Hard Lessons Learned
 

This morning I went to the field to watch a friend maiden a new plane. It was a Cessna 182 with a Magnum .91 four-stroke in it. Very nice looking plane. It trimmed right out to hands off level flight with just a few clicks of aileron. Then proceeded to fly quite nicely. He flew it a couple of times & it did real nice rolls for a high-wing plane, I was pleasantly surprised with the way it flew. On the third flight it took a hit, or so we thought. He lost complete control of the aircraft. Much the way my Dragon 40 did, it would not respond to any imputs & just had a mind of it's own. It dipped a wing, then dipped the other wing, & then just went straight in with a full head of steam![:@] I have never seen a spinner in so many pieces in my life. It shattered into at least 50 to 60 tiny little pieces. So we fetched up the carnage & brought it all back to the pitts & set it on the table. After awhile he turned the radio back on & it just chattered away with all the servos twitching violently. Our other friend pointed out that usually when you take a radio hit you will still have some control left, that at least one control surface usually still works & that was not the case here. So with that in mind he thought maybe he had a cracked crystal. So we took the crystal out of the reciever & put another one in & sure enough, Charlie was right. It worked rock solid. Come to find out this reciever & crystal had come out of another crashed airplane. Now I have seen you guys preach about not using recievers after a crash for over a year now. I must admit that I have been guilty of not heeding this advice. It gets hard sometimes not to use them when they still appear to be ok & they range check, I use them simply because I can't allways afford to replace them with new ones. A new reciever & crystal plus taxes gets up close to another $100 for me. If you need larger recievers than I use then it could get even more expensive. I am however going to try to use only new stuff in new planes from here on in. The price of a new crystal in this case cost him a $200 ARF!
So I have now seen first hand what you guys have been saying can happen all along. I am now a humbled believer.;)

RE: Hard Lessons Learned
 

One of the things we do here in our avionics shop when looking for intermittant conditions is to operate the equipment while vibrating it and/or tapping on it. Quite often this will turn up a loose or damaged part. Doesn't catch them all of course. Tapping on his crystal may have revealed the problem, maybe not. A hard crash deserves a hard look at the electronics and you have to decide between a repair/inspection bill and the cost of new equipment.
Sorry for the loss. [&o]

RE: Hard Lessons Learned
 

Elenasgrumpy,
Along the same lines as Bruce said, did he your friend do a range check with the engine running??? Alot of times it will reveal problems like this because of the vibrations from the engine running.

As far as new receivers go. You don't alway have to buy a new receiver. Send the damaged one in for service and let them check it. The last one I sent in was only about $30 to bring it back to new condition. There was another thread recently were he spent $35 to get his receiver fixed.

Ken

RE: Hard Lessons Learned
 

Along the lines of what Ken said.
I was taught to test the flight controls after taxying out, while sitting at the end of the runway.
I lost control of my right aileron the other day, no response at all but worked fine on the ground. I landed with rudder control. Never did figure out what happened and I have flown several more flights since with no issues. (could radio interference effect only the ailerons? )
Sorry to hear about your friends plane. Is it rebuildable?

RE: Hard Lessons Learned
 

Ken. No I don't believe he did range check it with the engine running. I will have to remind him to do that in the future as well as myself too.


Missileman, Nah it's not repairable. I'd have to say it was pretty much a total loss. Live & learn I guess.[&:] He'll recover like the rest of do, besides I think he's gotten used to crashing. He's put some pretty nice airplanes in the ground.

RE: Hard Lessons Learned
 

I also have to agree with Ken (dang Ken you are on a roll, mod in the tank forum, plane insane prasiing you for your advice, good advice here)

As an example, I just got back 8 JR8611's that cost me a total of 85 bucks to have repaired. The short part of it was they all failed because I used to much end point travel in the radio which caused them to actually go beyond the 60 degree travel. Dumb mistake that will not happen again. Imagine what it would have cost me if I would have had to replace all of them.

I also sent a JR649 receiver back some time ago. It was not in a crash but it would evey now and then cause all of the surfaces to jitter. Range checks were always good both engine on and off but it still would jitter after the first flight and only on the second flight.. I tore my hair out replacing servos, extensions, batteries, etc... It cost me 15 bucks in shipping since the reciever was like this out of the package and was not damaged in amyway.

BTW Mark, I'm glad to see you back in the swing of things. I'm sorry I have not been in contact much, I've been really hammered lately AGAIN.

RE: Hard Lessons Learned
 

Hey Bill, Good to see you back too. I'm not really all the way back but I have been flying some. Sometimes I just go to visit though like today. We is on the mend though, thanks.;)

RE: Hard Lessons Learned
 

Bubba - You never said if/what they found wrong?

RE: Hard Lessons Learned
 

I really do not remember. I was able to tell it was the one I sent them because it still had the remains of the glue from the tape I used to hold the crystal in on it. It has been flawless since.

RE: Hard Lessons Learned
 

Apparently they found a problem and fixed it then. Makes the money well spent. :)

RE: Hard Lessons Learned
 

I really doubt that any range check would have found this problem.
It flew twice successfully.
Perhaps if it was range checked before each flight, but no one I know does that.

RE: Hard Lessons Learned
 

I do. I cannot afford not to.

On that note,
There is nothing on a plane that is more important than a good working receiver and battery packs and yet these are the most frequently overlooked parts. It just makes good common sense to make SURE that they are in good working conditions and repair or replace them of necessary. You can lose an engine, a servo or even have a control surface fall off and still get the plane down, but if you lose a receiver or battery pack, unless you are reall lucky,,, its all over.

Mike