Sandy Colquhoun

Here`s one I haven`t encountered before. Last Sunday I was practising dead stick approaches over the manoeuvering area of our field, which happily is covered in thick rushes and grass. After several low level passes, I eased the throttle open as before, intending to hold the height at 3 feet, then climb away. This time however there was a clattering sound and the model stopped in mid air, belly flopping onto a clump of vegetation. Fortunately there was no damage to it. When I repeated the control movements with the model restrained, the motor started in reverse, with the same clattering sound. Opening the throttle briskly resulted in the motor starting with correct rotation, and normal sound. The motor and ESC are E-Flite Power 32 and 60amp respectively, the TX and RX are Futaba FASST 2.4, the throttle channel is set at EPA100% with zero trim. I replaced the ESC with another make and the model continues to fly normally. Has anyone encountered this kind of thing before? I don`t want to throw away an expensive ESC which hasn`t seen a lot of use, even if I relegate it to gliders only.

Hi Dom, if you have specific problems, put them in writing. You`ll probably get several versions of the same opinion by way of reply, but that`s aeromodelling. Don`t worry about asking daft questions,this forum can handle them. One thing most of us will say is find your nearest club and get help from an instructor before you start spending money. It will work out quicker and cheaper than any other way. Good luck

Evening chaps, just thought I`d pass this on, the CG as stated is about right for starting off, but I found the ailerons pretty feeble and had to bump up the movement to the most I could get, applying a bit of expo to aid fine control. Certainly the elevator is quite sensitive and doesn`t need much movement, expo is good here as well. The rudder isn`t all that powerful, so if you think you`ll need it, you might want to go for a hefty chunk of deflection for starters and refine it down later. I don`t use expo on it, nor do I have aileron/rudder mix. Get `em up in the air, weather`s going to be good, oh, and they both penetrate a moderate wind without difficulty.Do hold off to slow up the landing, the fibreglass fuse isn`t all that proof against minor cracking. Regards and happy soaring

Hi Greg, here`s a little bit of agricultural knowledge your farmer will appreciate your understanding of, and it`s probably as well to slip it into a conversation with him. Although it`s 99% inevitable you will land in crops sometime, and most of us have, it`s not necessary to walk on them to retrieve your model. Even before the first green shoots appear in a field, the farmer will have begun to use his tractor on the land, and this goes on well into summer. He will always put the tractor wheels in the same tracks to minimise crop damage, and the wheat or oilseed or whatever will grow very little in these tracks. You should use these to approach as close to your model as possible, and with a bit of luck you`ll only need to take a couple of steps into the crop to grab a wing(assuming the model is not scattered in pieces) Better to discuss this with the farmer in a friendly way, and even ask his advice about retrieving the model,rather than let him see you in the middle of his valuable crop not knowing that you understand his point of view. You appear to be rolling the model on the wheat to take off & land, sorry if I`ve got that wrong, but the crop will grow so fast that you will have to find somewhere else within the next couple of weeks. If you build a relationship with the farmer he might be able to suggest another more suitable field. Good luck

RS I`m sure you`ll get all the advice you need here, and you do seem to have a pretty fancy radio to do magic tricks with, however I`ll put in my tuppenceworth as there will be others interested in the same subject. I have been known to programme in the bells and whistles, but now I just fly the things using the sticks with a bit of expo. Most electric gliders I`ve tried tend to point their nose up under power, and I have in the past put in a mix of slight down elevator as slave to full throttle. Now I find it just as easy to apply a little right stick forward while the throttle is wide open, and trim only for the glide. Basically that`s just adding up trim till the model starts to porpoise a little, then take off a couple of clicks. Then the real work starts to find the best trim for different conditions, because you`ll find that the slowest glide trim isn`t necessarily the same as for the least rate of descent. You may find the Phoenix doesn`t really need any fancy mixing for aerobatics, though a small amount of spoileron often helps to get you down on the chosen spot. Gliding can be as complicated as you want to make it, or not, as you wish, but the more you do it the easier it gets to "read the air" and that`s when the real fun begins. Best of luck

There`s possibly an incompatibility between the model and the site you`re trying to fly from. Cutting grass takes time & energy, and the farmer probably wants it to grow for animal fodder. I don`t suppose you could think about investing in something hand or bungee launchable without wheels? Then you could relax and enjoy flying, and it`s an excuse to have another model, thus greater happiness. Best of luck anyway

Hi Greg, we`re all with you on this. I`ve forgotten what model you have, but once you get a bit of experience you`ll find they mostly cope with a bit of wind. Gliders are good, but you probably want to stick with what you`ve got, at least until you get a bit of air time.Waiting for weather is like watching a kettle boil, it takes forever. In fact I`ve been a bit envious of the weather in your part of the country in recent days. Where I am we had a couple of good days in the last fortnight, but they were weekdays. The wind normally drops in the hour or two before sunset, maybe you would be able to try an evening flight. The advice you`ve received to try and get help from an experienced flyer( that you`ve actually seen flying successfully) is about the best. This hobby is weather dependent, and there`s no way round that. Once you are competent you may be able to fly despite the weather, and if you go to the extent of lobbing things off hills you may actually start to resent calm days

Wiiispa, I think you posted your original "thoughts" just to pull our chain and get the response and to be fair you did succeed. I think you are probably a lifelong aeromodeller who has invented a new pseudonym to get us worried. On the other hand you might be for real, and that does worry me. On this forum you generally find contributors who really want to help newbies into the hobby, and we are seldom judgemental or negative, we`ve all made silly mistakes. With all the tact I can muster, and hoping not to cause offence, I`d like to respectfully request that you think very carefully about what you intend to do, and why you want to do it. Most of the rest of us want to have fun without causing problems for others, and we like to avoid wasting time and money. To the uninitiated we appear to be playing with toys. That is not by any means the full story, we are mostly trying to enhance our quality of life by engaging in a legal, educational pastime ,and along the way we earn respect from our peers. Think about it.

Hi Johnny, the socket on your transmitter is on the back of the Futaba case, going straight into the PCB and hasn`t anything to do with the module, which concerns itself with sending out the signal. when you`re under instruction your transmitter is usually switched off, and the signal goes out from the instructor`s gear. This would mean putting one of the instructor`s receivers into your model. Though it isn`t impossible to make up an interface between the two transmitters, it`s probably more trouble than it`s worth. Handing the set back & forward isn`t ideal either. When trouble comes it`s generally on you before you know it. No chance of borrowing another Futaba tranny is there? Then it would be simple to link them.

Hi, the nylon mount provided with the Edge kit would do, it`s 2 piece, but you would be better to use an Irvine or similar. The box on the front of the firewall should really be reinforced as much as possible, I use plywood. There`s plenty of room for a bigger fuel tank, you might have to open out the hole through the formers depending on the shape of your tank. The cowl is big but you will probably have to cut a hole for the cylinder head. That`s about it, with your 61 the CG will be pretty close to correct. I used a high power servo on the rudder with a pull-pull system, the pushrod provided is a little bendy. Oh, it does fly well, mine`s got an Irvine Q72 up front. Hope you have fun Sandy

Hi, if you do go for a replacement motor, E-Max are excellent, even if posh boys look down their noses at them. They haven`t let me down yet. Check prices on Robotbirds and Modelaccessories, and yes, a prop balancer is not a luxury, and can cost very little.

Hi, in my experience, if it`s a lightweight model, it`s not really worth a lot of effort and expense to fix this problem if it works reasonably well. In the past I`ve slipped a carbon tube over the rod, not always possible if there`s a bend on the pushrod to get past. Sometimes the bend is created by the control horn being too short, or the slot where the pushrod comes out of the fuselage catching the rod at full extension so the rod has to bend to get round the corner.There`s usually no problem when the servo pulls the rod. On a heavier model that really needed all the rudder it could get, I`ve added a second pushrod and horn on the other side of the rudder, not all that difficult, and changed the servo arm to make a pull-pull system.

Hello BBC, I live in a village which was badly affected by the Chernobyl fallout in the mid 80`s. Within 100 yards of my place I have 2 neighbours who have had thyroid removal, and another 2 who are on hypothyroid pills. Everybody here grows their own veg., which might be a clue. My old dog got the same condition just 18 months after moving here. However, with the treatment, all of my neighbours are living healthy, active lives. My dog was young when he became affected, but with the pills lived on into a normal old age. When these things hit , it seems like the end of the world, but often it`s just another inconvenience. Best wishes to your missus and yourself Sandy

Looks like we have multiple cases of S.A.D. in the community. The sun is shining in Cyprus, Syria and Iraq. I wonder how happy are our comrades in those parts? I`ve heard some of my farming friends referring to the 18 months of winter we`ve just had, because of the disastrous effect of last "summer" on their animals and crops. C`mon folks, flying weather is coming, and we`re ready and able to use at least some of it when it does decide to turn up. Make the most of what you get, and take up the guitar or something meantime.

I agree with Fraser, for a rudder/elevator fair weather only starter model, you will be able to fly on your own, the Slow Stick is great fun. Both the Blaze and the Blizzard are very fast for a beginner, though with reduced rates and expo(you`ll soon know what I`m talking about) they are actually quite stable if you hold back a bit on the throttle. There`s a lot of good advice in this thread, and if you can possibly visit your local club before you spend any more money, make sure you speak to an instructor, not the first person who wants to impress you. Also, watch what the good pilots do- they`re the ones who have fun but fly & land safely- and copy them. Enjoy yourself, it`s a great hobby- I`ve had nearly 60 years of it and I`ve still got a lot to learn