend I decided to take my someth'n extra out while my LT 40 was under repair and ended up putting that one in the ground also but with very little damage (Dumb thumbs lol) nothing that 10 mins wouldn't fix. lol

Boy do I love this hobbie!!!! let me say this I have flown both of these planes before with no problems but when I do have problems they all pile up all at once lmao. Now I got my self second guessing myself about if I can even fly a plane anymore because the last two times I went to the field it has not turned out that great. But I asure I will be back to the field to try it again and again and again!!!! This Hobbie is not going to get rid of me that easy lol I just love it to much .

thanks

D-LOCO

Your story sounds familiar.

I learned to fly RC on an LT-40 last fall (kinda "shaky" when I quit for the winter though).

Built two kits over the winter to stay busy: a 4*60 and an LT-25.

Started flying again about April. Pretty good with the LT-40 (simulator helped alot!). Probably 20-25 flights.

So, I maidened the LT-25. 15 flights later, not even a scratch!

Next up: the 4* - maiden went well. about 5 or 6 flights. no problem

Then, I return from a two week vacation and decide to fly the 4* some more.

Couldn't do anything right. beat the heck out of that poor plane. broke my new wooden prop. damaged wing & finally knocked off the landing gear. All this because of horrible landings. What the heck is happening here?!

Well, after putting it all back together, I flew it the other day - much better.

I think even the most experienced RC fliers have bad days.

Dave
AMA 847123

drunkenbushman

A common mistake for anybody who is new at something is to get over confident. When you 1st get over confident you let yourself relax just a bit cause you think that you can and that is when you make your 1st mistake. Then after you have made your 1st or 2nd mistake you tense back up and start to concentrate fully again and thats how we learn and get better.

People dont just do it in this hobby they do it at work at sport dating being a handyman round the house driving. All the time people do it. Just dont dwell on it, learn from it and youll become a better pilot for it.

bubbagates

My Feedback: (32)

I actually did something very similiar this past weekend, but I must say and with all do respect to you, mine did continue to fly. My point is even the more experienced person can do the exact same thing and having extra power can really save your butt.

I was flying my 27% Cap232 all day long and I have just finished doing my standard 40+ trim flights and was feeling pretty good about the plane, well, we had some visitors come to see us fly late in the afternoon. Since mine was the biggest there, you can imagine all the children wanting to see it fly.

No biggie, or so I thought. Anyway, I fuel it and fire up the Da50 and flip to 3D rates to taxi out (I normally use 3D rates for taxi) well you can see this coming, can't you? I get all line up, roll into the throttle and decided I'll show them just how powerful this puppy is so I give it full up elevator and the darn thing goes right into a wall rough 10 feet off the ground. Needless to say I'm a bit surprised but he it's holding it's own, the DA is digging in and it's going vertical, besides I'm now shaking like a 14yr old on his first date.

So while she is climbing, I start "feeling" my switches and yep, she is still on high rates. So I flip it to low and go through the whole Sportman sequence. I do toss in a bit of 3D after the sequence and do a nice greaser landing. I taxi back, and all the kids are jsut floored by the takeoff. I'll admit I did tell them it was an accident but they did not seem to mind since it "looked SOOO COOLLL".

What I did not tell them was I needed to go clean out my underwear

Moral of the story: Check your switches

BTW, those of you that know how a Cap flies would think, as I did, that I was going to get the dreaded wing drop followed by the customary snap that Caps are famous for. Well, I must say this is the most stable Cap I have ever seen

elenasgrumpy

My Feedback: (4)

Wow!! Glad to hear she held up for ya without the dreaded Cap-Snap Bill!! Sorry to hear of the demise of your LT 40 blindguarden.

I too caught myself just last week taking off & landing on high rates while maidening my new Dragon 40.[X(] Luckily I did ok with no incidents or damage, but I just kept thinking to myself, " darn this thing is touchy" LOL. It never occurred to me until at the end of the day as I was putting my JR radio back in the case I see that I have both the ailerons & elevator on high rates.[:@] All I could do was laugh at myself for being a Dummy. You'd be amazed at how much more stable she flew on low rates the next 2 times out. The second time being yesterday morning & now I'm ready to turn her back up, but boy did she catch me by surprise on that maiden flight!
I'm really liking this plane now. Just as MinnFlyer promised me, it is a fantastic flier. Lots of fun with lots of capabilities. What I think I like the best is that she is such a sleeper. She has that High-Wing Trainer look to her but with very little dihedral & dual servos for the ailerons she is anything but a Trainer! Which makes it kind of fun to fly & watch the response of everyone else as I put her thur her paces. She definitely doesn't dissapoint. This plane is dis-continued, for what reason I have no idea, but if you happen on an oppertunity to buy one, jump on it! You will not be sorry & there are still some floating around out there to be had.

Just check those radio switches before maidening her.

Missileman

Not just rate switches either. Now that I am flying two different planes I find myself forgetting to switch models in my transmitter. Luckily I have caught it before trying to take off.

blindguarden

Boy!! now I do not feel so bad about not checking the switches lol.
I now have my LT 40 all put back in one piece and I am in the process of trying to get her balanced but she is REAL tail heavy.
Any Ideas on how to get it to balance. I have moved everything I can as far forward as it can go []. and it still looks like I will have to add about 8 to 10oz of dead weight (something I do not really want to have to do) to the nose to get it to balance corectly. Is there any other choices I have to get her to balance?

thanks

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

If you have already moved your battery and receiver as far forward as you can there isn't much else you can do to get it to balance but add the "dead" weight. But I wouldn't worry about it too much, that much extra weight isn't really going to affect the LT-40 that much. Just add you weight and go fly!!!

Ken

blindguarden

RCKen,

thanks I was a little worried about adding that much weight!

Now another question or 3 lol, what is the best way to mount the lead weight? Epoxy? and is there any reason I shouldn't mount the weight in the fule tank compartment just as long as I cna get it to balance?

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

Blind,
Look at these pictures from the LT-40 build thread that I did. I needed to add some weight after the plane was covered to get it to balance properly. I placed the weight in the fuel tank compartment underneath the fuel tank tray. I used a little epoxy to hold it in place so that it wouldn't shift in flight.

Hope this helps

Ken

piper_chuck

My Feedback: (12)

The farther you can get the weight from the CG, the less you will need to use. Unfortunately, 8 to 10 oz takes up alot of space. As for mounting, if you put the weight somewhere it could fall off the plane, I'd use a combination of glue and screws, just to be safe. I have seen glue joints fail, and loss of nose weight could be a catastrophy. Of course if you put it in the fuel tank compartment, the screws are probably not needed.

RCKen

My Feedback: (9)

I had missed that the first time around. Chuck is correct 8-10 ounces is a HUGE amount of weight. What kind of repairs did you do that added that much weight to the tail of the plane??

Ken

blindguarden

Well when I crached the plane it went strieght nose down from about 75ft so everything forward of F2 former I rebuilt. It hit at full throttle[&o]. I used the same type wood that the fuse is made of. but let me say my Lt 40 was already tail heavy before the crash.I thought that after doing the rebuild it would at lease be even closer to proper balance but over all it was about the same. I did how ever get it to the point to where I only needed to add 6 1/4oz of lead to get it to balance. and I did end up installing it on the fuse bottom under the tank compartment (Thanks RCKen for showing them Pics).
I am in the process of chargeing the batteries to take her to the field this afternoon for a maiden after the rebuild. I hope she flies well because this is the first major rebuild I have had to do on one of my planes. I am a kit builder so I have a good working knowledge of planes. I just wish kits were harder to build lol. All the ones I have ever build were like snap together. (LT 40, Someth'n extra, Mid * 40, and the 4* 40) Over all I don't mind when I put one of them in the dirt because I know from time to time it happens pluse it gives me a challange in fixing them

thanks,
Blindguarden

reyn3545

Wow.. thanks for the horror stories... I just set up dual rates on my mini ultra stick, and haven't been to the runway with it yet... hopefully during the pre-flight check I'll remember this string of posts and remember to check those switches!

blindguarden