Would like to share this experience. Had a minor crash than needed small repair to wing cover.

Went to fly and did servo check. Suddenly 1 airelon servo started to whine and surface locked up. (If I had of takenoff I would have probably spiralled into dirt.)

Thankfully my preflight habits prevented a potentially major crash - Now i just need a replacement servo instead of a replacement model!

Happy flying everyone!

After any crash, you need to thoroughly inspect the entire plane. You're lucky you caught the bad servo. Now you need to inspect all the other servos for frayed or stripped wires, stripped gears. Carefully inspect the tail section for any cracks or flexibility that might have developed in the horizontal or vertical stabilizers. Check around your landing gear for any cracks in the fuselage.

I repaired a Nexstar last year that only had visible damage to the nose section. Since I was recovering it anyway, when I stripped off the old covering, I discovered a cracked horizontal stab.

Good Luck!
Brad

Don't wait for a crash. Before taxiing out do a quick control check - every time!

That's exactly what I do. I also usually do one last check on the runway right before I start the takeoff roll. Just make sure all of your surfaces move as they are supposed to. This may sound a bit silly, but also "talk" in your head what the suface is supposed to be doing.... ailerons right - ailerons left, rudder right - rudder left, elevator up - elevator down. Once you get in the habit of doing this you won't feel comfortable taking off until you do it every flight. This is really good for catching things like trying to take off with the wrong model selected on your radio . [X(]

Ken

Doing a check before flight saved a tower trainer last night.

I had a friend over last night and he was going to fly his tower trainer, he has only about ten flights or less with any planes and this was going to be his first flight of this year. I told him to go ahead and get the plane ready by himself, attach the wing, fuel it up, etc..
I am still learning myself, but he is learning more so than me at this point.

After he was ready to fire it up I asked him if he did a range check first and he told me "No I forgot that." So we did a range check and found that he had hooked up the ailerons connecter backwards which resulted in no response of ailerons. So doing a check of everything first will save a plane or two in time.

I agree with RCKen as he said once to make this a habit you will not fly until you do it just because it does not feel right.

I agree with and do as RCKen - but do it SLOWLY!
I did it one day, just banged the controls around and everything moved OK.
Got into the air and didn't have aileron control.
Turns out the control arm was binding a little.
With full force it overcame the bind, at slight force no go - except into the ground.
Good Luck,
KW_Counter

The other day I went flying without connecting my aileron servo. Made 3 mistakes. 1 - Got in a hurry to fly. 2 - Forgot to connect the servo to the receiver. 3 - Didn't to a control check before taking off.

Luckily I immediately realized what was wrong when the plane got in the air and flew it back around and landed using the rudder. I sure was lucky. Now I have a checklist.

Before every flight I do a pre flight check, twice. But one day I was doing approaches and half way through my flight, I thought, hey isn't there some anoying, peskey thing that is supposed to be in front of me and relized that I forgot my antenna. Once it was up I made sure to count my blessings. I'm hoping to make a check list anb laminate it on my flight box.

Dave Trimmer

here is one you can print out and laminate to keep with you. [link]http://jimsrc.com/preflight.html[/link]

The good thing about the new computer radios is they can be programmed for several aircraft. The bad thing about computer radios is they're not smart enough to know what aircraft your flying at the time. Make sure you have the right aircraft selected as part of the preflight.

With the new Spread Spectrum radios this is no longer true. They have what's called "Model Match", which basically means that the model won't operate unless you have the correct one selected in the the radio.

Ken

I want one!

Are the new JR's and Futaba's the same way?

Just the JR and Spektrum 2.4's offer that particular feature at this point. The others still require the pilot to be awake and thinking. A condition I recommend anyway.

And I don't care what system you are using, a before start and again before flight control check is the ONLY smart proceedure to go by.

Hi, Can someone tell me how i can put my servos on thier own battery pack. I'm getting radio glitches from time to time. This is my 1st. plane with all digital servos. I think they are interfering with my reciever. What i got is futaba radio equipment, hitech digital servos. 6 volt battery. Any help would be great. Thanks. Don