[cope]

Lost a plane this weekend due to unexplained causes. I was on 72mh,I think I was the only one,the rest were on 2.4G. My question for you guys is;how do you go about doing the post mortem to try and determine the cause? When I cycled the battery I still had 45 minutes left until it was down to 1.1 per cell. Any ideas?
Thanks
Bob

[JoeT]

That's a difficult one, how about posting up some background on the events:

Type of plane
Equipment that's installed (Radio, push rods, photo's, engine etc.) the more information the better.
Situation,
what were you doing with the plane
what attitude was it
when did you realize you had no control
Altitude at the time
(more information the better)

Did you plug everything back together again post crash, to see if things still moved / functioned?

Lots of question, there will be more from many people before you get any anwers. Then, only then, it will be speculation / hypothesis.

[cope]

Joe,it was a Hangar9 Super Stick powered by an OS 46fx. After checking things out I have come to the conclusion one of the aileron servo mounting platforms just gave up the ghost. Could have been flutter but I did not hear it. The servo an its mount were hanging by the connector an several hinges were broken.That could have been caused by the crash but who knows. The radio seems to be ok. The plane was fifteen years old so maybe the glue just gave up. I will be trying the tx on another Stick so we will see if it is ok.

[Dave Holmes]

Gee, Bob; sorry to hear your old mount stumbled and fell on you. She flew nice. Is it a write off?

[cope]

Yup. Not worth repairing Dave. Fifteen yrs old and 715 flights.It was a great plane.

[Max]

a friend of mine lost an LT40 when the control arm for the ailerons wobbled loose.. It turns out that it wasn't properly glued into place and that caused the loss of ailerons and subsequent crash.

[bcsaltchucker]

think of all the minute details we have to get just right on our planes. Same reason the FAA/TC is so strict about aircraft maintenance. But we do this as a hobby and we are human, not professionals. Well me especially. Have made all too often that one wee error and resulted in packing peanuts or kindling, LOL. Like here where a little bit insufficient CA in the hinges resulted in the brambles: Fly safe.

[Arceenut]

Someones quote " Funny how I have so many fewer radio troubles since I got more oroficient at flying"

[cessna180]

Many years ago I lost a new aircraft. After investigating the wreckage I determined that a servo control arm pulled the aileron connection out of the receiver. Now I always keep the wires nice and neat and fastened into position with tape or velcro.

[michaely]

Bob.

Was the Super Stick an almost ready to fly plane?

Coming back into the hobby after a couple of decades and seeing several current ARF planes and discussion of their craftsmanship/quality control, I am a bit skeptical about things like CA hinges on bigger planes, lack of reinforcements of high stress areas like landing gear and firewalls. Could the proper gluing in of an aileron servo mount just fall thru the cracks of factory production quality control?

thanks for the report,