Trainer crashed today....unkown why
 

Hi i was with my nephew out flying today with his TT60 trainer. All was going well untill 8 minutes into the flight he lost Rudder,Aileron and Elevator. The throttle did still respond but nothing else worked. The airplane spirald around in a circular flight for about am minute and a half making 6 complete circles each time getting closer to the ground. Still no control but throttle. After the impact on the pavement we took the airplane (what was left of it) back to the truck and checked everything out. The Ailerons, Elevator and Rudder were now working and the battery had 5.20 volts left. The Radio had 10.3 volts and everything seemed to respond ok. The airplane range checked out Ok . The airplane was much farther away from us before the problem and was operating ok. Any help or advice on this problem would be appreciated. Thanks

RE: Trainer crashed today....unkown why
 

Hi Skribnod,

How did it range check before the first flight?

RE: Trainer crashed today....unkown why
 

A buddy of mine had a similar problem with his Giles 202, but he only lost ailerons. He was able to use rudder to make it back to the runway and make a hard landing, luckily it just broke the cowl and bent the gear. Afterwards, everything checked out ok from a distance and upclose, antenna up and down.??? Turned out to be a problem with the transmitter itself. What kind of radio is it?

RE: Trainer crashed today....unkown why
 

Has the Rx been crashed before at all? Could be a cracked board and that will make things work intermitantly. Hate it when that happens.

RE: Trainer crashed today....unkown why
 

That's a really strange one. If the throttle was responding, and you know that because you were changing throttle settings and hearing engine changes, but nothing else was, it could only be a few things that I can think of. Either your TX is flaking out, or your RX is flaking out. I'd send them both in for service with a note about what happened.

RE: Trainer crashed today....unkown why
 

There's been a couple of notes about TX's getting wire fatigue at the stick potentiometers... Its possible the wires are broken inside the insulation. ([&:]but 3 potentiometer wires breaking at the same time????[&:] not likely.)

Definitely youhave some kind of a failure in either the RX or TX. Send them to Radio South.

RE: Trainer crashed today....unkown why
 

Thanks for the advice guys. The transmitter was a Jr. 421ex and yes the receiver had been in a crash before but had flown this airplane numerous times afterwards. The airplane range checked out before flight and after flight. I have never seen anything like this before....seen radio hits , and a battery failure but nothing that only makes the 1 channel work. I will send it back to Jr. to get looked at. Thanks

RE: Trainer crashed today....unkown why
 

Something similar to that happened with my JR Quatro on a Hanger nine Arrow Trainer, lost everything, the plane went into a vertical dive wide open ( it was something to behold ) when we walked over to the plane, everything worked, it was still attached to the radio and laying everywhere, but it worked, i have since sent my radio back, we will see what they say