Your rite about preflight, I almost went for a second flight last week, had I done that after the hard landing I may not have checked, instant disaster, now it will be preflighted EVERY flight!
Neal

Originally Posted by neale

Your rite about preflight, I almost went for a second flight last week, had I done that after the hard landing I may not have checked, instant disaster, now it will be preflighted EVERY flight!
Neal

EVERY TIME... I talk out loud to myself "Left, Left, Up" (Left Stick, Left Aileron, Up) etc.. I had an elevator servo reverse somehow and I caught it during the pre-flight, so take the 3 seconds it takes... lol

..."elevator up"...during flight... and nothing happens... that's the one you don't want to miss... LoL

BJ

Oh and dont forget move al the sticks,,, and nothing happens!! went failsafe, then went into a beautiful right wing down, a bit of down elervator, motor stayed at last setting, near flat out, I loved that .75 powered 60 size trainer!!
RIP the " BRONWEN 11" (2) All I have left is a wing a motor and tailplane, to rebuilt with a modified wing and build a diff fuze. Morale of story is,,, dont forget to set failsafe PROPERLY
Neal

Have 2 I can add to that:

#1 - Know thy Tx.

Mate was about to maiden his brand new big Carbon slope-soarer. Thought he'd do the right thing and range-test it first. Found out after he threw it out for the first time that you have to turn that particular brand of Tx off on again after doing a range test - otherwise it stays in range-check mode (depleted signal)

Result? Got about 100ft out, and spiralled down into terra firma.

#2 - Always range-check to the full distance (about 30 paces on a JR)

Muggins here had just taken ownership of a top condition second-hand 'Swift' slope-soarer. Fully carbon-socked fuze (as tough as a star picket). The previous owner flew on 36meg, and being CF fuzed, he had an extra-long antenna out the back to clear the carbon.

I'm on 2.4 and well aware that you need to poke both the short antenna of JR stuff outside the fuze, so I drilled a couple of neat little holes up in the nose and pulled the antenna out through them. All packed it nice and neat.

Of course, during setup, I was moving things around a bit etc etc and pulled the Rx out a couple of times. As luck would have it, last time I put it back in, I didn't pull the antenna back out through the fuze.

Range-check - ok. Well... at least at ~4 metres. Looks good. Let's fly. Up... out... loop ... roll... kewl

Now lets do a couple of quick passes - out further to the right to set-up for a bomb-drop fast pass. Lovely.

Ok... running out a bit far now... pull it back closer into the lip... nothing. Try to roll it in a bit closer... nothing.. .nose dipping now.. try some up elevator.... nothing.

Result? Got about 100ft out, and spiralled down into terra firma.

From about 200ft up on this particular hill. Lawn-darted perfectly vertical. Fuze? Not a scratch on it. The rest of a plane? Moulded confetti

Left it all hooked up and when I got back to the car, did another range check. Bloody hell! It all still works! .... at 4 paces (same distance as the original range-check). Take one step back... offline. One step forward.. online again.

No 'whiskers' sticking out the fuze. Bugga.

It was getting enough signal to the Rx through the carbon at 4 paces...at 5 paces, she was all done.

Had I not been lazy and stepped out the full 30 paces for the range-check, I would have immediately twigged that I hadn't pulled the antenna wires back through the fuze.

We live and learn...

BJ

Exspensive reminder about preflight's BJ
Anyway we have a lot of rain happening at the moment here so no flying this weekend, so doing house stuff and maintenance on hobby stuff. And I am hopeing not to have as bad a time as you did BJ, I got my new 9XR the other day and I am trying to learn the programming on it so I can fly my helis again
I hate this part of the hobby. So I am hoping that at the end of the weekend my test 500 is still in one piece!!
Neal

Too right - when you consider it takes less that 5 seconds to do a simple pre-flight... a whole minute and a bit to do a range check.

I still try to do a simple one before every flight - even if it's just for changing out the LiPo and flying the same plane back-to-back. So many things can go awry, even after a 'safe' landing.

Mate unknowingly broke off one of the two JR Rx antenna when pulling a battery pack out and putting in a freshie. Flew fine - until it oreiented parallel to the remaining antenna. *bingo* Offline. You can guess the rest...

BJ

Here are the $12 servos I have ordered... 8 of them. I have a Clancy Super Bee to put together too. I have bought Turnigy ESCs, and motors and have had no problems.
As far as receivers... I use the 4 channle Orange from HK. They do not have a long attenae at all; maybe one inch. Will this be enough to stick out the fuse and still get good reception. I will be using a sattelite too.
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...dProduct=33316

Those servos are sure pretty, let us know how they work. I don't think you're getting any benefit using a satellite with the 4ch Orange receivers as the 4ch one's don't have a port to plug in the satellites. I think you mean the 6ch ones. Have you seen that HK came out with two new 6ch DSM2 receivers? One has the long antennea like the 7 and 9ch.

Hi guys,Yhey are the servo's I was looking at, before I stole the Hitec's from my mini titan!
A run domn about them when you try them would be good.
This is the one area that is really cutting down the outlay in thes hobby, TX's and Rx's fro m the newer manafacturers. I wont get started on that soapbox!
I am useing frsky Rx in the Siren, working great, started to set up the Orange Rx to run with my spectrum Rx'z in my helis hope ok.
I have read,,, See where I said [U]read[U][/ that the frsky ihas the best range of 2.4 stuff. So I have read!!
Neal

You caught me snoozing at the controls again Evan. I forgot that the 4 channels don't have the sattelite port. I will have to go with the 6 channle for the Siren. I suppose the US warehouse does not have them yet, as that is where I was shopping.
I will try these servos for a while as my first digital ones.

No Siren action on the weekend?

BJ

We need some videos.

I don't have any new ones...

Wanna see some old posts (regurgitated)?

BJ

Why not BJ, I am sure you will find some good stuff
And no action this week end, weather up here not so good
Neal