Life of the Simple Scout...

Marty72

Elite member
I watched your whole flight video @Marty72 and you were flying great! Only thing I’d recommend is more altitude. Don’t feel bad about crashing though, I consider myself a pretty advanced pilot (until I see someone really good😂). And I needed up with this... she’s fixed and ready to go though. @BATTLEAXE you are right, super tough. My power pod was wiggling a lot, like a LOT and she still flew great. @SquirrelTail my mini scout probably weighed more on its maiden than yours did after all your crashes. Using 9 gram servos and a 1500 mah 2s is heavy! Still tons of fun to fly though. That’s why my wings folded twice. The cause of the crash was I took it way up and popped it upside down. Problem is 3 channel ret don’t like flying inverted, and although I was full up, I traveled straight down in an EPIC crash. Only electronics left I. Te plane were the glued servos, and there was a spray of parts that flew out. Even popped the cover off the receiver!!! Too bad I didn’t get it on vid. Got video of earlier flights that day and old speedster flights that I’ll post on the “what did you fly today” thread... Here’s the CRAZY part - this was a full speed nose dive straight into the ground from high up, and te propeller didn’t break. I’m not joking. It was crazy. All the electronics ejected from the airplane, and the nose is what took the hit - the wing is undamaged. Goes to show how good the HQ 9x5 prop I trimmed down to a 5x5 prop is. That’s not the first nosedive it has survived, but by far the most brutal. It was a crazy crash - worth it for just watching it hit and seeing the parts spray out😂

Thanks Hanger for the nice comments, but I do need more practice. I'm hoping to find a better field with more space and work on flying much higher. The Scout does seem to really fly nice, I may mess around with the Dx6e and make a custom rate setting for the ailerons (can't remember the term you RC folks use,Mix rates maybe?). The ailerons even at 70% give me far more range than I need to fly right now. The elevator is fine for me as is. I haven't even touched the rudder other than for trim. My thought is maybe 50 or 60% aileron range with 30% expo and after I stop flying so erratically, I can move towards full range, If I get the bird up and don't like it, I can flip the switch back to my standard low rates. I would take off in the rates I already know, and try this custom rates at elevation. (Just a thought right now). The cubs ailerons at 100% rates don't do what the Scout does at 70%.

Boy, you really did auger that thing into the ground. The beauty of light small planes, is they are exponentially tougher. But still, they have limits.
 

BATTLEAXE

Legendary member
The hand launch was solid, good toss and quick recovery to altitude. The landing stuff was the sketchy part. Gonna maiden the Alpha today weather permitting that is, that will be the sketchy part lol
 

Marty72

Elite member
So I flew the Scout this morning for a total of 6 1/2 minutes, with 3 launches, but I ended the day augering the Scout into the field as normal to the ground as imaginable, with throttle. It was spectacular and what's even more disappointing, is nether camera got the moment of impact on film. So to answer the question, How many crashing can my Scout take, 6, Six is the answer. The wings are still good (not great) but the fuselage is heavily damaged, smashed and the power pod demolished. So I've got lots of video and photos, but it's going to take me a bit to sort through all of it (lots of junk ). The impact ripped the 3 wires out of the ESC and I cut away the insulation to see what was inside. Before I did this, I thought I could just solder the contacts back on, but after seeing the pictures (and using glasses in the sunlight), not so sure.

To briefly summarize the flying today. Lots of odd stuff happened today, but I flew much better and if I hadn't made the mistake (that I made last week too), I would have landed the Scout today after 5 minutes of continuous flight, instead crashed around 3 minutes and 45 seconds. Next time.

Looking for help, if I need to order a new ESC, that takes a week from FT (therefore I need to get it on order asap). Here are the pics of the ESC post mortem. I'll show more pictures and maybe even video of the damage but for now, this is the long pole in the tent. View attachment
IMG_1909.JPG
 

The Hangar

Fly harder!
Mentor
So I flew the Scout this morning for a total of 6 1/2 minutes, with 3 launches, but I ended the day augering the Scout into the field as normal to the ground as imaginable, with throttle. It was spectacular and what's even more disappointing, is nether camera got the moment of impact on film. So to answer the question, How many crashing can my Scout take, 6, Six is the answer. The wings are still good (not great) but the fuselage is heavily damaged, smashed and the power pod demolished. So I've got lots of video and photos, but it's going to take me a bit to sort through all of it (lots of junk ). The impact ripped the 3 wires out of the ESC and I cut away the insulation to see what was inside. Before I did this, I thought I could just solder the contacts back on, but after seeing the pictures (and using glasses in the sunlight), not so sure.

To briefly summarize the flying today. Lots of odd stuff happened today, but I flew much better and if I hadn't made the mistake (that I made last week too), I would have landed the Scout today after 5 minutes of continuous flight, instead crashed around 3 minutes and 45 seconds. Next time.

Looking for help, if I need to order a new ESC, that takes a week from FT (therefore I need to get it on order asap). Here are the pics of the ESC post mortem. I'll show more pictures and maybe even video of the damage but for now, this is the long pole in the tent. View attachment 145738 View attachment 145739
Too bad Marty, but at least you got some good flying in! I would try soldering the connectors back on and then if that doesn’t work, ordering a new one.
 

Marty72

Elite member
Yeah, I'll do that. Don't have a soldering but when my neighbor get home, I bet he does.

The fuselage damage pics. Here's my conundrum, I want to rebuild this plane at some point, better than before but I'm certainly I'm not finished crashing each and every time I launch. Until that changes, I don't want to do a full rebuild, I'd prefer to patch it up and work out my issues before building a new pretty one. So It's a lot of work to create a new fuselage and integrate it in, but not much work to repair it and have it fly ugly.

Based on these pictures, do you think I can pop sickle stick this thing back into flying shape or do I need a new fuselage?
 

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The Hangar

Fly harder!
Mentor
Yeah, I'll do that. Don't have a soldering but when my neighbor get home, I bet he does.

The fuselage damage pics. Here's my conundrum, I want to rebuild this plane at some point, better than before but I'm certainly I'm not finished crashing each and every time I launch. Until that changes, I don't want to do a full rebuild, I'd prefer to patch it up and work out my issues before building a new pretty one. So It's a lot of work to create a new fuselage and integrate it in, but not much work to repair it and have it fly ugly.

Based on these pictures, do you think I can pop sickle stick this thing back into flying shape or do I need a new fuselage?
Lol, I think my scout looked worse than that at times😂. You can fix it I bet and won’t to be able to see in the sky!
 

Marty72

Elite member
Yeah, I'm going to at least try and patch it but I thought I'd check with guys with more than 6 weeks of experience (me) before I went off and wasted my time.

I don't think the board is repairable, as contact is made through very small pins. Two of the wires pulled off some of the circuit board so I think it's a complete long shot to reattach. I'm hoping someone on here that this has happened to would know.
 

The Hangar

Fly harder!
Mentor
Yeah, I'm going to at least try and patch it but I thought I'd check with guys with more than 6 weeks of experience (me) before I went off and wasted my time.

I don't think the board is repairable, as contact is made through very small pins. Two of the wires pulled off some of the circuit board so I think it's a complete long shot to reattach. I'm hoping someone on here that this has happened to would know.
Maybe order the emax 30 amp esc from the ft store. I’ve never had one of the ft ones, but I have been through brutal crashes and nothing like that has ever happened.
 

BATTLEAXE

Legendary member
Yea I think in might be a new ESC in the works. Great job though, 6 1/2 minutes of continuous flying with a few landings, impressive. The plane can be fixed to, it's not impossible. If it was me though, because I love to build, I would build a new one, it's just FB. And it doesn't have to be pretty either. You could do just a quick build to get flying again and leave out all the pretty details that take time and effort. Get better at flying first and then make the pretty. You will have to wait on a new ESC anyway, or go to the hobby store for a new one, a 30 amp should work for ya
 

Marty72

Elite member
Maybe order the emax 30 amp esc from the ft store. I’ve never had one of the ft ones, but I have been through brutal crashes and nothing like that has ever happened.

I think what happened as the plastic credit card firewall was pushed back, it got into the solder points and just sheared them off.

This was a Power Pack B & C ESC, 35 Amp. I will consider that in the next placement of the ESC. Yeah Battleaxe, if I have to wait for the ESC, and we get a rain day, then I might as well rebuild it.
 

BATTLEAXE

Legendary member
Hey Guys, will this work? Check me on this, I think it will. I can have it Sunday.


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071GRSFBD/?tag=lstir-20
Yea that will work for sure, order it up. The cool thing about the rebuild is you can experiment with reinforcing the plane in spots you already did in the few rebuilds you have already done on version 1. As you get more experienced in building and flying these will be more intuitive as well.
 

Marty72

Elite member
Today's first flight was full of mishaps, on the first launch, as I got my right hand back to the transmitter, I hit the cut throttle switch without knowing it. This cause a hard landing, everything looked ok but apparently the landing gear hit hard and loosed up. The next launch went perfect, flight was great until the landing gear dropped, which rapidly changed the cg. You'll notice I do a couple of loops (unintentional) and see the landing gear fall, so I brought the plane down as soon as possible. I did a great job in that regard, very soft belly landing. So the first battery was a comedy of errors.

 

Marty72

Elite member
The second flight was even better, I even felt comfortable enough to do a loop. But I made a mistake (that I've made before) with the ailerons and augered into the ground. Sorry no video of impact, camera was too high. I just need more practice, my instincts aren't always right and today I went the wrong way with the aileron, instead of leveling it out, I rolled it upside down and straight into the ground.


The repairs went well, the Scout is in good flying condition, I just need a new ESC, which will be here Sunday. I'll be ready to try again on Monday.

List of repairs: New power pod, grill, prop, straighten and reinforce nose section. Repair of the landing gear slot. Cosmetic repair of delaminations and tears. First, I straighten, then I glued all the cracks back together, and finished by adding supports to stiffen up the structure where needed. (and of course fit checking along the way).

I did a check of all the control surfaces and found that the elevator servo was not moving the elevator. Open the hatch and found the servo had debonded (paper separated from the foam). So the servo was attached to the paper, but the paper wasn't attached to the foam.

All in all, the plane wasn't damaged as bad as I thought. Just take care of the worst damage first and work your way along.
 

The Hangar

Fly harder!
Mentor
Well here is my scout based “ultra stick”. Got the landing gear bent but still have to mount the wheels and gear assembly to the fuse. She still needs servos and a rudder. Happy with the progress so far though.
 

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BATTLEAXE

Legendary member
Well here is my scout based “ultra stick”. Got the landing gear bent but still have to mount the wheels and gear assembly to the fuse. She still needs servos and a rudder. Happy with the progress so far though.
You just slapped "cool" in the face man, two great planes out on the boards! And you are rockin the Lego wheels again (y)