Post by krmckay "Bombs away" on Sept 16, 2018 13:13:37 GMT -4
If you were out at the field Saturday I managed to impact the asphalt with my Zero. Over the past few weeks I had a problem with the Zero performing un-commanded snap rolls. The first two were at altitude and I was able to recover the A/C without any damage (other than my wits) I had gone over the plane from nose to tail and wing tip to wing tip and could only find that the ailerons were not 100% equal in throw. I was of the mind set that I was stalling the wing. Saturday was a test flight to see if my adjustment of the ailerons was the fix. As Apparent it was not. The last two times I was lucky, this time the snap roll happened 30 secs after take off at just minimum altitude where I almost was able to level the wings and get her down in one piece but I ran out of sky. I have the plane completely rebuilt as of this afternoon and sat down and went over in my mind what had happened during the last three flights. I then remembered that this all began after replacing the receiver from a Futaba R607 to a R617 so as to give the R607 to Devin to be compatible with his transmitter. The R617 receiver I installed was a second hand one from eBay which I had bought years ago and never used until this month. I'm now suspecting that the receiver was my problem as there is nothing wrong with the plane and was flying perfectly prior to the receiver swap. I had even performed a range check on this R617 receiver (which passed) prior to the first snap roll happening. Therefore I dismissed the receiver as a possible cause.
This coming weekend will be the final test as to whether I have the situation resolved or not and if the problem is corrected the receiver will be marked so as to never go into an aircraft again. (bench setup only).
Lesson to remember out of this is just because a range check is good doesn't mean the electronics are serviceable. The next test flight will the real test.
This coming weekend will be the final test as to whether I have the situation resolved or not and if the problem is corrected the receiver will be marked so as to never go into an aircraft again. (bench setup only).
Lesson to remember out of this is just because a range check is good doesn't mean the electronics are serviceable. The next test flight will the real test.