A Pattern of Destruction: Spektrum iX12 Doubts...

We begin with the acknowledgement that I am and always will be a total Spektrum Fanboy. No company has been more progressive in developing technology, and until this debacle I have never had any issues attributable to the radio system. Its just hard when you get scared of using a radio, but I am reassured this is not an unfixable problem and that Horizon Hobby will make this good. There.

Prelude: Two days ago, final flight of the day, lost controllability of my Trex 450 using my iX12. I simply had no control authority in the final several seconds of flight. No telemetry on this Orange receiver, and the receiver was ejected from the ESC wire, so no blinking "holds" clues. The battery had 3.89 V per cell still. I was simply flying straight, slight down attitude, and she stopped responding. Since I had nothing else to attribute it to, I checked it off as that once in 10 years signal loss. Pretzeled the heli, already rebuilt it. This was the last flight on my iX12. Everything worked fine afterwards... 

What happened today made me very doubtful about my new Spektrum  iX12 radio, it being the most likely cause. Spurious reports on the webs suggest that this isn't common, but also isn't an isolated problem. The 450 accident (and to think of it, the loss of the Ugly Stik back in June might be related), then this, causing a loss of confidence. I love my iX12, just need to be able to trust it.

This was the next flight, and the first since I lost the 450, and first flight of the day. Took my RCGF-USA 10cc Sukhoi SU-26 up, engine running great, flew touchy as it does, quick landing and hot adjusted the Expo up a little to 40% all around, and took off. Again flew fine. She has been in the air for about 15 min. Flying along the treeline just above the tops about 1/4 mile away and she seemed not to respond to elevator as I tried to move away from the trees. Thought maybe I wasn't flying her, just thinking I was, but she responded late and cleared. Decided to do a low speed low pass and turned to final. Dropped the throttle to idle to slow her down a bit... but nothing happened. Wiggled it, no response. Tried to pull her up out of an increasingly steep dive, no response. She is WOT with a slight nose down attitude, then suddenly straight down into the ground. I mean straight. From the wreckage pattern you can see she is tightly packed all in one spot.

Again, level-ish flight, nothing going on, just stopped responding to inputs. The Spektrum AR 7010 receiver light was steady, no signal loss, and all the controls/servos worked, except the totally crushed throttle servo (crash even stripped off the servo's stickers), so no signs of actual signal loss. Just loss of controllability. Now remember, this makes two consecutive flights on the same transmitter. That's not good. So setting up a service ticket and sending it to Horizon Hobby for a look-see. They have ALWAYS done good by me, which is one reason I prefer Spektrum.

Oh, and by the way, yesterday I bumped the G switch lever with my hand going for the H switch while bench working a heli, and damned if the thing didn't snap right off! Must have banged it on something before that loosened but didn't detach it. Have them fix that too. I can fix the ones on the DX's, but I am told that this one has the switches "on the board" and they are a bit more involved. Besides, I don't want to open the back until HH/Spektrum takes a look at it.

Next iX12 gripe: I have tried a couple of times to export the aircraft files to the SD Card, but all I get is a set of empty folders. Maybe the files are not in a format a PC can see? This happens every time I try to back up the files. Formatted in FAT32. Have a query out to the Facebook iX12 group.

UPDATE: Found a YouTube Video on how to do it, not intuitive at all, but once learned easy to do.

So for now I am grounded. I can program a couple of planes into my trusty Spektrum DX8, but I have to do that for everyone of them... and the helis are not easy to manually transfer over. I may put one of the 600's, the 500 and the Pulse XT60 on it. I think the Waco is still bound to the DX8 as I hadn't moved that one yet.  I suspect it will be well over a month before I get the iX12 back.

Once I get around to it, maybe tomorrow, I will tally up the butcher's bill on the Sukhoi. The spinner and prop on the engine look undamaged but I think the sparky is cracked, and the muffler pipe snapped off. The fuse, of course, is matchboxed, but the servos, receiver and battery survived.

Not good at all. In our hobby you have to trust the radio system, a lot of time, money and effort are banking on it. Grateful it wasn't one of my irreplaceable planes like the Pulse XT60, or the original Eflite Stearman, or an expensive one, like a 600 heli. That would have put me off my feed for a week.

COMMENTARY:  Reading the responses on Facebook I always am annoyed by commentaries by people who bash clone recievers like the Orange one on the 450, failing to recognize there is no data to support they are inferior, and that this one has been on this heli for years without problems. Its on that aircraft because it was what I could afford, and has worked fine. I enjoy hearing ideas from others, but think about the data and circumstances described, and reason it out. If you don't have the technical knowledge to back you up, keep silent; for example antenna length doesn't increase range, its a requirement of frequency, and the helimwas 10 feet away with the reciever antenna facing me without obstruction, and has a satellite 90 deg offset. If you then have something to add, share, but if its just to bash, or without thought, its just embarrassing. Orange recievers are fine. Now that I can afford them, I use only Spektrum, but that is no guarantee of reliability over an Orange reciever. Thousands have used them without a problems for thens of thousands of flights reliably. Don't be a hater.critically. Learn how to think critically.