If you lose control of the elevator in midflight what would the reaction of the plane be?

Hi Skier,

It depends on what you mean by "lose control of the elevator."

If the elevator "gets stuck", then it'll depend entirely on what position the elevator is in. If you are lucky, then it'll get stuck straight and level or just a touch nose up. In this case, it may be possible to use throttle to control altitude and actually land it.

I was doing a trim flight on a trainer for a family when the pushrod separated. It was a fiberglass pushrod with the ends that you epoxy into place. As it turns out, a friend of mine (who reads this forum, BTW), had assembled the plane and forgot to actually glue the end in. I was very fortunate in that the free piece apparently hung up on something in the fuse, and the elevator froze in a near level position. I had no control over the elevator whatsoever, but the I could hold the nose up with power. I was able to bring it into a landing just short of the runway. It wasn't pretty, but there was no damage to the plane. I was extremely happy about a successful outcome because this particular plane was a replacement for another trainer that experienced loss of control authority for some reason that we were never able to determine.

If the elevator comes free, on the other hand, then the nose will drop. If the plane is nose heavy, it will drop a lot. In this case, there's not a whole lot you can do except throttle back and watch it go in.

I put together an Ultra Stick 60 last summer with my YS-91 and rudder and elevator servos in the tail. It balanced nicely and was very light. After spending about 2 hours setting up the mixes at the field (I quick charged the batteries afterward), I took it up for its maiden flight. The takeoff was uneventful and the trim was almost right on. After two thirds of a circuit of the pattern, I did a loop. When I levelled out, something didn't feel quite right. It was apparent after a few seconds that I had no elevator whatsoever and that it was now going nose down. I shut the engine down and watched it go down. Post mortem analysis shows that I forgot to install the screw that holds the elevator control horn onto the server (it was pretty much one of those smack-yourself-in-the-forehead moments when I went back to the bench and pointed out the missing part, just sitting there where I left it when I pulled off the control horns to center the servos). The elevator came completely free in flight.

The thing about the US60 that bugs me is that, if I'd had the presence of mind, I probably could have saved the plane. I had all of the mixes set up, and I could operate the flaps independent of other things. Just a few seconds earlier I had noted to myself that the flaps would cause a pitch up...

Oh well, live and learn.
-Wade

By lose control i meant the end of the control rod gets stripped out and there is no control of the elevator and it is flapping around

I did almost the same thing on my ultra stick .40. The 90 degree bend came out of the servo. The elevator basically stays straight, as it encounters resistance if it goes up or down. My ultra stick was nose heavy, and in it went. After that I had the same realization as wade that if I had put some flaps in and added power, it might not have done so much damage. O well, live and learn.

Now I solder on threaded couplers and use Dubro kwik klips. Great setup, I recommend it.

Alex