A while back I bought an ASM Pitts from a friend. This is a glow or gas plane that was popular (by what I could find through Google and forum searches) back about 2007. Whoever built it set it up as an electric. A LARGE electric for it's day. It flies off two 6 cell 5000 mAh batteries. The last time I had it in the air, the Castle Creations high voltage 80 amp ESC quit just as I was turning at the end of the runway to make a pass.
I did not get it turned towards the runway. The motor literally screeched to a halt and I leveled the wings and did my best dead stick landing into a freshly plowed farm field. After the walk of shame, that turned out to not be too shameful afterall I was able to recover my undamaged plane and bring it back to the bench to verify the assumed cause of "death". Sure enough, ESC was the faulty item. I contacted Castle Creations customer support, with the intention of taking advantage of their buy back discount program. Eventually the replacement was sent to me... no charge.
They honored the warranty on a nearly 15 year old piece of electronics. I will buy products from them in the future with service like that!
Anyhow, fast forward to today, and the main reason I wanted to visit the "Farm". I finally got the ESC installed, and brought the plane out for a re-maiden. It flew awesome! I also took the time it was getting serviced to improve the securing system for the two 6s batteries. I could now fly it as it was meant to be flown... within my skill level at least, without worrying about the batteries slipping and changing the CG.
3D Farm is an amazing location. It's well worth the 1.5 hour drive for me to go up for a full day (or as I did with my last trip report spend the night). Since I went on a Saturday this time, there were a couple other people who showed up. One of those was our very own @Flying Monkey fab. Several planes were flown, a few harder than others... There was FPV wings, scale planes, Flite Test Foam planes, and even a manned aircraft or two. Crop duster season is in full swing, and we got to enjoy the impressive airshow flying by the aerial applicators.
I did not get it turned towards the runway. The motor literally screeched to a halt and I leveled the wings and did my best dead stick landing into a freshly plowed farm field. After the walk of shame, that turned out to not be too shameful afterall I was able to recover my undamaged plane and bring it back to the bench to verify the assumed cause of "death". Sure enough, ESC was the faulty item. I contacted Castle Creations customer support, with the intention of taking advantage of their buy back discount program. Eventually the replacement was sent to me... no charge.
They honored the warranty on a nearly 15 year old piece of electronics. I will buy products from them in the future with service like that!
Anyhow, fast forward to today, and the main reason I wanted to visit the "Farm". I finally got the ESC installed, and brought the plane out for a re-maiden. It flew awesome! I also took the time it was getting serviced to improve the securing system for the two 6s batteries. I could now fly it as it was meant to be flown... within my skill level at least, without worrying about the batteries slipping and changing the CG.
3D Farm is an amazing location. It's well worth the 1.5 hour drive for me to go up for a full day (or as I did with my last trip report spend the night). Since I went on a Saturday this time, there were a couple other people who showed up. One of those was our very own @Flying Monkey fab. Several planes were flown, a few harder than others... There was FPV wings, scale planes, Flite Test Foam planes, and even a manned aircraft or two. Crop duster season is in full swing, and we got to enjoy the impressive airshow flying by the aerial applicators.
