Check your control surfaces!

[Klinger RC]

Last year for christmas I got a parkzone se5a. I put it together, charged the battery and took it out the door to fly. I slowly advanced the throttle and pulled back on the elavator. The plane, out of trim, got about 10feet of the ground and started to bank left. I attempted to correct with right aileron, but it banked MORE left, therefore I corrected with MORE aileron. But, the ailerons we reversed. After it's 7 second flight, it went into the ground and cartwheeled with heart wrenching THUD. And of course, the whole family (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, siblings, and parents) all had to be watching... Both wings disintigrated, the tail snapped, and 3 of the servos stripped. After replacement wings, servos, and some hot glue, it still flys today.

 

[IFlyRCstuff]

Finally, I'm not the only one. I had a scrath built jet, similar to the f-22, and I did almost exactly the same thing. It flew a little right, so I trimmed it to left, got worse. By this time it was far away, so I turned left, or right. I thought at first that it had been headed toward me, so I did a a Uturn, into a wall, it still flew, but now I always check everything high rates and low.

 

[mjmccarron]

I recently had a double dose of this. I bought an OrangeRx 3 axis flight stabilizer/receiver from HK. I installed it into my favorite Bloody Wonder to test how it works. Immediately after takeoff I knew something was seriously wrong! As long as I kept it in a turn or climb it was sort of ok. Let it neutralize and it was un controllable. On landing I hung it in a tree (I forgot I could turn the gyro off from the transmitter) On examination I found that I had failed to set the gyro direction to properly correct for movement. Both ailerons and elevator responded in the wrong direction. To correct the problem I switched the reverse switches on the gyro and powered it up. Sure enough, the gyro was correct so back into the air it went. As I added up elevator to climb out it slammed nose first into the ground. Besides reversing the gyros those switches also reverse the servo direction. SURPRISE! Always check the control surfaces.

 

[3DMad5]

Man, I hate when this happens. It happened to my *brand new* 3DHS 48" Edge on the maiden flight... The thing was in splinters. It's all repaired now but I still haven't re-maidened it for fear of doing the same thing all over again.

 

[jayz 84]

I feel your pain on that one man i just had that a month ago something i thought that would never happen to me. I just got finished with my mig3 by (nerdnic) was so excited to get it out and race it around. maiden flight was great pushing it over 100mph then i brought it down did a few modifications to my tx then got ready for the second flight. Ya it lasted 3seconds 3/4 throttle right into tge ground. Some how i ended up reversing the elevator. Was just glad i dident kill my new EF-1 motor.
It sux man but glad to hear shes flying again