Carbon Cub won't take off

New to the hobby. Bought a new Carbon Cub S2. Went to fly for the first time, throttle at full power but plane doesn't take off take and just goes goes in circles on the ground, even at full throttle. Surface is grass. Thanks all who respond.
 

mastermalpass

Elite member
Do check the ESC calibration, but I think you're experiencing torque effects from that big prop. Any single-engine plane will yaw to one side when you throttle up and you'll have to counteract it with rudder.

Before you go trying that though, I want you to discharge its battery to storage levels, put that thing on the shelf and thank it for preventing you from flying before you smashed it into the ground and wasted your money. You are new: you are GOING to crash and a Bush plane like that has much more capability than you need yet.

Buy or build something simpler and cheaper and get your crashes out of the way on that. Many on this forum swear by the FT Tiny Trainer. The FT Mini Scout also gets a lot of praise and having flown two, I can vouch for that one too. When you are confident in the air, then you can take that Carbon Cub out and believe me, you will be very glad that you chose to be patient and preserve that beautiful model for when you are ready!
 

Bricks

Master member
Did you buy the RTF ( ready to fly ) or PNP ( Plug and Play )? Very nice plane by the way.
 

Merv

Site Moderator
Staff member
...plane doesn't take off take and just goes goes in circles on the ground, ...
With a tail dragger, the wheels on the main gear need to spin freely. They also need a bit of tow in. The wheels need to point to a spot 5-10 feet in front of the plane.

Try a spot with shorter grass, 2 inches tall is about the maximum.
 
Did you buy the RTF ( ready to fly ) or PNP ( Plug and Play )? Very nice plane by the way.
This was a Horizon Hobby complete kit. Assuming RTF. I did follow the steps to calibrate ESC. Will give it another try this week when I go out again and let the post know on the results, + or -. Thanks all for the replies.
 

Inq

Elite member
New to the hobby. Bought a new Carbon Cub S2. Went to fly for the first time, throttle at full power but plane doesn't take off take and just goes goes in circles on the ground, even at full throttle. Surface is grass. Thanks all who respond.

The instructor at my AMA club trained me using his Carbon Cub. I found it very easy to fly and he didn't even have the SAFE feature that is available as an option. He only had to take over once using his buddy system. It's as good or better than any of the FT for learning on. Me... I'd build a cheap FT design in one day and fly it the next day. That way when you crash it, it won't hurt the pocket book and keep the Carbon Cub for when you've got the crashes out of your system. Now if you have a flight instructor as I had... go for it.

Did the "complete kit" include the batteries or did you have get those separate? If so... what did you get? The recommended is a 3S - 2200 mAh battery. If you just plugged a 1S or 2S battery in it, you'd get the symptoms you mention. Not enough voltage.

Full throttle using all the proper pieces will take off even if you don't pull back on the elevator. Calibrating the ESC is probably the problem. That is the problem I had with my first plane. It would barely take off after a long run and it would barely climb. Once I calibrated the ESC, it would take off in several plane lengths and would do so-so acrobatics.

Now as far as going in circles... did you follow all the instructions to set the neutral points and limits of the control surfaces? If it is going around in circles without inputs on the levers, then they're not configured properly and you'd be begging for an instant crash. If you are just saying "going around in circles" to illustrate the most control you have over it and it seems underpowered, it needs the ESC calibrated.

After that, I'd say you have something faulty. Do you have a volt meter? A free Harbor Freight model will do. You should get 12.4V for a fully charged 3S battery.