dubd,

You're not the only one that lost a slick today.

I stayed up REAL late last night putting the rest of my decals from ADC on the plane. Took it out today, and about 20 seconds into today's first flight, and she lost power to the motor.

I was pulling it out of an elevator, into a harrier, and just when the nose started to raise up for the harrier (about 15 foot up), the motor stopped, and the nose started to fall. I had very little air speed from the elevator, and no elevation to pick up any speed, so I knew it wasn't going to be pretty.

I chopped the throttle, and tried resetting the esc, and about that time, I saw the smoke starting to roll out of the cooling vents.

And then THUD......

Autopsy shows a very charred castle 85HV (flight number 6 on the plane and the ESC). The only real damage to the airframe is from the landing gear getting ripped out. F1-F4 will all need major work. Everything below the battery box on F2-F4 is completely gone. The cowl is pretty banged up, and the canopy is pretty distorted from the heat off the ESC. Other than that, and a little charring on the motor box, and the plane held up really well. The wheel pants did poke a few holes in the bottom of the wings, but no structural damage to either.

I'm pretty disappointed in Castle, this is the third ESC from them that I've lost in the last few months, two of them had very few flights.

I certainly don't have a problem with crashing a plane. Ask anyone who flies with me, and they'll all tell you that crashing is part of the game when you fly with me... But its different if you crash a plane from trying to waterfall at 10 foot then it is because you cant depend on the gear.

I'm not sure what ESC I'm going to use next, but I think I've bought my last Castle for a while.

Numbskull that is terrible!!sorry bro..sounds like the devils were out today for sure...powerlines tore up his funtana we were all picking on him about.had it in a hover,and smoke let out of the motor..broke some of the right aileron and the right elevator half.i toldhim he was trying to be like me as i tore my elevator halve smooth off my 87 shp.lol prototype motor. only had a few flights on it.you can see the charred wraps on the front of the motor

and my dumb butt landing in the wind with my 70 slick came in too slow and ditched it in the tall grass in the hay field just before gettin to the runway..talk about way short..was able to kinda harrier in.luckily no damage.
87 shp is back in action.

Ouch, sorry to hear about that one Noah. But at least it sounds repairable.

On a happier note, the lone yellow 70" Slick will be all pretty again. I dropped by the Mecca to pick up replacement parts... whohoooooo!

Dubd and Noah,

Sorry to read that.

Joe

Noah, that just sucks! Hope you can get that plane back in the air soon. I know its early, but do you know what ESC you are replacing this with?

Thanks guys!

Yes, it looks to be a pretty easy fix. Its more insult than injury. I've never bought a vinyl pack for a plane before, so I knew once I had everything put on the plane that it was a goner... But now, I can fix it, and fly it like its supposed to be flown, instead of worrying about hurting the decals...

That's great to hear that ol' yeller will be back in the air soon, Josh! Wish Mecca was closer, I'll have to wait for the brown truck to bring me any relief.

Originally Posted by BoneDoc

Ouch, sorry to hear about that one Noah. But at least it sounds repairable.

On a happier note, the lone yellow 70" Slick will be all pretty again. I dropped by the Mecca to pick up replacement parts... whohoooooo!

Love the Yellow Slicks. Take many pictures.

Originally Posted by fatcat220

Noah, that just sucks! Hope you can get that plane back in the air soon. I know its early, but do you know what ESC you are replacing this with?

I'm not sure for the long run, but for now, I'm going with a Spin 99 that I have on hand.

Originally Posted by NumbSkull

Thanks guys!

Yes, it looks to be a pretty easy fix. Its more insult than injury. I've never bought a vinyl pack for a plane before, so I knew once I had everything put on the plane that it was a goner... But now, I can fix it, and fly it like its supposed to be flown, instead of worrying about hurting the decals...

That's great to hear that ol' yeller will be back in the air soon, Josh! Wish Mecca was closer, I'll have to wait for the brown truck to bring me any relief.

Noah and Dubd.....sorry for the loss you guys.....that really sucks! I had something happen about like that with my BME 58 / yellow 89" slick. I spent all night , the night before putting on all the deals for that Yellow piece of crap H9 yak. Next day at the filed , very first flight , about 10 seconds into it...the throttle arm popped off the servo.....went wide open for about 3-4 seconds. I was out pretty far and kind of low , and didn't quite make it back to the filed. Splatted the gear , broke the prop , cracked my wheel pants.

Uuuhhgg!!.....long story short....i put about another 5 flights on that thing , sold it , bought a 89" Slick and couldn't be happier! Now....if i can only remember to refule before my last flights?? No matter how god the slick is....it doesn't like to land when you run it out of fuel in a 25' hover..HAHA!!

Noah.....have you found out why that 85HV went "poof!" And do you know how many amps you were pulling with the props you were using? Just curious as to why the dang thing smoked up on you. I have had good luck with all my smaller CC ESC's , but the biggest one i have ever used was a 54 amp. I haven't gotten to use a 85HV or 110HV yet. Making me a little nervous reading about things like this happening.

ive read about a few 85s letting the smoke out.dont know what the deal is..all of em over at castle had pig flu last week i think,the whole place was shut down it sounded like over in the castle threads

HA! Hey Ben,probly too much IRON SATURATION!!
lolol i know im a smart ass.im enjoying my castle escs.i hate it the 85hv broke the 70 slick

Originally Posted by JEFFRO503

Noah.....have you found out why that 85HV went "poof!" And do you know how many amps you were pulling with the props you were using? Just curious as to why the dang thing smoked up on you. I have had good luck with all my smaller CC ESC's , but the biggest one i have ever used was a 54 amp. I haven't gotten to use a 85HV or 110HV yet. Making me a little nervous reading about things like this happening.

I think it was just the classic castle burn up bug. I was flying an 18x8 on the 60XL, and only hitting about 90-95 amps in bursts, with it settling down into the 80s after a few seconds.

This isn't the first time I've had a castle HV go up like this. I've owned five castle HVs, and two of them have gone up without any major warning or an evident cause.

I've not pulled the chared PCB out of the cowl yet, but from what I can see, the FETs are burned off the board. When I reached the point of impact, the motor and lipo were both cool, and the motor still turns free, and the charring is very centralized to the ESC, so I'm pretty sure it was a defective ESC.

The last time I had it out, Jerry had come over and told me it was making a funny sound. I couldn't hear it because of my head phones, but I did take them off long enough to hear it once. It sounded like the motor had lost sync, but the sound was made AFTER I had released full throttle into a tumble, not on the way to full throttle. I looked over the plane, and found one of the cross members that the magnets hold into was loose, and made a very similar sound when flipped, so I glued it back together, and didn't hear anything during the few seconds of flight I had today. I even kept the head phones off for this flight to listen for any sounds.

I was giving the motor a good work out trying to get the plane to make a noise, but I wasn't working the throttle any harder than I normally do.

Originally Posted by NumbSkull

I was pulling it out of an elevator, into a harrier, and just when the nose started to raise up for the harrier (about 15 foot up), the motor stopped, and the nose started to fall. I had very little air speed from the elevator, and no elevation to pick up any speed, so I knew it wasn't going to be pretty.

Sorry to hear about that. Oddly enough, it was that exact same thing that got me to switch entirely to electric! I had Saito 125 flame out on me right as I popped my old Funtana 90 into a hover! Since then I've always felt more confident in my electrics down on the deck, so this is upsetting news! Anyhow, I hope you get her patched up soon.

I bet you're right Manta!!

I was worried over the iron saturation when I was setting everything up, but I figured since it wasn't a hacker that It wouldn't have been a problem...

Lol

thought you might like that..hey Ben,ole man Pete has a big velox comin too,so that makes 3 that the hodgehounds have coming..too kool! He wouldnt even get his 70 slick out today because of all the choppy wind we had,it was crazy.im trying to get over not flying in the wind,so i did today.