Well, all I have to say is make sure you check your trim before you fly! You never know when your friends are going to play with your remote! My fault, anyway. I should have checked, and I should not have freaked out when she was going nuts in the sky. I have a great picture of me with the wreckage. I'm smiling and white as a ghost. New ARF should be here on Thursday. Can't wait.

To make a long story short, the rudder trim was going one way, and the aileron trim another. I could not turn. Should have floated her down the best i could, but I dead sticked, pulled up too quickly and she stalled. THE END>


Face it, we all knew this was coming! Unfortunate, but it's the dumb begginer's plight. All I had to do was look down at my remote,and I would have instantly known what was wrong. Too bad, too, since I was flying her perfectly. Feel free to laugh and taunt. I deserve it for being an idiot! All the elecronics work fine. Engine seems fine as well.


Let's go, guys, beat me up. I need to learn a lesson.

G'day Mate,
I'm not going to be mean, we have all done things we regretted, just one point though, to stop this from ever happening again, get into the habit of doing a complete preflight, before each & every flight, look for control deflection, correct, & flight surfaces in the right place, ie, rudder centred & so on.
It takes about 20 seconds to do, about the same time it takes to warm up your engine before you taxi out to the flight line.
Sorry for your loss, I hope the next one is a winner.

You don't seem to be letting it get to you and that's great. I did exactly the same thing one day. I'd charged my plane and radio up at work one day in a corner. The boys in the shop at some point or another had fooled with my trims. I didn't notice either on my preflight, the deflection that you get with max trims is so slight. My Arrow seemed to need an awful lot of correction on the take off roll....but I live in Saskatchewan....wind is wind. I got the plane in the air and it was as unmanagable as one could imagine. I made one circuit of the pattern and brought it down safely, although exceptionally long, about 200 feet off the end of the runway. I was miffed as to what had happened as I'd flown a few days before with no issues whatsoever. As soon as the plane stopped I glanced down at my hands and thats when I saw my trim tabs all cranked over just as yours were. I'd practiced flying with tabs all cranked on the simulator a bit so it wasn't an unmanagable surprise. You won't do it again....but if it happens, next time you'll take a breath and fly it back in before anything happens....or just adjust your tabs AFTER you get to altitude...

Happier Landings

Ahh, the wonders of digital trims! They beep, scaring the missus, who is then sure she's "broken" something. Also slower to adjust, which means when someone does fool with'em, they're not usually far off...

Sorry for your loss! another item to add to the pre-flight!

J

I always follow a process when at the field. I put the plane together, then before even starting the thing, I power everything up except the engine, and stand behind the plane. I then operate everything on the Transmitter. Right left aileron, right left rudder, up down elevator, and the throttle to full open then closed.

When standing behind the aircraft, right aileron input should raise the right aileron and lower the left. Right rudder should obviously make the rudder move to the right.. and up elevator should move the elevator up, down .... yep, you guessed it.. down. Once everything checks out, I shut everything down then do the voltwatch thing (as described in earlier threads) to insure that I have adequate receiver battery voltage to fly.

If something is wrong, that's the time to verify and fix it. Not on the flight line, or afterwards when you are collecting scrap balsa.

Sorry to hear about the crash. There is always something to learn, and you just had a valuable lesson.

CGr.

To add to what others have said here, this is something that can help in this situation. After you have your plane trimmed out it's best if you manually adjust each control surface to dial in the amount of trim it needs to fly properly. Another way of putting that his that you want to adjust each surface so that they plane is completely trimmed when all of the trim tabs are centered. It might take a few flights to get that way, but it's not hard at all to do. The only channel this doesn't apply to is the throttle.

When you have all the tabs centered then you should make it a pre-take off check to look at your trim tabs, if they aren't centered then simply move them back to center before you take off. This is part of what I do when I fly. After I taxi out to the runway I stop the plane, do a quick check of the control surfaces to ensure they move in the correct directions and take a quick glance at my transmitter. All good??? Then take off.

Hope this helps

Ken

Thanks, guys. Yeah, when I first was adjusting the trims before my first flight, I simply made sure that the rudder, elevator, and ailerons were even with their respective surfaces. On first takeoff, everthing was great. She only needed a bit of left aileron trim.

I wish I had digital trims, but for the time being I'm stuck with the archaic remotes that come with RTFs. In any event, I just ordered a tower trainer since it's 30 bucks less than the avistar and I think it's a better looking trainer, anyway. I have a nearly brand new tower .46abc that I got with my last bird a few years ago, but I may have fried it, I'm not sure. In any event, thanks for all the advice and support. I know that I'll never forget to check the trims, that's for sure!

Question, CA is essentially nail glue, right? I forgot to order some.


Lastly, I noticed on fly buys that when I went back up to full throttle I did not hear a very noticeble rise in RPMs on my OS 40 LA. Did I fry her? What are the signs of a fried engine? Thanks again. Much appreciated.

There's nothing wrong with radios like this. I still have plenty of them and still use them all the time!!!

No, CA is not nail glue. If you are looking for a everyday equivalent get super glue. If you have a dollar store nearby you can get several tubes of super glue for a buck.

Ken

I do a 15 second preflight every time to make sure my control surfaces all go the right direction.

I was once switching between plane profiles in my radio and accidentally fat fingered the buttons and reversed a servo. My pre-flight caught this. Woulda sucked to figure this out up high... if I even got there.

Make that control surface check a habit. Also helps to establish a set order to things for each flight... don't get complacent but in time you will perform this set of tasks automatically.

somegeek

"Lastly, I noticed on fly buys that when I went back up to full throttle I did not hear a very noticeble rise in RPMs on my OS 40 LA. Did I fry her? What are the signs of a fried engine? Thanks again. Much appreciated. "

First sign of a fried engine is usually difficult starting and poor idling. You can do a quick check on a simple bushing motor like that.

1. Install a prop and glowplug on the motor as required
2. Try to wiggle the prop. On a bushing motor a little play is normal, alot isn't. Since it was running last time, and you're not commenting on that rattling noise and oil dripping rapidly from the front of the engine, the crank bearing is likely just fine.
3. Pull her thru compression. Got compression? Good engine. If you hand prop it like your starting it, does it "plop" over and sort of bounce of compression a couple times before the works come to rest? Good.

Note that an engine that hasn't been run a few days may be slightly stiff from the lubes in it. A drop of air tool oil will loosen this up for the tests above. Never apply glow to an engine you don't intend to start. None of the above tests need fuel or glow. The only thing they don't test is the carb.

While you have the engine out, check the backplate screws. They can loosen in time causing poor performance.

When a glow engine carb is about 1/2 open, they're making about 80% of full power. Throttle response is not linear. So, if you do a medium speed pass, the rpm's won't increase much when you firewall 'er and pull up.... Already doing pretty good RPM's and you add load by climbing.

Don't worry, it's likely fine. Those LA's run a LONG time, unless you run'em too lean.

J

Thanks. I think I should be alright. I was running her a bit too lean at first, as I pinched and she quit, but I richened her up about 4-5 clicks until she didn't quit and gave a nice little rpm rise. I think that's what I'm supposed to do, at least. Anyway, she doens't even have a gallon through her yet, so I don't think I could have done TOO much damage. Thanks for the info.

Depending on prop loading, you may never reach peak RPM and for your application, peak RPM may only occur at, say 3/4 throttle and you can't get more out of it unless you change props. That's just the way it is.

CGr.

I'm running a 10x6 on it. I have a 9 by 6 as well. Also, how frequently are engines damaged from crashes? When she deadsticked, and I knew she was going to hit hard, I closed the the throttle trim all the way down to avoid dirt getting in. Should the engine be alright? I didn't start it back up yet, and it is now off of the plane.

These little engines are amazingly tough. Closing the throttle to keep dirt out was a good move. If it turns smoothly by hand it's probably not damaged.

Yes, it turns over just fine. However, when I flip it like I would to start it, it doesn't rebound too much.

If compression feels strong, not mushy, it's fine. Rebound can be affected by thickened oils a couple days after last run, especially in bushing engines.

Many bounce these engines off rocks 'n stuff, and often they survive. I've seen a few dug out of damp sod, driven about a foot down, and needed nothing but a very thorough cleaning and a new NVA.

When you crash an engine (plane), if there is any sign that dirt has entered the carb, the best thing to do is not move the crank at all until you can tear'er down and clean'er out. Closing your throttle all teh way may well have negated this need for you.

If only every $60 mechanism in this hobby was so durable.

J

Thanks for the reassurance. I think it will be okay. Like I said, the carb was totally closed.


Yes, it's a wonderful thing, as a begginer, that you can get a brand new plane for 70 bucks, throw in the same radio equiment and engine, and you're off. And, once you stop making foolish mistakes, the only cost is your nitro. Thanks again.

My Futaba 6XA Super has analog trims but also trim memory. Once I trim out a particular model (and the levers are all over the place) I memorize the trims. That returns all the levers to neutral but the trim settings are still in effect. Easy to notice since you'll fly with your trim levers centered every time.

Digital trims such as on my 9CA Super and my son's DX-7 are memorized automatically. A bit harder on first glance since you can't visually look at the trim levers but the LCD indicators would give you a clue.

If you do "fry" an engine, it simply won't have the power of a good engine. I don't think it's very easy to "fry" an ABC engine though...