will to live - LOST

[Willyuk]

Is it just me, is it part of the learning process or do we all suffer from loosing aircraft from failures? I have now lost three models in very short order for the following reasons: 1) on/off switch failed in flight during a roll leading to total loss of control, model destroyed 2) failure of elevator pushrod leading to lack of control during a turn, result the model nosed down and went into the trees, model destroyed. 3) Elevator servo failed during banked turn, result model nosed down into, coincidently, the same trees, model destroyed. I will hold my hand up to number 2 as it must have been a poorly soldered joint. The other two?? By the way I check the models very carefully before each and every flight, none of these problems came to light. Perhaps the lesson is NEVER use cheap gear ( tower pro servo, non main manufacturer switch). Please cheer me up!

[Hangar 9 nut]

Our club had a talk by Dave Wilshire and all what you have said he covered in his talk your plane is as safe as the weakest link cheap switches cheap servos and cheap leads are all to easy to buy but we all have lots of money tied up in our planes switches are the most common he took one apart in font of us and you would not believe the way they are put together.So hope this has not made you feel worse but he has made me look at what I use.

sorry for your losses Willy hope you recover !

[Masher]

No it's not just you! I have had a spate of failures from switches, batteries and connectors but unfortunately, buying more expensive doesn't seem to make a lot of difference!

Oh, to cheer you up - it's good flying weather this afternoon, get out there!

[Steve Hargreaves - Moderator]

Definitely not just you Willyuk.....I'm sure we can all share similar experiences....there seems to be a general "cheapening" of many components these days & as Masher says buying more expensive doesn't always solve the problem.....I've had Hitec servos go jittery on me (RIP Pitts Special)....Futaba switches fail (Farewell Sukhoi).

All you can do is check & check again....systems are only as good as the weakest link & often that's the nut holding the sticks....

[Andrew Price 2]

Interesting.

[Cuban8]

Always shudder when I see an RX switch mounted directly to the side of an airframe so that engine vibration, oil and cleaning fluid can all do their evil deeds.

Best to mount switches in the fuz on a piece of double sided foam or whatever in order to insulate from vibration, and operate via a short wire push rod. Worth going for the larger, heavy duty type as well.

[cymaz]

That's the problem when you take off...there is a risk it can all go wrong. Just recently in the last few weeks I've had a Junior60 crash due to the wings folding and a very nice 1/4 size Gipsy Moth due to unknown problem with the failsafe. The loss of the Gipsy nearly put me in tears.

 

You have my sympathies though.

Pick yourself up, dust yourself down. I know it's hard......but it's not life and death.

 

Edited By cymaz on 12/10/2014 15:03:08

[Adrian Smith 1]

Sorry to hear that willyuk. I can only speak of my experience and it won't ease the pain of losing a plane, but I only use Futaba servo and switchgear and thus far not lost an aircraft with servo or switch failure in 15 years. Pilot error now that's another story'! That's with glow or petrol. I know it is a provocative statement ,but I urge you to buy the best you can afford as there is no point in losing a plane because of substandard gear. Just do the math as they say. As for soldering joints I learnt that lesson not long ago. Always try and use mechanical joints and thread lock for security. I nearly lost a gasser due to soldered joints on the throttle rod. Luckily I found the problem after landing. All I would say is dust yourself down and try again. After all that is why we do this hobby isn't it?

[Jon H]

I have been lucky for the most part. the last 3 failures I have had were I broken elevator linkage (vibration) but I was able to land using the throttle. I lost an aileron hinge pins from a model that is really old and yet they all decided to jump ship on the same day, again I was able to land. the last one was a throttle servo causing the engine on my p40 to stop resulting in a heavy arrival in a ploughed field so it is currently under repair.

I would say though to reduce these problems as much as you can there are some rules to live by:

1. as already stated buy a decent switch and not a crappy one

2. again as stated, buy decent servos and replace any that you have the slightest hesitation over

3. when suspect equipment is found either bin it or tie a knot in the lead so that in a years time when you pick it up you know there is an issue there to look for

4. don't use the heatshrink sealed Y Leads. one tug accidentally can weaken the solder joint and cause a failure. Only use the type with a plastic block around the join.

5. cycle batteries and check capacities

6. keep things simple. I only ever use nimh batteries direct into switches. no lipo's and regulators, no powerboxes, no fancy stuff with lights and buttons. The more stuff there is in a model the more there is to go wrong.

Clearly this will not cover you against random failures. but (touch wood) I have only lost two models to equipment failure in almost 25 years of flying as random failures are quite rare.

Edited By Jon Harper on 12/10/2014 17:39:47

[SR 71]

Hi Willy two weeks ago i had a world models spot on with a brand new OS 110 pumped in it, two digital servos two analog and a brand new 2000 enloop battery that was fully charged before i started flying that morning, four and a half flights later i lost all contact with the model and it went srtaight in from a good hight, into a sand dune, the model was totaled but what upset me was the fact that the engine had every part of it except the conrod and piston destroyed never did find the rocker arms and several other bits

Im still but its a hobby we all enjoy RIGHT

[SR 71]

Forgot to say it was the enloop that caursed it it was totaly flat on inspection, sods law it was the only piece to survive intact

[Steve Colman]

This year hasn't been so good for me either.

I stored a few planes at my club only to have them attacked by mice. My E-flite Leader 480 was eaten away from the inside leaving only the outer covering. As well as the airframe all four servos + the ESC were also ruined. At the same time they chewed away all the servo leads + ESC leads in my Sebart Angel S30e. I was not a happy bunny!

I have also lost two models due to TX (DX8) problems this season.

All in all, probably the worse year I've had for model losses.

So, empathise completely with anyone who's lost models.

Steve.

[Josip Vrandecic -Mes]

Dear Willy , after many years of RC flying ... all the above is possible and more of the aforementioned.
I give you my understanding and compassion ... and welcome to the club

Will be better...

Jo

Edited By Josip Vrandecic -Mes on 12/10/2014 18:39:25

[Peter Miller]

It happens to the best. I remember one person many years ago took his model off at a really big show. It crashed. He had left the receiver aerial coiled up in the fuselage.

As a learner you will have many crashes and they will continue throughout your modelling carreer. They may be equipment failure or pilot error, you just have to learn to live with it.

Even now we all have runs of bad luck when we crash a model a week for various stupid reasons, then the run ends.

Funnily enough we were talking at the club this afternoon. True aeromodellers keep going regardless.

One member had built umpteen rubber powered models before he got a flight out of one. He still remembers that flight in 1939. I did the same with rubber power until I got that magic flight. I can still see the whole scene. to this day, magic!.That was 1953.

Then I crashed at least 5 control line models before I flew a complete lap.

I know you may say, well, they were cheap. Not so on 2/6 (12 1/2p) pocket money and hours of building.

[John Tee]

A bit late finding this thread today, but in reply to Cuban8 I've been flying since the late 60's and 95%of my switches have been fuselage mounted with no trouble that I can remember due to vibration. I've not taken a modern switch apart so can't comment on quality. There may a link to the larger motors in use today,my largest to date is a 120 fourstroke again with no trouble yet!! but it is mounted on a vibration reducing mount. If using larger/petrol engines there may be more vibration but then perhaps cable supports may be in order to reduce risks? Have I just been lucky for 40 plus years?

John

[Shaunie]

Commiserations Willyuk, all I can say is that in two flying careers, 1985-1993 and 2010 to date I have never had a crash that I feel was due to equipment failure. Every single one was down to me on the sticks I'm afraid! Yes I've had a few failures, on one occasion an aileron link failed but she came home fine on the other. So take heart from the fact that perhaps you've had a run of bad luck. On the other hand look at my history, every time I've smashed up a perfectly good aircraft because I'm a lousy pilot!

Shaunie.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Willyuk,

sorry to hear you have a bad run lately, Chin up mate!

All you can do is learn from these events and move on. That is part and parcel of the engineering process. Full size aviation would not have the excellent safety record it has today without building on some very hard earned experience gained from the pioneering efforts of the past.

i wish you well and hope that you stick at it.

best wishes

dave

[Willyuk]

Many thanks to you all for the kind comments. One thing came to my mind yesterday, it's only the improvement in my flying skills that have given these failures a chance, previously I crashed the aircraft before they had a chance to fail!

That's my positive spin for today.

Back to the building board now

[Cuban8]

Posted by John Tee on 12/10/2014 19:59:34:

A bit late finding this thread today, but in reply to Cuban8 I've been flying since the late 60's and 95%of my switches have been fuselage mounted with no trouble that I can remember due to vibration. I've not taken a modern switch apart so can't comment on quality. There may a link to the larger motors in use today,my largest to date is a 120 fourstroke again with no trouble yet!! but it is mounted on a vibration reducing mount. If using larger/petrol engines there may be more vibration but then perhaps cable supports may be in order to reduce risks? Have I just been lucky for 40 plus years?

John

Fair enough, many still do fit switches direct to the airframe and never give it a second thought. All I'm saying is that we'd never fit a receiver without any foam packing or have it where it could get coated with muck, so why take a risk with what could be argued is the weak link in the system anyway? It only takes a few minutes to mount a switch internally on a soft mount so why take the risk?

It's worth taking an old RX switch apart to see just how delicate they are - decent ones have multiple contacts but I have seen those that just rely on a single point of contact and must have a greater chance of failing. I treat the battery/switch as a single entity, If I begin to suspect that the battery is not giving its best after several seasons, I'll change it along with the switch harness. I've probably binned switches that are perfectly OK over the years, but that's a (relatively small) price to pay for peace of mind.

[Andy Green]

On the subject of switches, these have been discussed a lot recently, and although I've never had a problem for the price I'm now using these on a couple of models. So far so good. They fail save and no moving parts.

Andy

[Ben B]

It does seem strange that switches do not have any built in redundancy. It would be so simple- instead of a single pole switch have a dual throw switch each with their own LED to signal juice flowing and each with their own cable into the rx (to provide cabling redundancy). When switching on the switch you look for two LEDs, the same on landing before switching off. If either pole failed the other would work.

How much would that cost over the cost of a switch? 50p? Okay, battery backers with seperate batteries is possible but not appropriate for most sport models.

[Phil Green]

Of necessity, all my gear is cheap & cheerful and no problems touch wood & whistle. I always soak-test new servos for an hour before use, always use good batteries (not expensive batteries) and all of my setups will have some home-brew item or other in the link. Your problems are probably just coincidence/bad luck, three busses arriving at once sort of thing. We all get 'down' from time to time and I find that a 'back to basics' project often helps, like building an Ebeneezer for the grandkids or rummaging through your old control-liner plans for a 'one evening project'.

One thing I would suggest is that I'd never ever use a commercial Y lead, whether it has heatshrink or plastic whatever. The commercial ones I've checked have been terrible. Make your own, then you know its good!
Cheers
Phil

 

Edited By Phil Green on 13/10/2014 12:49:16

[Shaun Waters]

Good idea Ben, if not commercially available then why not just install a pair of switches in parallel, that way you double up on the switch mechanical components as well............

Cheers, SHAUN