Thanks to everyone on RCU that posted building advice on the Sig Something Extra. Just finished mine and will maiden it this week. There was a lot of "Don't Know How" put into this build. First build in 28 years, first monokote experience [:'(] and first fiberglass cowl. It is patterned after YEL 914's SSE. Big thanks to Yel for taking the time to tell me how to build a fiberglass cowl. Here's some pics.

Beautifull !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a nice looking plane. First build in 28 yrs. Wow. Keep us posted on your maiden. I've had one of those kits in my shop for quite a while. Now that I've seen yours, it will definitly be my next one on the table. I understand they are a great flier also.

Steve, that looks killer! After 28 years, I can't wait to see your next build...GREAT JOB!!!

Very nice! Gonna have to try the fiberglass cowl.

Noticed ya positioned a couple of servos "out back". What's the engine? Saito 82? I put an 82 on a Big Stik 40 and did the same with the elev & rudd servos. Just curious.

Nylon or metal landing gear bolts? Just thinking that I'd use the hard stuff with all of that hardware hangin' in the wind below the fuse.

Noticed your address - now I've got this darn song stuck in my head!

Cheers,

Steve, Really great job, a real beauty! You should be very proud of yourself. That's one honkin' engine hanging out of that thing. What is it? Good luck on the maiden

Outstanding!

Steve,

The pictures of your plane make me want to build one. [8D]Congratulations on a fine looking build.

[sm=thumbup.gif]

Very well done and a nice way to come back.

Well all of you have really made my day. Now I don't feel so bad about the length of time it took to build and finish it. Really appreciate the great comments. To answer a few questions that's a Saito FA-65 that I had on my Kavalier. The Kav was a test bed for everything on the SSE. Placing the servos in the rear offset the added weight of the Saito. Should have known that the SSE is already tail heavy built to spec. Sig advertises heavy hubs from Harry Higley & Sons on the last page of their manual. I had to add one and push the battery all the way forward on top of the tank. I also use nylon bolts on the landing gear-a hard lesson from the Kavalier's bottom getting ripped out a few times. Well everything is set and balanced for tomorrow. Hope it doesn't turn out to be an SSE Smackdown!! I'll let y'all know.

Well the news ain't good but at least I took pictures before it went in. Had two great flights then disaster! The plane went out of control on the 3rd takeoff. It is repairable so it's not a total loss but dang I wish it would have lasted at least a week! [sm=71_71.gif]Here is an email I sent to Futaba along with a picture. If any of you reading this has an idea of why it went out of control please post it.
A range check had been done before the 1st flight and after the crash. Both were fine. Before taking off the 3rd time I checked all control surfaces with no problems. Taking off the plane tried to roll right -left aileron corrected this, got up about 8 ft and the plane rolled right completely over- left aileron slowed roll rate, plane continued to roll so I flipped it to high rates and got it back level, cut the throttle and the plane rolled over again right into the ground. This same radio and receiver has been flying two different aircraft at the same field for 2 years without any trouble. The only difference is how I secured the antennas. Attached is a picture of the receiver just after the crash. The brown tube to the right of the receiver is for the aluminum wing tube. Also note the coaxial portion of the lower antenna. If the way it is looped could have caused trouble please let me know

man that sucks! But at least it is repairable. The great thing about these planes is how easy they are to fix. I augered mine in a while ago, and it only took me a couple days to fix. As per the antenna, I dont run 2.4 so im not sure.
Good luck with the rebuild.

I use a Spektrum 2.4 Rx. It has a base and remote receiver each with 2 small hair-like antenna (1" or so long) extending out the side. I lost control once but was lucky to "reconnect" and regain control. My remote Rx was hidden behind the servo tray and the other was just behind the tube. Recommendations were made to move the main Rx in front of and above the tube & move the remote away from the servos. No other problems since. But that's a Spektrum dual Rx implementation.

With your single Futaba Rx - perhaps get the Rx off the tray. The instructions suggesting that Rx location were written in the ealy 90's before 2.4 using a long external antenna. 

I have heard that 2.4 Rx sometimes unbind themselves when the battery goes into "amperage" starvation. When it happens to a Spektrum it takes 3-5 seconds of "no control" for the Rx to recover itself. Then, all is well if the plane is still flying.

Did you check the condition of your battery after the mishap?

My first SSE lost a wing in a high rate roll. No, I didn't fly it in a knife edge until I was about to land! I recovered the engine and a couple of servos. At night they just begged me to get another SSE flying 'cause they liked it so much.

Hope ya resolve your problem soon,</p>

Steve-Major bummer. I lost mine a few years back when an aileron servo locked up on a spin at full throttle. This is what I've learned: If you build ugly planes, they seem to last forever. I've heard that the ground repells them. Good planes seem to buy he farm all too early. On to the rebuild!

I'm going to go with the battery suggestion.

Dude- I feel your pain. Sometimes they fly even better the 2nd time around!

Bipes

I have noticed that you have to "ugly them up" a bit before you can truly appreciate the full capabilities of a model. After i fixed my SSE, i took it easy until i broke the rudder and landing gear. Now its balls to the walls!

Damned gravity!!!!! Sorry about the bad luck. Looks to be a fairly easy fix. Good Luck.

See [link=http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_8590407/mpage_1/key_/tm.htm]this post[/link] on FASST placement on SSE. I posted my final placement there. I was worried about "all the metal" around between the throttle cable, Al wing tube, servose, J-hocks, engine, etc etc

I found running the tubing allowed me to route away from the metal. No idea if this was your problem though.

Hey, thanks to everyone for the great comments and suggestions. I really had a laugh on some of them especially the uglier the better! That Kavalier I mentioned was put together and in various attics over the years I wasn't flying. I finished it in silk and dope and have been flying that and a trainer. I've wrecked and glued that Kav so much that I refer to it as the Ugalier. I'm really not tore up about smacking the SSE, it can be rebuilt fairly easily. Maybe if I wreck it enough I'll call it the Something Extra Ugly! I'm really trying to understand why the receiver crapped out on this one ( I know, Murphy's Law). All of your suggestions are really good ones. I had a friend there with a variable load battery tester and we checked it right after the crash . I over loaded the battery and it never got below 4.5v on a 4.8v 1500Mah battery. John from Futaba called me yesterday and suggested that I not only keep the antennas at 90 degrees but also run them 90 degrees on different planes, ex. one horiz and the other vertical. That will keep an antenna oriented to the transmitter at all times. I believe that there may be something to Chemie's worries on the wing tube. The plane was headed away from me when it started to go wild. The only other clues I have is that the receiver never went to the signal loss throttle of 20% and I was using channel 6 for the left aileron. I plan to take the trainer out tomorrow with the antennas as John suggested and the ailerons on channel 6. One other thing I want to let y'all know but not to rile anyone up. I'm and industrial drive electrician. In the paper mill I work at the company is installing new process transmitters that are wireless (flow, pressure, etc). You guessed it 2.4 GHz. I quizzed them on their range and they say less than a half mile. This should not be a problem as our transmitters and receivers rely on an unique access code before they link up but you never know. We fly about 6 miles from the mill. If anyone else has trouble around an industrial complex it would be good to know. Thanks again for all of the great comments.

One other thought now that you mention the left being on channel 6....

Any chance you accidently changed the model on the Tx?

PS. You will note the orientation I used has them on different planes. I wanted to get one going down into the belly to avoid the wing tube and muffler metal (although landing gear is in there too).

Good question and one that is often overlooked. The radio was on model 3 and is displayed as SSE. I had two great flights and was on the 3rd. The first thing I did after it went in (well maybe the second thing ) is look at the display to see SSE. To change models on this Tx you have to hold in the Mode and Select buttons for 2 seconds. One thing coming to mind as I type is an odd occurrence while setting up the model the day before. While looking at how to enable the flaperons I noticed that the radio defaults to the On mode. The aileron control rods were set up and adjusted for neutral a week before. When I inhibited the flaperons the left aileron, ch. 6, went to the extreme up and the right moved some which is opposite the roll that creamed the aircraft. I re-enabled the flaperon mode but made sure that all settings for movement were set to zero as I didn't want to use flaps until I was well practiced with the model weeks later. Any of you 6EX guys out there ever see the same thing?

Steve,

For what it is worth, I feel your pain. I trashed a brand new one two weeks ago on flight 3 for the aircraft.

One thing that has not been mentioned here is a question as to the orientation of the TX antenna. Was it pointing up or out. Out would be bad. Especially if you were pointing it at the plane. I also set up my Futaba 2.4 recievers with one antenna running verticle.

I would also suggest fastening the reciever antenni a little different. Perhaps a peice of nyrod clamped as you have it with the antenna run through it. Or at least make sure you have not compressed the coax to the point of breaking.

Just for grins - I noticed you had tail brace wires. I would confirm they were vibration free. I have had only one glitch with my 2.4 Futaba's and I related it to metal to metal vibration created by worn connections on my tail brace wires.

Good luck finding the cause and with the rebuild.

Ramblin,

May as well add my $.02 so keep in mind I'm just specultain' but,

As I'm sure you've already found out or heard, one of the problems with high frequencies is multipath. The frequency waves are very small(short) and fast and do not penetrate well. What can happen is the signals end up bouncing back and forth off of surrounding metal objects. One of the fears early on when 2.4g was first introduced was degraded signal from multipath so I'm sure thats why all the different multiple antennas/receivers schemes we see on the various radios out there.

What I see in your pic is one antenna not only doubled back along itself but also in between the receiver(full of metal objects and an rf producing microprocessor...though not much) and a big honking metal tube. I would have turned the receiver around 180deg and routed the antennas out and away from the tube. The other antenna is mostly away from everything so you would think the Rx should have had at least one good signal source but...... who knows.

Also, and I'm sure I'm gonna catch some flame scorching for this but I don't see any foam on top of the receiver. The zip tye is not a bad way to mount the rx and I have done it myself. However, you could still transmit some vibration as its directly contacting the airframe. I would have used foam all the way around the receiver.

Which brings up a good point. How is your battery mounted???? Batteries can be subject to vibration problems as well. It might have read fine on the ground but once the engine was started you MIGHT have had a problem. Also keep in mind that it's a known fact that once the engine is running the battery will see increased voltage draw. The vibration getting into the servos causes them to use more holding voltage. Vern Hyde, Chip Hyde's dad proved this back in the pattern days and is a major reason why engine soft mounts were developed. It allowed them to use smaller batteries (because of the lower amperage draw while the engine was running, so lower aircraft weight) and increase both airframe and electrical reliability. the reason I say this is because 4.5v is getting a little low with the engine off. With it on, I can reasonably see an even greater voltage drop.

Mike

Rick
You just gave me one of those Badda Binnnnggg moments. You have hit on two things that never came to me. You are dead on about the Tx antenna. I fly with it straight out and the plane was taking off straight away from me. I could have slipped into a "cone of silence" .

The tail brace wires are different from the recommended servo wire configuration of the manual. They are the second strings of an acoustic guitar. The vertical stab vibrated badly with the engine at idle but the servo wire made the tail too heavy so I opted for the strings. I'm almost sure they are singin' when it's flyin'. I'll try some nonmetallic straps.

The antenna will be mounted differently. The straps were just tight enough to prevent movement but I could move them around. The better idea is the nyrod and the orientation.

Rebuild is coming along fine. Thanks a bundle Rick

Steve

Boy am I glad I was checking RCU before I left to go fly! Mike's post appeared as I was typing a response to Rick. This is great information since I don't know much about 2.4 giggle hurts.

When something goes wrong you start to second guess everything. The placement of the forward antenna was one I asked myself. You state "the signals end up bouncing back and forth off of surrounding metal objects." Another eureka moment. This may explain why the aileron channels went bonkers but the receiver never went to the 20% signal loss fail safe. I plan to mount the receiver just as you suggest with one antenna going aft and the other going down but away from the horizontal antenna at 90 deg. There is a piece of foam under the receiver in the picture, it's just hard to see. This was the first time I didn't wrap the receiver completely with foam.

The battery was all the way forward on top of the fuel tank for balance and I took the foam wrap off of it to have it fit better. Maybe another mistake compounding the problem. The 4.5 volt level was not reached until the battery was intentionally overloaded with the tester. All other loads were 4.8 - 4.65v.

Having RCU buddies to turn to is great! As with all machines sometimes the cause of failure has several different sources and you guys have really opened my eyes to several potential threats.

Many thanks Mike

Steve