Avicraft (Perkins) Panic Biplane

[Dave Bran]

Avicraft (Perkins) Panic (White Livery)

 

Nothing adverse has happened. Design wise the rear tail skid does not give the elevator sufficient ground clearance on grass, but then it''s only on grass for the odd second or two (I have a 91 2 stroke in it!)

The undercarriage is well designed and well integrated into the main structure....the whole kit is well thought out and the bits all fit.

 

What's more the film covering is well fitted and has stayed tight.

 

I "found" a concealed hole in our landing strip dug by an animal on one touchdown, and it cartwheeled and ground looped it....................NO damage AT ALL, slight bend to one u/c wire, straightened in seconds.

Edited By Dave Bran on 24/06/2009 18:18:42

[grizz]

My panic managed to "unbind" itself from my Spektrum 7 transmitter after I had started the engine.It went into failsafe mode with the engine at tickover.Our club sec,being a helpful sort of guy picked it up,carried it to the end of our runway and,thinking I had the model under control let it go.As all the controls were at neutral the model then took off as a freeflight model.I had shouted NO at the top of my voice but distance and engine noise,even on tickover meant that he couldnt hear our pleas not to let go!!!.The aircraft climbed to about 50 feet,did a wingover and then a vertical dive into the runway grass.It buried itself up to the engine backplate,the wings shot off(the rubber wing bands broke).The ONLY damage was caused by the upper wlng cabane which went thro' the wing,cracking the l.e. sheeting.A minor repair soon had me flying again.The reason for the unbinding remains a mystery-this has not recurred.Horizon Hobby can't supply a reason either.I have read somewhere that if the tx is too close to the model when the model is switched on can cause unbinding as the signal from the tx swamps the tx but doesn't seem logical to me.Anybody else had a similar experiance?.

 

The only other problem has been the loss of one of the outer wing struts/plates after some pretty extreme manoevures .This fluttered down and dissappeared into the "moss"(rough reedy ground)at the back of our flying field. New plates were obtained from the good folk at Avicraft and are now fitted with tethers to prevent further loss in the event of further detachment from my plane.

[Tim Mackey]

It is impossible for a Spektrum Rx to Unbind itself from the Tx - this action can only be done by deliberate action by the user with a bind plug inserted to Rx bind socket and Tx bind button held down..

What probably happened is that the Rx failed to recognize the TX signal after switch on, which is not the same as being unbound.

The correct and safe way to perform this is...

1) Switch on TX and WAIT at least 10 -15 seconds for it to acquire 2 free channels.

2) Switch on Rx, ( not too close to model ) and waggle the sticks to confirm radio link.

3) Go fly.

Incidentaly, this subject is not really for this section of the forum.... radio failure - either equipment or user induced  - is not fair criticsm of the ARTF model itself.

Edited By Timbo - Moderator on 03/07/2009 17:33:37

[slippyr4]

Firstly, this has nothing to do with the airframe being a Panic.

The usual explanation for an apparent "unbind" is turning the transmitter on with the bind button held down, inadvertently.

If that happens when there is no nearby receiver with a bind plug in waiting to be bound, then the transmitter actually reconfigures itself to DSM (as opposed to DSM2). This will manifest itself as an unbound receiver when it's actually more an unbound transmitter.

The reason behind this is that during bind, the receiver actually transmits, and the transmitter actually receives (they negotiate things such as channel order, number of channels, etc).

The original DSM protocol's bind sequence was one way transmission only; therefore if a DX7 or above transmitter it put into bind mode and does not receive a signal from a binding DSM2 rx, then it assumes it's being bound with a DSM1 rx, and switches to DSM mode. 

[Tim Mackey]

Although quite how one "holds down the bind button inadvertently" is beyond me

And of course, the above scenario would not be an issue were the relevant Rx an AR6000 DSM for instance.

[grizz]

I am not a beginner!! I DO know how to properly bind my tx and rx.I have used Spectrum ever since it came into use in this country.The impossible seems to have happened and my plane DID unbind.NO the bind plug was not left in the rx. NO I did not operate the bind button on the rear of my tx.My plane was properly bound to the tx as I had already had two successful flights with it  and had "topped-up" the flight battery before this unexpected happening.

As to bringing up this on artf  plane problems,I only intended to illustrate what a good and strong plane the Panic is.I have started a forum post on my Spektrum problem as a separate issue.

[Tim Mackey]

Grizz....I have not suggested that you were a beginner

I am sorry but I just dont believe that it became "unbound".

Spektrum themselves clearly state that this cannot happen, and I still maintain the likely cause is as above.

You have already received feedback on this matter in this thread, and yet have cross posted in another.... which I locked..

I will unlock the other thread, as it is more appropriate for this matter, however my reply remains as here.

Incidentally its SPEKTRUM

Edited By Timbo - Moderator on 03/07/2009 23:35:43

[i12fly]

...and back to Panic, I'd say it is the best ARTF I've made. Everything fitted well, the quality of wood and hardware excellent, although a slight niggle where the covering overlaps at one joint on the fuselage. The fliight perfomance is.... well, I can't do it justice. Fly like a lightweight trainer or go mad on high rates. Very versatile, brilliant!

[Dave Bran]

The join issue is presumably with the rainbow version where there are by necessity more joins??

 

 

Edited By Dave Bran on 07/07/2009 19:41:51

[i12fly]

Hi Dave

Yes, it is the rainbow version. I'll soon sort it, doesn't stop me enjoying the model though!

[David E]

Would post this on the other thread as it's more on this subject (Spektrum "unbinding"), but it's locked...

 

From reading the info provided it sounds like a link was never established before the flight. I think either the bind button was pressed when the transmitter was turned on, perhaps due to the use of a poorly designed Tx tray, or the Rx simply never made a connection with the Tx on this occasion, perhaps because there was too much interference. The DSM2 protocol won't establish a link unless a certain number of uninterrupted consecutive packets are received. This means the tolerance to interference is lowest at Rx startup than at any point during flight.

 

If this is what happened, this isn't the fault of the DSM2 system. It sounds more as though there was a failure to check that control had been established before launching. We all make mistakes sometimes - I recently forgot to rebind after reprogramming my Tx, and didn't realise that it meant my failsafe positions were all wrong for one aileron. This combined with not having done a range check after some of the wiring in the cockpit moving between flights led to several nasty moments where a very brief loss of signal flipped the plane over very quickly!

[Flanker .]

I love the way that no one is prepared to take poor Griz's problem at face value! Perhaps he is telling it like it is?

 

Why should Spektrum or any other system work properly all the time? It is after all a COMPUTER based system and it WILL do what it wants sometimes. They ALL do. I know,  I work with them. There is no such word as "can't" in engineering.

 

The Banks tell us that cash points are 100% but there still exists a consumer group  who insist that they have been short changed, and has any one read "Waldo" a classic '70 s tale of problems with a machine that could not fail. Like any system Spektrum may be 99.999999999999999999999999999999999 reliable, but NOTHING is EVER 100%  There might have been a small EMP or a quantum tunneling event, both of which will upset the smooth running of a chip, or a burn out/in event.

 

These events are very rare I am sure but 2.4 is new and we really are not in any position to be smug re 100% reliability.

 

Go well all 35meg Flanker.

 

 

[Tim Mackey]

The balance of probability suggests operator error - as alluded to by both myself and David E. Apart from that, as I also said earlier, this thread is not the place for this discussion - its about the quality of ARTFS.

Grizz also cross posted, and the other thread he started is in the correct section here

If people wish to discuss the matter of radio errors /failure / operator errors then please do it her, rather than try to resurrect off topic chat in this old inappropriate thread. TY