Help! FT tiny trainer fist flight unsuccessful

BATTLEAXE

Legendary member
@BATTLEAXE Did you fly today?
That's a negative. Was busy in town today. it was a good day to not be flying actually, a lot of wind. Which bit me yesterday. Was building though. Got a Bronco on the go, wing/twin booms/tail built. Got servos installed. Making it a single prop pusher. An Explorer/Bronco mash up.

You workin not flying?
 

The Hangar

Fly harder!
Mentor
That's a negative. Was busy in town today. it was a good day to not be flying actually, a lot of wind. Which bit me yesterday. Was building though. Got a Bronco on the go, wing/twin booms/tail built. Got servos installed. Making it a single prop pusher. An Explorer/Bronco mash up.

You workin not flying?
Was too busy today. Tomorrow will be dedicated to the viggen I hope though. I got some plywood at the hobby shop today so I’ll see if I can do a thrust vectoring for v2.
 
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Were you throwing it into the wind?

Sometimes if there is no power and just a glide there might not be enough air flow over the control surface to keep it aloft so the up elevator at max throw will be needed to compensate. once under power the thrust wash from the prop and the increased air speed will level it out.

Did it feel good to see it fly?
yes it did real good to fly. I put the power nose back on today and it was terribly nose heavy, any ideas?
 

BATTLEAXE

Legendary member
yes it did real good to fly. I put the power nose back on today and it was terribly nose heavy, any ideas?
The first TT I had was really nose heavy and I built it as per the design and build vid. And there was next to no room in the fuse to move things around to balance it the CG. I used the 850 3s as well and it can get tight in there. So I made a second moving the elevator/rudder servos right back to the tail just in front of the tail feathers to get the weight back and open up room inside the fuse. If you just make a new tail section you will find better results with the CG balance. If you don't you can just add some weight to the tail to get it to balance out, 2 or 3 nickels taped to the tail should help.

See if some one can video your flight so you can post it on the forum and we can see if there is anything that you may be missing to help.
 
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FDS

Elite member
I prefer a much lighter motor up front. The cheap and dirty Hobbyking one like this might not be as good quality as a radial but it’s light and I figured since I was going to crash it didn’t matter.
I also only run on smaller, lighter 2s batteries which usually sit right at the back of the pod, 2/3rds into the fuselage. My TT will go near full vertical on 2s.
Putting the servos in the back is a good idea if you know about it in advance!
 

cranialrectosis

Faster than a speeding face plant!
Mentor
I tried throwing my trainer of a hill today with the glider nose and I am going to do it again. It helped me greatly to get the control down.

ps. I was full up on elevator the whole time, is that supposed to happen?

Based on what I have read here I have to question this.

Reversed controls are common. Are you SURE that when you pull back on the stick, the elevator moves the right direction?

I concur with most of the advice on CG so far, IF your elevator is not reversed.

I would recommend you balance your plane (fully loaded, lipo and all) and upload a photo showing how it balances. If you have the ability, post some video of you moving the sticks and showing the plane on the ground so we can see both you moving the sticks and the control surfaces reacting.

This way we can help see where your CG is and if you have reversed controls, because both of these can be painful when you are just starting out.

Welcome to FliteTest @Portlandbeginner!
 

Piotrsko

Master member
Another inexperienced condition when flying alone: the TT is stalling and there are 2 types of stall, slow speed, and accelerated. You look like you are doing the accelerated from the few pictures you posted. Accelerated stalls only recover by letting go of the stick. You pull more up stick and the stall just gets worse.
The elevator should be just a bit up for normal flight if it is balanced correctly. The motor off test toss should have the plane land smoothly at least 100 ft away in a straight line with no bobbles so you only need to move the stick just enough to keep the plane in the flying area.
 

BATTLEAXE

Legendary member
no not yet I was just thanking for all the help you have givin in the past. any ideas on what the proplem was?

ps. the battery was still at 11.9 volts
It's a 3s battery you are using rite. If you hook it up to a volt meter fully charged it may read as high as 13 volts. now when you plug your battery into your ESC it should count out the cells of the battery with 3 successive tones and then tone to tell you it's armed. If it is ringing out 4 successive tones that means it is programmed for a 4 cell, which in turn is a higher voltage and will go into low voltage cut out with a fully charged 3 cell battery. it's a problem I hae had recently so it is still fresh in my head. Sounds like you may have the same issue I did
 

The Hangar

Fly harder!
Mentor
Probably something with the esc, so after just booting everything up with a fresh battery and doing what @BATTLEAXE said, the first thing I’d replace would be the esc. I highly devout you’d ruin the esc with just a crash though...
 

BATTLEAXE

Legendary member
Probably something with the esc, so after just booting everything up with a fresh battery and doing what @BATTLEAXE said, the first thing I’d replace would be the esc. I highly devout you’d ruin the esc with just a crash though...
I know when I had the same issue as I mentioned in the earlier post it wasn't because of a crash, it was me screwin around with the Tx while I was pluggin things in and I went into program mode without me knowing till I tried to fly the Spit a couple times and 45 seconds into the flight it would pulse the motor in low voltage cut off. I had to read the directions to undo what I did and all was back to normal after that.

There should be nothing physically wrong with the ESC... unless you cooked it at high throttle and no airflow, doubt that happened though
 

FDS

Elite member
Check your prop, power pod and firewall. If you have any damage to the firewall and power pod make a new one.
Also check your battery cell voltages. You might have just run out of power and the ESC is cutting the throttle to 50% to save the pack. A good lipo tester which can read individual cell voltages is a good investment and ALWAYS run a timer on the TX that beeps when you have at least a minute before the battery is flat enough to trigger the esc cutout,