Ok, Im struggling to figure out if its all me, or the fact I'm at a new Flying field. But I flew my Velox XL with a huge AMT 450 at 45 pounds yesterday, and on my 5 flight of the day I was setting it up for a Full power fly by, lets say I'm sure I'm close to 200mph limit at 1/2 power.
But as I lined it up I got a pretty strong wing rock that scared the crap out of me! Yes it was windy yesterday but at the speed I was going I can see that causing it. So I landing and recharged my 2 2100 mah 6.6 life packs, One pack took 400mah and the other 1300mah.

So I figured this was a sign that one of my life packs are bad. So I went ahead and dischard both packs from full and got 1900 mah in both packs wich is odd, then I was reading the my Spectrum AR 12120 power safe receiver pulls from the stronger pack as a safety function..... And Im using JR 8711 on all the control surfaces as this is such a big and fast jet. DX18 Gen 1 for 4 years now.

So now I don't know what to think.

But later in the week I had the same twitch with my Carf Eurosport with Jetcat Titan with a Cortex gyro. But thought it was the wind as I was at a lower speed and just added fuel pods under the wings.

I'm concerned, is it me or the field (I fly at a SOD farm, so its flat for miles, except a creek on the left of our field which is kind of were these both happened.

Anyone else get odd wing rock / twitch in there flight?

Thanks

Well Mike if you question your radio equipment then I would try and either get telemetry and find someone that can lend something to check it. I doubt its the radio system also since your turbine is not going to fail safe then its really unlikely its your radio system. Also do you have the fail safe set and if so is it set to fly straight?

I would say its your conditions and might be an updraft in that area of the field.

I would recommend flying something cheap, and put flight after flight on it, paying very close attention to see if that twitch shows itself again, and if it does is it the same, Such as dipping the right wing, or pulling left ETC,,
a while back I had problems with my Gen1 DX-18, it was something in the rudder stick, actually right rudder, once in a while as I would cycle through the movement, it would hesitate, then catch up all the sudden and rock the plane. I thought it must be my shaking fingers, It ended up rearing its ugly head at an event, when I was flying my 37% edge, I was coming out of a hammerhead and it kept yawing, Hard, I was able to get the plane back down in 1 piece but it was Very scary, and a handful.. On landing I could see my rudder was almost at full deflection, but my stick was centered, I figured I broke a cable, or stripped a servo, Nope, I cycled the rudder, it worked but did not come back to center, and with my finger OFF the stick it slowly crept up to almost 70% of full travel, I thought it may be the receiver,, NO dice, powered up my lil crack yak, same thing rudder was creepin up on its own, Monitor screen showed almost 70 on the travel,, WITH THE STICK centered. Cycle it and it would come back, NOT To complete center, then start going up on its own. I think if I had I been flying one of my jets, that would have probably been the end of it. Horizon took care of it, and actually replaced the Transmitter.

The point of my experience is not to scare you, It could easily be a condition at that particular field, But I also shared to let you know it is possible that it could be an issue on a certain portion of the flight control signal as well,, And it could be your fingers twitching, I know sometimes mine do..

BTW I bet I have over 1000 flights on multiple planes with my replacement TX, No transmitter problems

Thanks, I have had this DX18 for so long. And it also seems to be a wing rock, never a fail safe or elevator set up moving. I have a few extra TM1000 laying around, I guess setting one up to check the frame loss wouldn't be a bad ideal. Thanks,

I can a updraft mess with a jet at 200mph?

Humm thanks, I just talked to my old flying buddy and last year we had a wing rock in my DLE 120 powered Krill , and it scared him (he was testing the CG for me), I guess its time to send it in, its odd I actually got 6 flights yesterday also on my little 50cc 3d bird with no issues. I have over 20 birds on this TX and it only seems to be my jets and one giant Krill that have had this issue.

And 3 years ago I lost a Top Flight Giant P47 with ZDZ80 Super with sweet scale 4 blade prop, I was doing a 15 foot high fly by and it rolled over and went inverted on its own and I lost it (it rolled faster than I could of done on my own). Couldn't find any thing wrong, by mentor at the time told me it was due to me using a Y harness on the ailerons.

I did high speed low pass on my F-16 last weekend and the elevator started shaking like a MF!! it turned out to be the gain on the Cortex set too high. I must have accidentally slide it to the limit right before takeoff. Once dialed back, all went back to normal.

David

You did not say if you had a Gyro in the Velox. If there is a gyro, the Gyro could be acting up.

You do not need telemetry to check the flight log.All you need is a Flight Log Reader and plug it in before the power to the Rxer is turned off. Or you should be able to get the GSU out and read the log on the turbine to see if there was a potential failsafe.

If there is any question about the Txer or Hardware, send it in to HH. They never charge anyway. For the cost of shipping you get a double check and tuneup.

Thanks guys. The Velox is the only jet I have with out a gyro, it's the only one were I feel like it would be a wast of money. I only use Cortex gyros.

Im going to send it in. Thanks guys.

I would send the Txer and Rxer.

During a training session with a newbie on Friday, 2 minutes into the flight, the trainee mentioned that the model was not responding to any control input. I released to training button to take control of the model and discovered the plane didn't respond to any stick movement. I was using a Dx-18 g2 connected by wire to a Dx-5e. The plane that was lost was a Apprentice that had only been flown 5 times. After that crash, did 10 flights with a foamy just to make sure there was no problem with the Dx-18. Have no idea why the plane crashed, guessed the tree gods just snatched it out of the air.

We have over a dozen Apprentices in our club. When we first got the "S" models, they were crashing. The pilot would just lose all response and they would nose dive into the ground.

What we discovered was the folks that were crashing were not allowing the plane to initialize properly. They would move the plane as it was initializing. Also, ... as a precaution, once there is a rough landing or a lot of handling of the plane, then we set it on the ground and reinitialize. We have not lost one since, and that was about a year ago that we had our last crash! Also, I suspect significant wind motion during initialization could cause a similar problem.

I always Initialized the system before every flight, so this was not the problem. To date, I have more than 150 flights with the Apprentice, and consider this plane to be my favorite calm, or windy day flyer. Since I also fly helis, I am very familiar with gyros. Again not really sure what happened Friday causing the loss of control with the Apprentice, but I have completed 15 flights with the DX-18 G2 since then. So I feel confident that the transmitter was not the issue. Anyway, got a new Apprentice in the box that will be assembled today so I can get the Trainee back in the air Wednesday.

You can do a long distance range check on the Txer. Set the Plane out about .6 mile and have someone watch it. Maybe use a cell or two-way radio for communications. Then operate the transmitter. Have the person holding the plane move it thru various positions. If the control is lost, then the transmitter or receiver needs service. The Txer's range check mode does not fully check the Txer's signal strength. Only the long range range check or a signal strength meter can check the Txers signal strength.

If I have a Txer or Rxer problem, which I have had, they both go back to HH for service. All it typically costs is the shipping there. They have always picked up the tab for the testing, repairs and return shipping. After doing this several times, only once had an actual SIGNAL problem been found with my stuff. They replaced a receiver. They also did do a hardware upgrade on the DX8 that went back in for a check. They also replaced a DX5 with my questioning over the phone. Never even had to send that one back in.

All that work may sound bad for the products. But, as the club we have several transmitters and several Apprentices. Also I personally have over 30 planes and 7 transmitters.

Bottom Line: If in doubt, send both the Txer and Rxer back in for a check. If there is a problem, it is a lot cheaper and less risky and the turnaround time in minimal.

Too many war stories on the Spektrum DX18. I swapped to a JR XG14 DMSS....I love it! Dont worry about a bad link.

"Odd Twitch" is Tom's stage name.