So I finally maidened my Showtime today. Flight lasted about 1 minute and in the pond it went. We arent sure what happened but my buddy said the ailerons seemed to suddenly reverse on him. I dont get it. The airframe is intact. Stripping everything and letting it dry for a few weeks . Im guessing i should send all electronics to manafacturer for bench testing. What do you guys think? Stuff did get wet. Just took apart the engine and letting it sit in Rubbing alcohol overnight, and will bathe in fuel tomorrow for reassembly.

Its so dissapointing.

I did notice one thing. about 6 inches of the antenna was dragging behind the airplane. Looks like it got caught up in the tail wheel and wore away some of the housing and frayed some of the wire as it dragged over the runway. Is this something to be concerned about? Should I just get a new Rx? This was new to begin with.


Any tips on drying a plane out? Any help on getting this thing back in flying shape would be appreciated.


So bummed!

Bummer about the plane.. I don't know about the flight gear, someone will be along to tell ya about that..

ro347
Hope you can take bad news [:@] but ARF's can't take to much water if you got water inside the wing and fuse, they will just come apart. It will have to be striped and checked over and recovered, the radio should be sent in and the servos may have to be tossed. You can let things dry in the sun if you can find anough or use a space heater to dry thing out .
Sorry for your bad luck

ro347
Sorry double post

It is a good idea to send in the receiver. That is depending on what the receiver is worth. The last two in sent in after a swim cost me around $40. It's good piece of mind. Have them put a new antenna on while you are at it and if it is dragging on the runway and catching in the wheel, you would be well served by re-routing it.

Check the plane out carefully. I put my Ruperts in the pond a couple weeks back. It glided in nice and slow and was setting just in the water with the wings clear. I pulled it out by the tail and it weighted a ton. It leaked water out of the wing all the way to the pits. There was one small tear in the covering. I've been toying with the idea of recovering it for awhle and now the need was there. when I tore off the covering, the LE sheeting had been pushed in and broken between ever rib on th left side. Then I noticed a strange tear on the top side and when I pulled the covering off, the leading edge and lower spar were both broken. It's repairable, but it quickly went from a dry out to a major rebuild. I glad I pulled the covering, It was good for one half a loop and in it would have gone. Check things closly after the water landing. THere can be a lot of hidden damage.

you shoudl make sure your servos are OK also. They don't like water any better than the receiver. The power switch might stand replacing also if it was wet. The last thing you want is a intermintent switch. I think that may be what put me into the drink to begin with.

Don.

Please dont take this the wrong way...but are you sure about the arfs not being able to get wet. We fly over a pond and needless to say...when things go bad...planes go swimming. Ive seen plenty of birds repaired and fly again. The one thing I was told was to let the airframe dry SLOWLY on its own. If you attempt to speed the process, things may warp.

so347
What the problem is ! they are built with and interlocking and bridge type construction with hot glue and the expansion and contraction of the wood causes the surface bond of the hot glue to let loose. Eather that or the vibration of the moter when attemting to fly will cause failure. Every thing is built light and depends on stuctural braceing for strength, One failure and you are back to square ONE. Better safe than sorry[&o]
Larry

I would give all of the electronics a try after they dry out.
I had a plane spend two weeks and three thunderstorms in a tree, The frame was a total loss but all of the electronics I am still using and have no problems with them.
I once had a battery solder joint start to fail and got the same reaction as "The servos reversing for no reason".
Hook them all up and run a battery dead moving the controls...if you don't have a problem-
keep on using them. And try to keep the antenna off the ground.

But I'm new also...so just thought I'd toss an Idea in.

Good luck.

Get that engine out of the alcohol immediately. Rubbing alcohol has a high water content. You should use denatured alcohol for ANY modeling uses. It has almost no water in it. A better choice is to just use the fuel. Like I said, take it out of the water (alcohol) and get it into the fuel bath immediately. The fuel will also leave a very light oil film on the engine when done.

Hi ro347,

The electrics should be ok if the water in the pond is fairly neutral ph wise. Just dry out in the sun on a window sill or car dash and then test. Bare wire on the RX aerial rubbing on the wire for the tail wheel could well have been the cause of the crash. Just cover the bare wire with shrink tube and you should be good to go again providing the length hasn't been altered.

Cheers,

Colin

Thanks guys

If just the covering insulation is stripped but the wires are OK on the antenna I would cover the gap with heat-shrink tubing (and have with one I still fly) but that is less of a problem than immersion. Depends a lot on the water. Dunk electrical components in distilled water and dry them out and there may be no effect. Dunk them in water with silt, high pH, minerals, etc. and bad things can happen. I'd send them in for a check-over.

thats a second for bruce's comment, get that engine out of the alcohol and get it in some fuel!! dry the electronics as fast as possible with a hair dryer!! get on that now! the balsa needs to be laid as flat as possible so break it down (take the gear off, wings off anything that wont let all possible surfaces sit flat!) then take a dryer to them as well, the longer the water sits the more damage it will do! dont let it dry slowly! dry it fast!

another second for bonified wingnut's comment about running all radio equipment through a full battery cycle and if everything works til the battery goes down then i would say you are crunchwrap! (good to go, hehe)

edit: dont heat the wood too fast as it will warp, just set it near a space heater (at least 4' away) in a small area and let the room warm up, dont put direct heat on the wood)... i would also check for any damage if it hit hard at all, check for wing separation most especially, re heat loose covering to tighten it but only after all the wood underneath has sat near that space heater for about 15 hours! good luck!

Roland,
Sorry to hear about your plane. [] Hope everthing cleans up and you get it flying again soon. I have no experience with a wet plane, just trying my best at moral support.
Pete

did you do a control throw check before you took off? are you guys new to flying? ailerons or any other control surface won't reverse on you in the air..good luck with your fix

Thanks mesa!


Jet: We arent new. Did a throw check....I think the problem might have been the exposed antenna wire rubbing against metal parts. Seems like the antenna housing wore away as it dragged around on the runway getting caught in the tailwheel.

Myself and a few friends have dunked our planes in the LAKE and it ain't very clean either. But after letting them dry for a few hours maybe 6-7 they were and have been fine. Most were not in there very long but mine was in there for about 30 min or longer. I had a servo rod, wire whatever on bi plane come loose and had just one side working and it just kept getting further out over the lake. I swam out to retrieve and some guy thought i had went under and called 911 was to far out to get by swimming and by the time I got back to shore they had rescue folks eveywhere. Highway patrol, County deputies, Sherriff, ambulances, shut the highway down everything was kaos. They put in the local paper HIGH ADVENTURE RESCUE and showed the sherriff and a deputy and a game wardins pic. Said they rescued man of 43 chasing a 10ft. wingspan plane in rushing water. It was a lake and I swam back on my own and the plane was 39in ultimate. Man they sure build things up around here. But did let them know i appriciated there concern and had i been drowning it would have been nice they found my body pretty quick. Thanks again to them for there being there though. So it will be fine just let dry look it over good and try the elec. out and go try again.

I have been to a few float flys, and water dosen't seem to be a big problem. First off you should wrap your reciever and battery in plastic to keep out oil and water. I would have run my engine after dunking it in water to clear it out and lubricate it.

Just a few months ago I was on the way home and got caught in a rain storm I had to pour the water out of the fuse. I simply put it back on it's rack in my shed and did'nt fly it for two weeks. I am still flying it today with no problems.

THanks guys for all of your advice. We fly over a pond....and after seeing so many guys have to take the club's canoe out....it was only a matter of time before I would have to do the same. At the risk of sounding like a little girl...I was petrified as I had never been in a canoe. So it was 2 "firsts" for me. I took the servos apart to allow air in to dry. They actually seemed pretty dry on the inside. Also the receiver. Stripped the plane of all equipment and set it aside. Ill give it a week or two. Right now the engine is sitting in fuel to try and get any moisture out of the bearings. Ill go home and change the fuel out again just to be sure. Next time Ill take a pic of the plane before I put it up for its second maiden. I guess Im lucky I was able to recover everything and there wasnt any damage to the plane itself. It'll make the first successful flight that much more satisfying. If all goes well, Im getting a small sticker and name the plane " 2nd chance" or something corny like that.

Some else at my club dunked his Edge. He ran the engine in order to clear it out. He ruined the engine. I guess the water inside the engine cause it to seize. Guess something to do with the compression or something. Heard it pop!

You have to get the water out first so it doesn't add to the compression and THEN run it to dry it out.

Guys I’ve know who have dunked their planes usually pull the radio and open up the RX to dry it out. When they go into salt water, they immediately dunk the whole radio (after removing from the plane) into freshwater to flush out the salt, then actually pulled the components apart in the fresh water bucket to make sure all the salt was removed, then let it all air dry in the sun. For fresh water, you want to open the RX up as soon as possible to dry it out. Servo’s, if it’s a quick dunk, most likely won’t get much if any water in them, but it doesn’t hurt to repack the gears with white lithium grease either.

For the engine, you want to remove disassemble it at the field as soon as possible and flush with fuel and coat everything with oil to prevent rusting.

I saw one guy dunk his plane 2 times in one day in the Atlantic (Ponce de Leon Inlet south of Daytona Beach). He pulled everything apart, cleaned and lubricated it, and flew again. He flew, dunked, cleaned, flew, dunked, cleaned, flew and flew again – 4 flights total that day with two dunks.

Hogflyer

Now that guy is a dedicated flyer.

No way