Help! Why did this happen?

Om0r A.

Member
Hello everyone,
About a year and a half ago, I flew a Night Radian, and, on its second flight, I lost it. What happened was that I turned the plane back, and it refused to move midair. It was literally stuck in flight, and I kept trying to fly it back, but it wouldn't move. Eventually, it fell into the trees and houses below, and we never found it. I later built an FT Explorer, but the problems I experienced caused me to drift away from RC Planes. However, I now want to try to finally give the plane its deserved maiden flight, but, first, I want to find out how the heck the Radian's incident occurred in the first place. So I was wondering if you guys could help me clear up what happened, so I can avoid it. I can try to answer questions, but, as I said, this was over a year ago, so I do not recall too much. Thanks in advance.
 

The Hangar

Fly harder!
Mentor
Hmm, did you have throttle control at all? It could have been a loss of signal. What radio/receiver are you using?
 

Om0r A.

Member
Hmm, did you have throttle control at all? It could have been a loss of signal. What radio/receiver are you using?
I'm pretty sure the Radian was throttling up, and still had signal because elevator input, I believe, was still working. For the FT Explorer, I am using a DX6E with a LemonRX receiver.
 

Bricks

Master member
I am sure no one can come up with a hard answer to your question but just offer suggestions.

1 Never point your radio at the plane the DX6E has only one entenna.
2 Make sure your receiver is not covered by any surrounding material that can block it`s reception.
3 When binding do not have the transmitter close to the plane, I usually put my body between the receiver and transmitter, other wise what CAN happen is a double bind which reduces range.
4 Do a range check before flying.
5 Make sure batteries are in good shape and charged.
6 Be sure your ESC can handle the amp load of the plane.
Just a few things to keep in mind as I am sure others will chime in.
 

evranch

Well-known member
Many receivers will freeze the way they were on loss of signal. Many have configurable failsafe modes, though. I always set up my failsafe to chop throttle and give a gentle right bank on loss of signal. Try to spiral it down rather than fly away.

If your throttle and elevator were still working it's possible that your aileron cable came loose or a servo jammed. In that case you are pretty much boned but I probably would have tried to loop it so that it's either coming back towards you or crashed where you can find it.
 

Om0r A.

Member
I am sure no one can come up with a hard answer to your question but just offer suggestions.

1 Never point your radio at the plane the DX6E has only one entenna.
2 Make sure your receiver is not covered by any surrounding material that can block it`s reception.
3 When binding do not have the transmitter close to the plane, I usually put my body between the receiver and transmitter, other wise what CAN happen is a double bind which reduces range.
4 Do a range check before flying.
5 Make sure batteries are in good shape and charged.
6 Be sure your ESC can handle the amp load of the plane.
Just a few things to keep in mind as I am sure others will chime in.
Wow thank you for the help! However, I was wondering what you meant by never point the radio at the plane. So when flying, should I just turn myself to the side a bit as to not be directly pointing towards it? And for curiosity’s sake, why is this a problem?
 

Om0r A.

Member
Many receivers will freeze the way they were on loss of signal. Many have configurable failsafe modes, though. I always set up my failsafe to chop throttle and give a gentle right bank on loss of signal. Try to spiral it down rather than fly away.

If your throttle and elevator were still working it's possible that your aileron cable came loose or a servo jammed. In that case you are pretty much boned but I probably would have tried to loop it so that it's either coming back towards you or crashed where you can find it.
Ok, thank you! I will try to see if I can find a failsafe feature for my parts.
 

Bricks

Master member
Wow thank you for the help! However, I was wondering what you meant by never point the radio at the plane. So when flying, should I just turn myself to the side a bit as to not be directly pointing towards it? And for curiosity’s sake, why is this a problem?

Most newer transmitters have dual antennas now, that point out at the top of the transmitter the one you see and another one running left to right inside the transmitter to avoid the issue of weak signal. The tip of the antenna is the weakest signal strength that is why pointing your transmitter directly at the plane is a bad idea.
 

Om0r A.

Member
Most newer transmitters have dual antennas now, that point out at the top of the transmitter the one you see and another one running left to right inside the transmitter to avoid the issue of weak signal. The tip of the antenna is the weakest signal strength that is why pointing your transmitter directly at the plane is a bad idea.
Oh, I see. That’s interesting. So the DX6E doesn’t have that, correct?
 

skymaster

Elite member
make sure your servos are glued to the foam and not the paper i had a problem on one of my wings i though i had a bad servo problem was that the paper came loose and servo had no grip so i had no control, and had to sacrifice did a hard landing before causing an accident. good thing i was not to high minimal damage. check your gear before take off.