deli_conker

So I was flying my slow stick this morning. I'm on my second battery doing some loops, tight turns, etc. when I hear this noise; brrrapapapap. The plane takes a violent turn and I cut power. It looked like my prop broke in mid air, but I didn't see anything fall from the sky. Great. At least I still have control over the elevator and rudder.

I've never had to land a plane without power, but this model pretty much takes care of it for you. Spiral down, down, down and then give it a flare to lower the speed. Rinse and repeat. No incident at landing.

Then I found out what happened. The gearbox/motor came off the stick. Wrapped the wires up so tight that they broke through the insulation at a couple points. The prop chewed a few small pieces out from the wing, but nothing that can't be repaired. You can see a couple white lines through the red coating on the top of the wing, but nothing that packing tape can't fix.

I think I'm going to drill a hole throung the stick and gearbox and attach it that way. I never thought about the superglue "giving" while flying and what would happen if it did. Ooops.

Any other ideas?

Time Pilot

Sorry to hear about your Stick.

That's one of the main problems with superglue, is that it doesn't hold well against sheering forces, especially with surfaces that it can't penetrate.

You don't need to use a huge bolt/screw to hold the motor in. I used one of the 1mm or so screws provided in the kit. Just make sure to drill a hole smaller so it will thread into something. Or you could lightly glue (one side only is all you'd need) a small piece of balsa inside the nose for it to grab on to. They don't look partcularly strong, but to sheer that screw off, you'd need quite a lot of force.

blueline

My Feedback: (6)

Deli, you absolutley want a mechanical bond between the motor and stick, applying a simple screw alone is'nt enough. The vibration alone can cause it to back out causing your mishape to occur again. All thats needed is a small screw with a nut (preferrably with a lock washer as well) then your good to go.

deli_conker

When I mentioned drilling a hole, I was thinking about a 1/8" bolt with a wing nut on the other side. Do you guys think that's overkill? It would make it easy to check/tighten in between flights. I mean, it don't have to be pretty...

skid_68

My Feedback: (1)

I would say 1/8 th inch is over kill. I just used a 1/16th screw threaded into the shaft, and have had no problems. Even after running it into a goal post twice while trying to go through it .

Time Pilot

The simple screw is enough, unless anyone considers over 50 hours of SS time not enough to know that it will hold and not back out.

So, if you're worried about the screw backing out, then you better make sure you do something to make sure the bolt will not come loose as I think there's a better chance of that happening than a screw backing out.

L0stS0ul

you can always use the 1mm screw and put some blue loctite on it before you put it in. that sucker won't go anywhere.