Originally Posted by sredlin

I had never tried the "chuck glider" method before, but I do recommend it now and will use it again in the future.

Good info, but becomes a lot trickier when you're about to maiden a DRXL or Hercules, especially with camera or FPV gear.

Well I'm totally perplexed!
I got and tried my new Thunder Power batteries and it still flies slower as before. The only thing I haven't changed out is the Orange receiver. My DX8 shows full throttle throw, I've tried 2 motors and 2 different ESC's and it still doesn't sound or fly as fast as my friends stocker. It definitely doesn't have unlimited vertical. I guess it is what it is

Blu

Originally Posted by McCleary.11

Any smoke from the lipo or puffed up cells? As long as it doesnt feel puffed/spongy, you should be fine.

Battery feels and looks fine. In my head I said it was fine, but since I'm new to the hobby just wanted to check with some other people.

Hello friends,

Sunday morning, as always me and my son does, we went to the field to fly and enjoy the day. I try to arrive early to avoid the wind, so 8:00am I was already turning on my Assassin in the field. I turned on the Spektrum DX6I first, and then plugged the 1.3mah 3s battery in the 30a esc. I didnīt bind it because I only use the ar6100e in the assassin, once I bought 5 receivers. In the first few
minutes of flight, everything was going ok, very fast flyby (passages) and the noise of the wing coming, and going down is really scared and amazing, the feeling controlling it is so good.

After about 10 minutes of flight, the Assassin was moreless 150m away from me, full throttle, when I lost completely the control of it. I mean, the receiver didnīt answered my radio (Spektrum DX6I), was like it has no receiver on it. I tried to cut the throttle once it was out of control when it hit a tree.
Me and my son didnīt believe what just happened, then we got all stuffs in the grass and went to look for the Assassin. For our luck, it hit the tree, instead of the street, once was having a marathon and a lot of people running. If it hit a person, with full throttle, would be a so bad day.

It was in the crown (top) of one of the highest trees Iīve ever seen, about 25 meters high, (80 feet). It was in perfect shape and working. I turned on the Spektrum and move the aileron and motor trying to overthrow it to the floor, but not worked. I loose it, we went home and left the Assassin in the tree.

I was thinking about to see what went wrong, and the only thing I could imagine is that I installed the receiver antenna over one cable servo. Could it make any interference? Or the other thing could be any interference where
I was flying. The TX was charged during all night and I checked it was 5,6v.
Iīm a newbie in 2.4ghz radios and it have never happened to me before in FM radios, what leave me in doubt to come back to FM radios. Should I had to put a full receiver on it instead of the ar6100e? Before I lost it I felt another loose of signal for a couple of seconds, but it got the signal back again. The strange thing is that after I loose the wing, I was flying with my other small wing, with the same receiver (ar6100e) and I put her more than 500m away from
me with no problems. So I donīt know what could happened.

The good new is that I have built a new Assassin (I posted some pictures here a few days ago) and Iīm just waiting for the electronics arrives from HC to go to the field again. I donīt know about the radio, if Iīll go back to FM or try again with this Spektrum..

Later, when I come home, Iīll post some pictures to illustrate everything I told upstairs…

Oh Assassin, I miss you so much!

Originally Posted by elCapitan

Good info, but becomes a lot trickier when you're about to maiden a DRXL or Hercules, especially with camera or FPV gear.

Yes the "chuck glider" test flights would definitely be more difficult with airplanes that large especially with FPV gear. But this is the Assassin thread and I think it would be easy for wings in this size range. I would suspect that if you are someone who is putting together FPV and/or AP equipped airplanes that you also have enough building/flying experience with your preferred airframe/s to properly locate CG before doing a maiden with hundreds of dollars of gear at risk? Test gliding has been proven to work and is a viable option for most parkflyer sized airplanes, but it is definitely not the only method, you just have to do what works for your specific setup, and these forums can definitely help people discover these options.

Right. Still, though, the (sometimes vast) difference between CG on the bottom of the wing vs. CG when suspended is very interesting.

I'd like to have the physics of that explained to me in detail. I get what you're saying Blue, about it being like a plumb bob, but still, the two methods were drastically different on my bro-in-law's Reaper. Even if suspension is more stable and less accurate, what would account for it being that far off? And apparently consistently in the same direction?

Just tried with my new Storm Chaser before the maiden later today.

~~~Suspended from staple glued 4 1/2" back on top of wing from LE, hangs level

~~~Put 2 tacks 4 1/2" back on underside of wing for fingertips >> definately tail heavy!

~~~Moved wing back 1/2" so that balance from underside is good on COG

~~~Hanging again from staple is still level, not nose heavy as you would think.

Staple and tacks appear vertically above each other as far as I can see??

Below wing seems much more sensitive to me~~~~~~~H

Originally Posted by Luis_Claudio

After about 10 minutes of flight, the Assassin was moreless 150m away from me, full throttle, when I lost completely the control of it.

...

Iīm a newbie in 2.4ghz radios and it have never happened to me before in FM radios, what leave me in doubt to come back to FM radios.

I'm a little confused. It sounds like you're saying that the plane had full power after you lost control of it. However, if you had the failsafe correct, the receiver will kill the motor if it loses the radio signal. In fact, that's the easiest way to know you've lost the signal, the motor dies. With the Spektrum, I think the failsafe gets set when you bind, so I'm not sure how it could be wrong. With other radios, you have to explicitly set it, and if you forget, you can get the situation you describe where the receiver loses the signal and the motor goes to full power. You can easily test this by turning off the power to the transmitter. The motor will shut down, and the control surfaces will go to center position, and the marathon people will be be just fine. So I'd say something really weird happened, and it can't be explained by an interruption of the signal between the transmitter and receiver.

Originally Posted by Luis_Claudio

It was in the crown (top) of one of the highest trees Iīve ever seen, about 25 meters high, (80 feet). It was in perfect shape and working. I turned on the Spektrum and move the aileron and motor trying to overthrow it to the floor, but not worked. I loose it, we went home and left the Assassin in the tree.

Oh Assassin, I miss you so much!

You can do what one of my buddies did and bring a chainsaw to the field.

One less plane-eating tree to worry about now.

Here a picture showing where I installed the receiver in the wing. As one leg of the antena is over one servo wire, could be happened an interference?

Luis,
Anything is possible...here is a photo of my 2.4g Spektrum instalation, the RX is a cheap orange HK knock-off RX. If any instalation was going to be suseptible to interference it would be this one. So far, it's been flawless.
Good luck finding your problem
Trent

Balance from underneath is like a tightrope, you have to be spot on or fall.

The COG is inside the middle of the wing, not on surface.

Suspended from above the COG is like a plumb bob and more stable so less critical, and may not be as accurate?~~~~~H

I really like the thought of this...the plane in a way is "sitting" persay in the air...not being suspended from the top of the wing...

But much like captain said...how can it be so completely different?

Anyway I can say I experienced much less "wiggle" after changing the COG with that suspension method...does being tail heavy cause a little bit of waggle?

has anyone else experienced a different feel in flying with this suspension method?

Originally Posted by Luis_Claudio

Here a picture showing where I installed the receiver in the wing. As one leg of the antena is over one servo wire, could be happened an interference?

I'm not sure your wiring looks any different that everyone else's Assassin Luis. What I have made a point of doing is to cross the wiring at a 90 degree angle or so to avoid cross-over of signal.
I think I would recreate the problem with the Assassin being held by someone and walking further than you were and see what happens. It could have been outside interference, something you won't be able to duplicate.
Of course a failed part on the airplane has taken care of itself with it up in the (Assassin eating) tree.

Hi friends,

Thank you all for the help. I would like to know the 2.4 technology and started with the DX6I. I donīt want to quit using it, thatīs because Iīm trying to understand what could happened.

The big problem is that I lost a $200 product (wing + equipment), and could have injuried someone. When flying we have to reduce as much as we can all of these kind of possibilities

I bought to me a AR6210x full receiver, Iīll use it in bigger and fast planes wing to tru to reduce this possibilities, will it work? I hope so...

Next weekend Iīll go back to the same field I lost my wing with other planes and will do the range test. Also, if the wing is still there, Iīll try to get it back

At this same time, its coming to me from ebay a brand new Hitec Aurora 9...

Hereīs the result of the radio fault

It doesn't matter where the receiver is if the CG is right, I do tell people not to wind the receiver antenna in with all the servos and ESC wiring.

Lee