Wow, Darren. Truly amazing. I think any mere mortal would have given up hope and chucked the mash of pulverized foam in the trash. Your planes must love you for all the care and dedication. . . and hate you for repeatedly bashing them to death and flying full speed into that barbed wire fence. If your corn had eyes, I'm sure they'd be twitching and crazed looking, but it'd still be smiling. . . crooked.

Just thinking about Tuesday brings a smile to my face. Can't wait to do it again.

Okay, while I'd not call the Unicorn back to 100%, more like 85%, it has been cleared by the doctors for combat Friday -- Although the covering may look a little "Frankenstein-ish" because I ran out of checkerboard.

Also declared airworthy and added into the squadron replacing the old A-7 Corsair is the GWS A-10. Maiden should be just before noon tomorrow assuming good weather.

See everyone Friday.

Also, who is in for Saturday Morning at the Jr high in Lehi -- 9AM start?

Darren

I'll be there.

I'm pretty sure I can make it.

Is there any end to the bad luck?

So I get my Unicorn all back ready to fly for this afternoon, Tony and Todd break away for a 45 min session, and within 10 mins my ESC blows up and Todd breaks a control rod.

At least Tony and Todd got in some good hits. Todd tapped me, I recovered but, of course, I hit the barbed wire fence. Only my prop hit and it ripped the motor out the back of the plane, breaking one of the connection wires, which shorted against another motor post, and fried the ESC.

Fortunately I have another around here, but sheeesh.

Ah well, I am back combat ready and will be there tomorrow morning for a while. I have to leave at approx 10:00 but I will be there early flying the EDF squadron. The A-10 is a blast and I can't wait to get the F-18 up again!

Darren

I will hopefully be there. My esc finally showed up. I'm going to try and get my new tube in and solder up the esc. If I can get it done then I will be there. I better get it done. I think I may be going through withdrawal. I'm getting all shaky and excited just thinking about flying again. It's been almost 3 weeks for me.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! I won't be able to fly tomorrow. I soldered the motor up to the Wattage IC-380 speed control. Connected the speed control to my reciever in my plane to test and connected the battery. When I connected the battery the servos centered themselves and I hear a beep wine from the speed control. New speed control for me so I think nothing of the noise. Try the throttle... nothing. About 5 seconds later I get that not so nice electrical burning smell, I quickly disconnect the battery. I think I toasted the speed control. One of the wires coming from the battery to the speed control got hot enough to de-solder itself and the thermal goo around one of the components is a nice black color rather than white.

What has really got me upset is this is the second ESC I have tried. The first was a cheap generic 30 amp ESC I got off of Ebay. When I connected that one the motor started right away and the throttle on my tx did nothing to speed it up or slow it down. I played with that one for a few minutes until the wire de-soldered itself because of heat. I don't know if that one is toast or not, it was at least doing something until the wire de-soldered itself.

I don't know if my reciever could be part of the problem or not, I did land it pretty good on Redwood Road when I killed my old motor. Could I have possibly damaged it in someway that would tell the ESC to kill itself? I don't know.

This may all be more info than anyone on this thread wanted, I apologize. I'm going to post a thread in another forum and see if I can get some advice there too.

If anyone here has any thoughts, I'm open. I'm just about to lose my mind with these problems. I need to fly.

Wow, Pete, sorry to hear about your troubles! That's really horrible.

I did the same thing with a brand new 30 amp ESC when I first started flying RC last year. With brushed ESCs they have two wires that attach to the battery, and two that attach to the motor, and then the little ones going to your receiver. But the power has to go through the ESC a certain direction. I was in a hurry and accidentally soldered the motor to the side that was supposed to be attached to the battery, and the battery to the side that was supposed to be attached to the motor. You can't do that.

Within a few seconds the whole thing started smoking. What a stink.

Not sure if that's what you did, but it's a common problem with brushed setups. It's not as common with brushless because the brushless ESCs have 3 wires going to the motor and 2 to the battery, so it's easier to do it right.

Oh man!! That bites. I have NO clue what would cause such things but Im sure someone on these forums would know.

Darren you have the worst luck with those barbed wire fences!! For those of you that dont fly on Tuesdays the fence is just 3 feet high but somehow Darren seems to hit it pretty often!

Ill be there tomorrow too. Ill get there as soon as I can so I can see the F-18 and A-10!!! My wife has choir practice till 8:30 then Ill zoom over!

I have broken all 6 props for my Formosa but I will still fly it with a crappy orenge 9x7


Any else see the Increadibles today!!!? AWSOME.

Jared, I booked a theater Thursday night for our company. Awesome!! Best Pixar film yet. I can't wait to see it again, probably tomorrow night. I got my corn fixed back up again, ready to fly. Gryphon seems to be working fine here at home. I can plug it in over and over again, and it works fine. Didn't change anything. The thing is cursed. We'll see if it turns on in the morning.

Well guys, that was a fantastic Saturday of flying. Gorgeous weather, and our largest Unicorn turnout to date. It's cool to see everybody else's planes. I was going to ask, did anybody talk to the guy who crashed his other plane while we were flying? I meant to go over and ask him what happened to it. It was sad seeing the main wing detach, tumble out of the sky, and the fuselage barreling like a rocket into the asphalt next to him. What a horrible sound.

He needs a Unicorn! He'd have likely been able to throw it right back in the air and keep flying!

It was great to have the Gryphon back up again. I missed it sorely for the past few weeks. I determined that the "jinx" on the system was the speed controller, which only starts when it's warm. I've tried the system in my home for the past 3 weeks, and it's always worked fine. But every Saturday morning it won't start up. The only thing I could think of was the difference in temperature between my home and the park. So today I held it in my hands to warm it up, and then it started up fine. Weird weird weird.

Anyway, I love that plane. I always have to fly it last or else it makes flying all my other planes less fun. It's the climax to a flying session.

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NO way! You're Arrow? Good grief, I didn't know that.

Sorry about the plane. I'm just glad it didn't hit you. It looked like it hit pretty close to where you were standing.

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You gonna get a Unicorn and join us in combat? You should, it's great fun.

That Nucleus is about the most novel RC plane I've seen in a while. 2.5D flight is interesting. It's almost like a UFO. Have you ordered it yet? Looks easy to build.