budgetdude

My Feedback: (6)

Well, last sunday was definately the lowest point of my flying career. I ws flying basic at a contest in Ham Lake Mn (thank goodness we were out in the boonies). My plane stopped responding halfway through the aerbatic turn. It did not failsafe as it didnt return to idle. Once I realized I wasnt getting it back it started to turn back toward us. I had everyone taking cover as it strted to descend in the turn. I was just hoping for it to bury itself but it gained to much speed, started to pitch up and just missed the ground. It then strted a shallow climbing left turn and began to spiral up. We had a 15 knot wind on the ground which much higer aloft It started headind north, circling and climbing. Me and my buddy took off in the car to see if we could track it but by the time we got to a main road it was to far to hear it. We called the police and fire dpt periodically to make sure there wasnt any calls of a plane coming through a dining window or god forbid harming some one. I dont think I have ever felt that sick as watched that thing fly off not noing what it was going to hit when it came down. We still have not recovered the plane, the area we flew at was heavily wooded and has alot of lakes. I had a dual redundant Li Ion setup 5600mah total. The radio gear had less than 20 flights on it and the servos less than 5. The only thing that comes to mind is that I had my Rx and matchbox mounted the rudder tray. The regulators were mounted just in front but not to platewit about a half inch of play to the Rx. If the rudder tray broke loose either rudder use or vibration from my FUJI 64 could have pulled the Battery plugs out of the reciever. This or my reciever just died but I highly doubt that. I have never used anything to secure plugs to a Rx before but I will now. When I do my next set up I will definately try to mount things so that if something comes loose it wont the adversely affect another thing. I am happy enough that there were no injuries or worse from this experiance, but I will still spend some more time looking for it. I am going to rent a plane and do some SAR in the area it might be, but its pretty much a write off. I took out an add in the paper so who knows maybe someone will come across it. I hope somebody can learn from this experiance or look at there plane and think alittle more defensively about there set up.

drbebob

Ouch!! Sorry to hear about your flyaway. These big gassers have some vibration going and what has happened at our field to a couple of guys is that their receiver crystal has vibrated out of the receiver. Always tape your crystal in or wrap the receiver in foam tightly.
Hope you find it.

budgetdude

My Feedback: (6)

I did not have mine taped but I will from now on!!! No reason what so ever not too!!

P-51B

My Feedback: (5)

If it was set up for fail safe, and the crystal fell out, I would think the fail safe would have kicked in.

jsm77777

My Feedback: (4)

I lost a plane 19 years ago that way. I learned the hard way about cyling NiCad batteries. It was tough to lose a plane like that, and mine wasn't an 80" plane. Scott

Ryan Nau

My Feedback: (54)

Sorry to hear about that. I had something like that happen about 8 years ago with a Tower Trainer. Right after takeoff, something happened and I had to control, it kept on doing big climbing cicles, like a perfect trimmed free flight would. It kept on climbing to where we couldnt see it or hear it. It probably ran for 20 minutes so was really up there. After we couldnt see it or hear we kept on looking up for a while to look for it gliding down, but no one saw it. It was never found or turned up.

Josey Wales

My Feedback: (61)

I put in a Smart Fly cutoff for this very scenario..when you loose power to the rx the igniton power is shut down..Obviously the plane will hit the ground but it wont go too far without the engine..

Sorry about the loss[]

budgetdude

My Feedback: (6)

That smart fly set up sounds like a good Idea, I will check that out.