Put in two flights today-about five minutes each. With one and a half ounces of lead as far forward as possble inside the nose, it now flies beautifully.

I did a few, slow lazy loops and just cruised. The throttle tends to pulse on mine at a few hundred feet, as though the radio range is limited.

It needs larger diameter wheels, as the tail tends to go up, even on a very slow landing on grass.

A very nice flying airplane-no complaints!

I also get some throttle pulsing when the plane is out 3-400', but the radio seems fine as far as control goes. I don't use the wheels on mine. Also check the tail surfaces to make sure that they are firmly attached. The supplied double sided tape only lasted 3 or 4 flights on mine before the tail came loose when the plane slid into a grass clod upon landing. The slight bump caused the tail to come loose, thankfully on the ground and not in the air. I used a little 5 minute epoxy to secure the tail.

Has anyone figured out when its time to replace the transmitter batteries? I get both a red and a green light on my transmitter when I turn it on. I have about 2.5 hours of on time on the transmitter, 14 flights. I check the battery voltage with a voltmeter when the transmitter is on, but I don't know the cut off voltage.

The PDF manual states that the when the red light is constantly lit on the Tx means the plane battery is discharged and to land. But on the three planes I have, all Tx"s red light stay constantly lit, so I think its a misprint? I should have looked more closely when I discharged a battery during flight to see if the red TX light went out.
The TX batteries loosing charge should have a warning in that the red light on the TX. should be blinking.
The manuals that come in the plane box seem to be missing a few pages, but can be found online at HF. Here is the link, Tx ?'s are found in the trouble shooting.
http://www.harborfreight.com/manuals...4999/94774.pdf

The red light on the transmitter should come on to mean that the batteries in the Tx are too low to give enough output to have a signal reach the plane.The light is for the Tx only. I also have 3 HF Tx's and the red light always stays on all the time on each one, even when the batteries are brand new. Maybe it blinks when the batteries are low? I think that the manual is wrong. I intend to put some known low batteries in the Tx and see what the red light does then. Right now, before flying, I walk at least 50' from the plane with the TX antenna collapsed and make sure that the plane is responding. The batteries in my TX read 1.41 volts each when the Tx is on and drawing current after 14 flights of about 12-13 minutes each. These are HF alkaline, I'm sure that Energizer or Ray o vac batteries are better however.

The airborne battery will cut the motor off when a certain voltage is reached, and there is still sufficient power to land the plane.

jerrya, I agree with you, manual is wrong. let us know what happens with some discharged batteries in the tx does to the red light. On page 7 of the pdf para.9 made no sense to me, cause my red light is always on. Just frrom reading it, I thought they were talking about the plane's battery.
So if planes battery discharge's enough to cause bec to cut out, there is still juice to the servo's? When mine cutout, it seemed everything went dead, I crashed not fifteen feet away, walked over to the plane and it seemed to reset itself, but when hitting the throttle it revved up and cut right back out again. Thanks for the help, cause its all new to me.

Littlestar........ The red light on the Tx is for the TX only, no way can it measure the voltage in the plane. On 5 or 6 occasions, when there is little or no wind, I have flown the Hawk until the motor stops and glided for a landing with plenty of power for the servos. I assume that its designed this way so that there will be plenty of juice to power the servos at the end of the engine run. I don't like to fly the Hawk in much of a wind as it's so light that it gets blown around a lot.

I just looked at the instructions from the HF link that you posted above. In one place it says that the Tx red light will blink when the batteries in the Tx get low. Hopefully, this is the case and will alert us to change to new batteries. I would land immediately if I saw the light blinking during a flight.

Originally Posted by Littlestar

When mine cutout, it seemed everything went dead, I crashed not fifteen feet away, walked over to the plane and it seemed to reset itself, but when hitting the throttle it revved up and cut right back out again. Thanks for the help, cause its all new to me.

With most BECs, power to the motor is cut off, while sustaining power to the servos, HOWEVER, if the ESC/BEC gets too hot or if it's damaged, it could shut down completely until it cools off enough to recover. Also, if your battery has been damaged or stressed (even just one cell), it could reach cutoff voltage prematurely and cause the BEC to kick in.

A new Harbor Freight store is opening in my area today! Prior to this, the nearest one was hours away. I'm going to hit it later today and see what they have for r/c in the store. I was always jealous of all you Harbor-Freight-having people, now my life is complete.

EDIT...well, there is no r/c of any kind in the store...one of the guys that works there said it was one of the smaller ones and so they don't carry everything...bummer. And, the one other thing I went there to buy was sold out by the time I got there. I feel so empty now...

an85yalie, At the sale price, the plane seems like a great buy, for what you get.
Funny you went back and got two more, I went back for another but they were out of stock. I am thinking that once this beginner (me) can no longer patch up the Wild Hawks, (have two) the radio, servo's and Rx might be up to task to plant into a Easy Star brushless combo for my next step. Whats your thought?
You wrote
Also, if your battery has been damaged or stressed (even just one cell), it could reach cutoff voltage prematurely and cause the BEC to kick in.

Thanks for that. I have had this problem twice now, maybe even from the same battery, not sure. All six numbered now, and if a bad battery is culprit, it has nowhere to hide.

I just ordered two of the on-board batteries for the Wild Hawk from Harbor Freight for $ 9.90 each. Pretty darn inexpensive!

Ah Clem..........How did you order them, off the internet or via phone? I'd like to get a couple so I could fly more often.

I just called them and ordered the batteries. Shipping is going to be $6.99 I think.

just got in from first flight with the wild hawk. success! I had it up for about ten minutes, doing figure eights and some pretty tight looking loops. brought it down for a nice belly landing in the grass. It was getting a bit windy but I was feeling confident so I went for the second battery pack. about midway through I'm not sure what happened, seemed like I just lost control. I think maybe I had given it some down elevator and nudged it to full throttle, resulting in a spectacular full throttle nosedive crash from about 60ft up! It happened pretty quick. Entire nose came off, motor and foam motor mount broke out, battery was found about 20ft away from the rest of the wreck! I had switched the connections to powerpoles and was glad I had done that. Also had switched the receiver over to my dx6 setup as I am trying to get a feel for the transmitter, so I doubt any glitching was to blame but it sure felt like it. All control horns, etc. intact, I was just sure it had to be a loose control horn the way It just suddenly lost control. Anyhow, all the electronics still seem to work so I think it can be repaired. This was my first succesful flight as I have had three unsuccessful attmepts at flying my slowstick. I figured this plane can take the hits a little better and so far that seems true, oh, and also being able to actually fly it is pretty cool too.

Doser,
I'm guessing that one of two things happened to you- either the tail came loose (the double sided tape is a little weak) or the battery came out of its' holding cradle and moved forward and messed up your center of gravity making the plane nose heavy. I've had the battery slip loose on mine, but was able to land without crashing. The tail came completely loose on my last flight AFTER I landed. I'm glad it happended on the ground as that would have been unrecoverable in flight.

Mike.

Well, i had filled the nose with spay foam as another had suggested, so the battery shifting scenario is probably out. I can only surmise it was operator error. Still seemed weird that it would not respond to the full up I was giving as it zoomed straight to the ground. I suppose I might have had better luck if I had cut the throttle as well...

My plane is going to be a mess of tape and hot glue I think when I am finished with it. Anyone got any idea what the motor and esc specs are? I was thinking about maybe a motor or battery upgrade.....