This turned into an expensive weekend. It started with, what would be, the 5th flight of my Magister. After about 3 minutes of performing simple aerobatics, I decided to do "touch and go's", unfortunately as I banked the airplane to begin an approach run, I lost all control of the plane (I don't know if it was interference or what) and ended up planting the plane from about 75 feet in the air, directly on it's nose, which destroyed the gear box, motor, the wing mount, and the aileron servo. As bad as that sounds, it gets worse. I decided to fly my stryker and after a couple of close calls, (due to, I assuming interference again) I decided to pack it up for the day. Which brings us to today. My first flight for today went well, I flew two batteries out of the stryker with no problems. Then it happened.....battery 3 in the stryker, during level flight, at 3/4 throttle the plane rolled left and slammed into the ground. Before it hit, I was trying to counter it, but the plane did not respond. Luckily the plane was unhurt (amazing how tough that plane is.) I decided to let the stryker rest and fly the T-28 (maybe I'm just being stupid at this point), after turning on the TX and plugging in the battery, I started to taxi the plane, getting ready for take-off, just as I throttled up, the motor stopped immediately, the prop was trying to spin backwards and frontwards fighting itself, I went over to pick up the plane and unplug the battery, after checking all of the connections, I tried plugging the battery back in and the arming tones were so quiet you could barely hear them. When I tried to give it throttle nothing happened, all other control surfaces were responding normally. So I decided to put the T-28 away and fly the only plane I had left, the stryker, only to have the speed controller to go up in smoke, as soon as I plugged the battery in. Is this normal????? The temperature at the time was about 90 degrees out, the stryker had been sitting for about 45 minutes since it's last flight. I've flown at the same spot for the last 2 months with no problems. Any ideas of what could've caused all of this?????????

On a side note, after I got home, I swapped the speed controller from the T-28 to the stryker and the stryker works fine now. The T-28 on the other hand, with exception of control surfaces, doesn't work at all. Could the brushless motor in the T-28 have fried, seeing how the speed controller works fine in the stryker??

As for the Magister, I'll save that for another thread.

Maybe they sat in the sun to long?

I stage the planes on the shady side of my truck, do you think it was just to hot to fly them?

Idk, If they were sitting in direct sunlight, maybe. Shade, probably not. I am not an electric expert, see who chimes in.

thanks!! I hope someone knows, I'm just really getting into the zone and don't want to have to put away the planes for the summer. I'd hate to loose the skills I'm starting to develope and have to start all over this winter.

I was there yesterday when this happened and something was not right. Could somebody be playing with us?

G-day
it sounds like interferance i would recomend geting a dx 7 or dx6 they dont get any interferance and ae2.4ghz worth a read up on anyway.
when you smoked your esc was your batery damaged from the crash because that may have done it
the f-27c as an awsum plane one of my faves well worth the $300.00!!
happy flying

simmo

You may have had a couple of unrelated problems. Not once in your description did you mention the condition of your transmitter battery. What the original problem may have been is a transmitter battery that was marginal or approaching discharge. I would seriously check the batteries in your transmitter before going any further with your diagnosis of the problem.

Depending on what radio you are using, and at what frequency.. if using one of those cheap radios that come with some of the inexpensive RTF electrics, it probably is operating on the CB band and may be getting intefered with.. you never know. But if operating in the RC 72 MHz band, then this is pretty unlikely unless someone turned on their TX while you were flying. Glitches happen, but to have something like you describe more describes a dead or dying transmitter battery.

I would rule out forgetting to pull out your TX antenna if you say you got two good flights out of your Stryker, but it is possible.

CGr.

I had fresh batterys in the TX, the two PZ planes have the ZX10 radio gear that came with the planes both on 72 mhz. the Magister has the HITEC lazer4 on 72mhz it has new batterys in it also. the lipo batt that was in the stryker was unharmed but I switched it for a fresh batt off the charger before the ESC was smoked.

Fresh batteries.. meaning what? Alkaline or NiCd - NiMH rechargeable?

Your original post did not discuss transmitter batteries so I had to take the devil's advocate here and suggest that the TX batteries could.. COULD be at fault, not necessrily at fault... but this must be ruled out.

What I mean here is that you could have had two separate problems. The TX battery pack AND the ESC - motor issue.

I had a plane that came with a two cell LiPo battery, so I flew it with that. It flew just great. A short time later, I thought, well, if a 480mah 2 cell LiPo would be ok, then a 3 cell LiPo of the same capacity should be better, right? Well, it did not take long to fry that motor, I'll tell you that!! Smoked it big time. And I am not sure about the ESC at this point. That remains to be seen because when I fried it, it was toward the end of last season and I shelved it for the time being. I will ressurect it soon and play with it. This is one reason I like my glow planes.. there are more, but this is one main one. There are no multiple potential issues with these things. When they run right, they run right. I don't have to change batteries, worry about the ESC or if I overcurrent the motor, none of that stuff. Just the right fuel, a well tuned engine, charged batteries, and I fly all day.

Meanwhile, good luck finding that problem. Let us know what caused it.

CGr.

thanks for the input. not sure yet until I figure it out I'm going to call it plane gremlins. I hope there done with me, I can deal with it if I make a mistake but mechanical or radio problems aren't no fun. you don't even get a good story to go along with the carnage.


oh by the way I'm using Alkaline AA batts