Alright, so I now have one crash under my belt One of many to come I am sure...

Since I solo'ed I have about 8-10 take offs and landings with my Nexstar without any incidents, until yesterday. The wind patten was such that I had to take off and land the opposite direction of what I usually do, and that disoriented me on the landing, so in an attempt to lift the left wing, well, I lowered it and you know the rest. Not a huge deal thought, the fuse split in the couple of places but it is repairable, just needs a few hours of time and some epoxy...

In an attempt to get a little more flying in today, I tried to put my electric Cub together last night, but I hit a little snag... I put a posting in the electric forum but no response yet, so I thought I'd cheat and put a link here to get a little more traffic If anyone has any ideas please let me know.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_9075198/tm.htm

Did you train with an instructor? If so, he should have had you doing take-off's and landing approaches in as many different wind situations as possible before you solo'ed. The purpose, of course, is to get you to understand and react properly with changing wind conditions.

I've flown on days when the wind changed direction several times, and you have to react correctly to those wind changes.

As far as your "reverse any two leads" issue with the ESC - Motor connection, well, it always worked with me, that is for a three phase DC ESC control (brushless) config.

As far as the crash is concerned, you tried to lift the left wing? Using right aileron input I hope, as in trying to make a right turn, but perhaps to counter wind that was lifting the right wing?

CGr.

Ah!! was flying with my grandson yesterday and the wind was changing amost every flight. Started down the runway on take off, but 90* crosswind when it was time to land. So grandpa landed for him. He is doing really well. He said I don't like to fly in the wind. I told him that it would make him a better pilot, having to compensate for wind changesyou learn to fly ahead of the plane.

BTWspicy sausage, cheese (sharp), southwester hash browns in a farmers omelet. Oatnut bread with real butter and of course chock-full-of-nuts coffee. Make ya feel good all over

CGRetired: yes, I did train with an instructor, but unfortunately that didn't make me a "crash-proof" novice. If you ever come across a crash-proof pilot let me know, I'd like to spend a few hours with them As to your question about what happened, can't say for sure as things happened too fast while I was trying to land in a 90* cross wind. It could have been the wind, but either way, when trying to lift the left wing, I input the wrong input so made it worse and made the contact with terra firma a little quicker than anticipated. Oh well... That was the 3rd crash in 20 minutes (the other two were by another pilot) so we got a laugh out of it at the field and collectively decided to call it a day!

Unfortunately reversing the leads only worked for a short period, so I anticipate another issue. I'd welcome any thoughts from those who are more familiar with electrical set-ups.

Ah, a cross wind, that explains a lot. The way it was first written, it seemed that the wind changed from, say left to right, which you were used to, to a right to left, which you were not used to, thus the question about the instructor spending more time with you with different wind directions.

I understand now. What I keep saying is practice practice practice. Do lots of landings.. do touch and go's, lots of them, and get used to the different wind conditions. That's what makes you crash proof, well, as crash proof as you can be.

I was flying my third plane, which was a Goldberg Skylark 56 back when.. and I was fairly new. Well, the wind was blowing pretty good, but it was straight down the runway centerline. So, I flew it a couple of flights, but the wind picked up quite a bit as I flew. On approach to land, I did the usual, turned from base to final, and chopped the throttle to idle. The wind caught the thing, flipped it over on it's back and it flew in the opposite direction, being carried by the wind, upside down for a short time. I managed to get it upright but headed in the wrong direction, away from me. I tried to turn it but had on success and, after several seconds, it fluttered and went down in a heap. It was just then that I realized that if I had added throttle (I was still at idle), all could have been avoided. But, it all happened to fast for my mind to react, but once I thought about it.. 10 seconds to late, I hate to say, well, it was all over.

Eventually, though, I got the idea and would judge the wind before making the approach and automatically adjusted the throttle to manage the different wind condition.

Somewhat different from your situation, but the results were the same, and it was from being new and the lack of experience. And, of course, how we gain experience is often as a result of a crash.. we learn after the fact.. what we could have done to prevent the crash. All part of the hobby. We can't learn everything on the first day out.

CGr.

Interesting how in hindsight many crashes seemed easily avoidable...

If it was a 90* crosswind, You can land from either direction, correct?

Technically yes, but my reference to 90* was more rhetorical; this is not really the point of this discussion. Remember, I am a self-admitted noob so I could have easily crashed on a sunny day with no wind at all .

For those who are interested in the outcome of the motor problem, I changed two of the wires (again) to no avail. I then changed the third wire with one of the two other wires and bingo, it started working fine - at least for now. Let's hope this time it is permanent.

Hey Im a noob too LOL Thats why i asked about the direction of landing. I have only soloed a few weeks now. But I know how things can happen very fast when your about to touch ground. Gets kinda scary LOL!

Glad you got things working!

Congrats on your solo'ing, and good luck to you, well, to both of us!

An easy thing taught to me when I revived my RC activity was to turn the aileron stick in the direction of the lower wing when it's coming at you. Low left wing, move the aileron stick left.
I still do that on reflex on landings, in any direction.

As far as crosswinds, I've enjoyed beating up a few tired trainers learning how to handle the worst of wind here, just in case I visit Texas!
I keep the wing facing the wind a little lower, and come in with a little more throttle. I don't hesitate to blip the throttle up from time to time to get a feel for the surface control at lower speeds and make more solid corrections. You certainly need to come in hotter than on a calm day. Hope that helps you, as it helped me.

I'm not fond of Nexstars in general. You've got a great opportunity to get a better model that responds better. www.airborne-models.com has good trainers for under $100. Just move over your servos, engine, receiver, etc. You'll be glad you did. I'd even suggest a Sky Raider Mach ll low wing trainer, but it's debatable of you're ready for that step.

http://ecsvr.com/abm/shopexd.asp?id=2925 About the price of a replacement fuselage!

nitro: good tips. I too, use the stick to the direction of the lower wing trick, but as evidenced by the recent incident it doesn't always work!

I actually like the Nexstar. Granted, I don't have other points of reference, but in my opinion it has been a good trainer so far. For my second plane, and once I get more comfortable with my trainer, I'll move on to a 4*-Sixty that I am building now.

About your electrical problem, I had that happen on a helicopter. I ended up re-soldering the connections and the problem went away. I found that if it happened, then I played with the wires at the connection points, then it would start normally again. The connections looked solid, but I guess they were not, so I resoldered and my problem went away.