wlfk

Have you tried reading the instruction manual? Every ESC is different so we would also need to know what model yours is. If you can't work it out, I suggest you start a new thread as your question is new and not really related to the topic of this thread. Mostly if you start an ESC with the throttle high, you're entering the programming mode. It could also be that you have the throttle channel reversed, or that you need to change the 'throw' on the throttle channel to get a lower minimum setting.

Always enjoy your articles. Given that you're near Newcastle, you might be interested in the Sopwith Camel factory, which is a warehouse near the roundabout to Kenton, on the far side of the town moor (fairly near the flying strip). I never managed to find time to investigate it myself, but one of the local pilots told me about it. They apparently used to land on the moor.

What do you mean when you say 'stopped working?'. Did the motor still beep on startup? did they go up in flames? Did the servos and receiver still work? Did anything get hot? Are you running governor or normal mode?  Another cause for tail twitch is if the low-battery cuttoff is set to trigger at too high a level. As the battery voltage drops, the ESC slows the motor. This reduced load causes the voltage to rise, so the ESC speeds up the motor again, and the cycle continues.  I don't know what the problem is, but I still feel it's likely to be at your end rather than the ESCs. ESCs are perhaps the least reliable electrical component - let's say for the sake of argument they have a 5% failure rate. In reality, it's likely to be lower.  To get 5 bad ones in a row, you would have 0.05^5 = 1 in 3 million chance. Now, I think Align has sold about that many helicopters so you may be one of the unlucky few, but the chances are still much higher that there's something simply wrong with your setup. I'm not necessarily implying that it's something you've done wrongly - there could be a fault in your receivers or servos.  Are you using an UBEC?  My next step would be to fit an UBEC (remember to remove the red lead from the ESC to receiver connector) and see whether it's the ESC or the UBEC that fails next.

Just to cast a little doubt... If one ESC blows up, chances are it's a manufacturing fault. Or (as I once did) you just spent 8 hours building your 450 then soldered the connectors back to front because you were thoroughly addled.  But if you've had 5 go pop, to my mind it either implies that 1) they were from the same batch of duff ESCs or 2) you're doing something wrongly - or there's something about your setup that's caused the ESCs to go pop.  I think isolating the motor was very sensible. I trust there's nothing else about the setup (chafing wires against CF frames etc...) that could explain matters? Have you lengthened the wires to or from the ESC? What motor do you have.  Do you have particularly power-hungry servos? I presume it was the ESC side that went pop, not the step-down. How hot does your ESC normally get, and do you run a flybarless system? What are your governor / throttle settings?  I have to say, I don't see how soldering a plug to the wire could cause the ESC to go bad. I can see how it could make your helicopter fall out of the sky or go up in flames as the connector could either go open or short circuit. But neither of these things would damage the ESC. A motor connector coming loose might, but as I recall these are soldered in position anyway. My best guess (sorry if this seems rough) is that either one of your wires is chafing, causing a short, or you're running a very low throttle setting (e.g. 50%) which is causing your ESC to overheat.      

There's also the story of the man flying a '60 size helicopter (pretty large) when out of nowhere a lightning bolt zips through it on its way down to ground... but he never can find the wreckage!

That's interesting, but I would still go for some form of electronic glitch given the presence of a thunderclap almost simultaneous with the glitch, and given the fact that it doesn't appear to have recurred. Frank Skilbek's explanation makes a lot of sense to me, as a 2.4 system should have filtered out any corrupted control signals. The interference could also have happened at the transmitter end (e.g. interference to the pots).

In my hang-gliding days, the rule of thumb was that you should leave 7 times the height of the obstruction (trees) in horizontal distance before flying behind an obstacle.

Something I often see on the model helicopter forums is people with absolutely abominable receiver installations. There are a few ways to stop the receivers from working, ranging from nipping the coax sleeve of the wire to installing the antennae at the same angle or too close to metal or carbon surfaces. I've had only one lockout. I had set up my T-Rex 450 with a video monitor (2.4 ghz) and was flying about 100 feet away using a Futaba 6EX 2.4ghz system. I recognised that I was stretching the system but it had passed the range check with flying colours. The lockout occurred when the helicopter was oriented such that the vertical antenna was shielded by the carbon frame and the only transmission path was vertical transmitter antenna to horizontal receiver. Luckily I was hovering and the helicopter just landed horizontally with very little damage.  The lessons I took from that are that 1) orientation matters and 2) the systems can be remarkably good.  Technically though, I sometimes wonder whether what we actually need is 2 transmitter aerials oriented at 90 degrees, as well as two receiver aerials. With 1->2 there is still one orientation in which the receiver should theoretically receive no signal whatsoever.  Incidentally, somebody mentioned that on 2.4ghz systems you can orient the antenna better than on older systems. This is true, but it's also much more necessary at the shorter wavelengths.

With a background in visual psychology, I'd point out that stereo vision is only one component of depth perception, and at distances over a few metres it's far from the most important one. Over about 6 metres, the amount your eyes need to adjust their angle of convergence is so small that your brain is unable to detect it.  We can judge depth at much greater distances, of course. For example if you look at some mountains in the distance whilst driving, they appear relatively stationary yet the trees at the roadside flash by. Conversely, stars beyond the mountains may appear to move more slowly than them. Stereo vision doesn't come into it at all. There are about half a dozen such cues by which we can infer depth, and I'd wager that for most model flying they're far more important. Hovering helicopters or 3d aircraft may well constitute an exception.  My real problem with simulators is a lack of situational awareness. For example, if I practice autorotations I sometimes need to start my flare well before the ground is on the screen. But because I can't see it, I flare too late and crash.In real life I know that my head is pointing up, so the helicopter must still be high, and of course I still have the ground in my peripheral vision. There are head trackers that should help deal with problems such as these - flight simmers swear by them, but I've never used them myself.  So, I'd certainly give this a go - and for helicopters (my main interest) it may well be extremely useful. However, it seems to me that it solves the wrong problem.

Enough of the WWII planes, much as I love them... And perhaps this is ungenerous of me, but I wouldn't want to build a Nazi warplane either... Too many bad associations.  How about a Rutan design - somebody already mentioned the Starship which would be a fun twin. The Long-EZ would be considerably simpler as it is mostly designed to be cut out of foam to be built by amateurs and is boxy by design - though not unstylish. There are good scale drawings readily available too.     The early jet fighters were very stylish, and my favourite of these would be, without doubt, the vampire:   I understand the intakes would be hard - perhaps they could be supplied as moulds and would have to be enlarged slightly. But what I like about these early jets is that they span the transition between the piston powered fighters of WWII and the ultra-fast modern jets. They have the appeal of jets, but still have relatively long, straight wings. As such, it should be possible to build them with nice handling. I would love an SR71, but I doubt I would love flying it. The good old vampire looks as if it could be a pleasure in the air.    And finally, perhaps something pre-WWII:   The old de-Havilland Comet  

Well, thank you all for your suggestions. I've put in an order for a Formosa. Should arrive at some point after Easter. I actually like the look of the Formosa much better than the parkflyer - and it suits what I'm interested in better too - I'm more a light aerobatics person than a 3d flier. Once I am satisfied I can fly it safely, I see a ducted fan, and maybe a large scale spit to use my 600 helicopter's batteries... But that can wait.

Thanks for all the suggestions... It sounds as if my batts are too small for the parkmaster anyway... which is a very useful thing to know.  I'm very  much tempted to go for the GWS formosa - like the look of it and the price is far better. I may just wait a while though - I see a new stronger-foam version will be coming out soon.  In the long term, when I'm confident of my ability to fly without crashing, then I will go for something built-up as I grew up making balsa models and I like the craftsmanship. But I think I need to get some flight hours first.  

I currently fly only helicopters, and I'm a competent sports pilot able to do light aerobatics: loops, rolls and stall turns as well as figures of 8 and the like. I would like to try flying fixed-wing and I have been looking at the multiplex parkmaster as an aircraft that I hope might be suitable for someone who already has some transferrable flying skills, but who at the same time doesn't want to buy anything too demanding.  I currently have a spare 15A ESC knocking around, and I have lots of 850 mAh batteries for my T-Rex 250. I had been thinking of buying the Multiplex Parkmaster 3d but the price puts me off slightly.  I'd be interested in people's opinions on whether the parkmaster would be a suitable first model for me, and whether it might be possible to  fit it with a cheaper motor than the stock one which seems to come in at £40ish! I'd also consider alternative models that might be suitable for me and that could use batteries that I own already.  Seems to me it would be really nice to search through models by battery size rather  than by manufacturer, if any shop owners are reading!

I'm amused to find so many people who think the video is fake - it's impressive, but not unusual. My personal view is that some things are more fun to do than to watch. And of course, different things float different people's boats anyway.   Also, as regards how people do it... Most of it is probably down to stereotyped , 'automatic' movements rather than reaction times. The pilot knows the stick movements to do a piroflip, or whatever, and the only 'reactions' are slight adjustments to altitude or orientation between maneuvers.

Do you have personal experience of the Walkera helicopter in question? I don't knock people's products lightly, but in the past my flatmate bought a Walkera helicopter and it was truly appalling. It hardly had the power to take off, and even though I can fly a collective pitch helicopter with ease, I couldn't control it. Quality was very low and the parts, when they broke, were actually quite expensive and hard to get.  It's always possible their recent models are better, but I would buy with caution.