I recently bought my first plane - the Wattage Hawk (I know, I probably should've bought something slower). I made my first flight the other day and took a pretty hard crash. There didn't seem to be much damage except a rip in the fuselage and a bend in the propellor. Well, I glued up the fuselage and replaced the propellor, and now I'm having the problem where when the motor is placed on full throttle it cycles from full speed to very slow then back to full speed, etc. So I'm assuming that having the motor at full speed is interfering with the radio. I tried replacing the capacitors on the motor but that didn't fix it. I moved the receiver way back in the plane (behind the servos) and still no luck. I also noticed today that the range on my radio (even with the motor off) is very short - like 50 feet - and that the battery and motor both get very hot very quickly and the battery doesn't last very long anymore. I'm not sure if any of these things are related. Does anyone have any idea what may be causing any of these problems?

Thanks much for your help,
Ed

Possibly you have a bent motor shaft. It's dragging causing extra current, everything gets hot, things start to shut down, the load decreases and it tries to start up again.

Steve

It is pretty obvious what's causing your problems: Crash damage...

If the motor and battery are getting very hot, that means something in the motor and/or gearbox is binding and causing the motor to draw too much current. Unless you find the problem and fix it, you will quickly burn up the motor, ESC, and battery. Without being able to look at your airplane, the only thing anyone can say is "something" is binding. You'll have to figure out what that something is yourself. Does the propeller wobble, vibrate, and/or sound strange now, after the crash?

Thanks so much guys. You guys were both right on. I replaced the motor and now it's working fine.

Thanks for the help!