Come in, Major Tom!

She was in a nice descent on base and I started my turn to final. And then she wasn't there anymore. We all stood there kinda stunned. The Cornell simply stopped flying and just as suddenly was gone. Major Tom stopped responding to Ground Control...

I had been toddling around in a holding pattern waiting for Greg to bring his Ugly Stick in for a landing. He cleared the threshold and I turned to base. I was just starting a turn to final when she just disappeared. She had plenty of speed, and hadn't done anything quirky. Her battery was fresh, she hadn't been up long (still over 4 V on recovery). She disappeared in a hurry. I was dumbstruck. A lot of people were watching and it was clear I wasn't doing anything other than a nice gliding turn. When Kenny, Susanne and I found her (using the motor sound to track her), she didn't look too bad. The wing is a little tweaked. The motor mount and battery box are bits and pieces, but I think enough remains to rebuild it. I won't make the mistake of angling the battery as I did before. If it's too much trouble then dammit, I'm buying another expensive fuse! She just flies too sweet. I won't be using the AR6100E I had in there... curious as she wasn't more than 500-600 feet away, and I've never once had an issue with this receiver. I may put an HK Orange Receiver and Satellite in her, since I have never had a problem with one of them... Don't know. We can't think of anything else it might have been. Its nigh on impossible to stall this plane.. There was nothing else wrong that I can see so far. Has to be the reciever.

Bummer.

UPDATE (9/10/11@2057hrs): Ordered a new hatch and noticed that the cowl's will be available in Jan 2012!

UPDATE (9/12/11@0800hrs): Dick Clarke pointed out that I am using a Spektrum AR6100e, a park flyer receiver. I need to change these over to the new AR600 series full range receivers. I have flown this receiver without problems at great distances, but I wonder if the odds eventually caught up with me, even though it wasn't all that far away?