My MX2 is a POS...

I refuse to let my BlitzRCWorks MX2 become another unending search for a stable machine. The underlying airplane is a POS. It was a complete waste of my money...

Past postings reflect that it has almost never flown properly, and every flight was plagued by problems. I dumped a little more money on it, to no avail. Today's flight was doomed, and there were plenty of clues that gremlins were afoot. Yesterday I completed another refit. she was functioning well, nose to tail. I needed to pick up a 13 inch 2-blade prop to replace the 11x7 3-blade. I took her out to the field and purchased a 13x8 two blade prop on the way. I arrived at the field only to realize I forgot a drill with the 5/16 inch bit, so had to wait until the afternoon when someone showed up with a prop reamer. Installed the prop. Then found out I forgot the batteries. I was determined to fly it, so made the round trip back home to pick them up; one hour down the drain. Then I found out the ESC was alarming and the motor would not turn. In trouble shooting I replaced the HK Orange Reciever with a Spektrum AR6100 which promptly failed. So I put a new Orange reciever and satellite on it. Rebound it, and same problem. I pulled the ESC and found...

So I took it to the club house and resoldered it, and strengthened the solders on the other leads. I replaced the ESC and rewired the motor. Voila, power and prop spin. Finally.

Fired her up and taxied her out towards the south corner as I was dealing with a steady crosswind from the northwest. On the way she decided to spin herself around on the ground, ala Cubby, and it took a moment to get her heading her way again. That was weird as I hadn't put any rudder inputs in. She squared up, the wind died down, and I started my takeoff roll. she ran good, lifted sweet and climbed a nice graceful track. I was thrilled, she was flying great! Then she began to oscillate wildly in roll, but remained level. I took my hands off the controls, no change. She started a right turn and dive, I countered, to no avail. She dived from about 50 feet AGL, and impacted the ground out of control.

She fractured along old fault lines. The wings are fine. The fuse would be easy to repair, haven't inspected the motor. The battery is fine.I just am tired of foamies. I have the Cubby flying awesome, and expect she will continue to do so. I just don't want to dump any more time or money into this airplane. So I am stripping her of electronics and offering the carcass to Steve, for whom so far his MX2 is flying fine. Was it the HK receiver short ranging on me:? It would be two in a row... and I had an externally mounted satellite. And she wasn't more than 50 yards or so away... Who knows? No more HK Orange receivers either...

But I think this plane is a pig, and while I hope its not the case, I expect Steve's plane will be getting wacky any day now.

Done. With. Foamies.

SAR Recovery: Ron's Edge

On July 7, 2011, a SAR Cub piloted by Kenny Chandler equipped with a key chain video camera departed from BMF and headed north for a SAR run over the northern woods. We were searching for two aircraft lost in the few days previous. One was Vinsen Keyhae's Hobbico Nextstar, and the other was Ron Johnson's profile Edge 260.

This was Kenny's first SAR flight.

Kenny found a plane, can you?

Stalls kill planes... who knew?

Yeah, it was a fantastic day at BMF until I took the Stearman up. She took off fine, was climbing, caught a burble, over corrected, thought I got it back under control, but stalled her hard, and she blendered hard into the ground. All of this at a max altitude of 15 ft AGL... crap.

Hey, doesn't look so bad, eh?

Yeah, right... Its fixable. Will need to do some wood work, which will require some blue cote work as well. The fuse is intact, but the firewall has separated from the fuse and the motor mount has broken off the firewall. The landing gear block has fractured, but the gear don't appear to be bent. I think the prop shaft is bent, but believe I already have a replacement. The wing securing "strap" of one of the upper wings has separated, and the cabane supports are bent forward from the impact. The cowl is smushed. She will fly again, and I hope as fine as she was before the crash, but its going to take a while as I am going to go about it slowly...

Crap.

Range Failure? Voo-Doo Stink?

Took the MX2 out today after her rebuild. She took off nicely, was a lot nose heavy but manageable, but once again, got a little off in the distance and suddenly I wasn't controlling her and flew her self into the ground, just like before. It fell down and went boom. This is a persistent habit it has developed. I am thinking its a bad receiver that is short ranged. I am going to take the Hobby King Orange reciever out and use the Spektrum AR6100 from the CopterX250. The control surfaces moved fine and the motor worked great. I didn't take a picture of the crash... The butcher's bill is: broken prop, broken spinner base, loose firewall, right wing broken clean off at the wing root, broken left aileron, unhinged rudder, crunched cowl crappy cheap milk bottle plastic), a spring is missing on the tail wheel, and it wouldn't be the MX2 if the landing gear didn't bend all up. Honestly, I am done with foamies.

So this afternoon I epoxied the wing back with spars, epoxied the broken aileron, ironed out the wrinkled cowl, unbent the gear. Letting everything congeal (sitting on the epoxied wing in the pic). Tomorrow I'll rehinge the aileron and the rudder, snug up the firewall, reattach the landing gear, install a two blade prop and spinner (changing to an 11x6 from whatever the 3 blade was; I'm gestimating 10x6x3), install and bind the AR6100 reciever. Friday, I'll take her foamie carcass up, crash her, and start all over again.( Geez, she's the new Cubby...). If I swapped her for Steve's I wonder if he'd notice?

Speaking of foamie carcasses, the Suicidal Cubby took to the air, briefly. She took off sweet, but was sluggish. it reminded me of the case with the Alpha Sport's stock slow flyer prop that got too soft in the Mississippi heat. The Cubby's 8x6 prop was soft from the heat and from being bent in prop strikes, so I tried an APC 9x8 (purchased in error when my son misread 8x6 as 9x8...). She flew great, for about 3 minutes, when the motor locked up. Was it the motor wires shorting again? Did the ESC fry swinging the bigger prop? Turned out the motor fried. Dead-stick landed with no damage, but the motor was toast. Change it out to the one that was on the Phoenixcubby and it works find again. Put a new APC 8x6 on it, and am looking forward to flying her again tomorrow!

Spent the first flights with the Alpha flying video recon over the land of the Northern Ents where Vinsen lost his Hobbico Next star, and Ron his profile Edge. Didn't see anything... Flew her in a variety of shifting winds all day, getting a lot of practice, and flew her inverted (5 mistakes high...) for the first time successfully.

Alternated flying the Alpha with the Stearman, flying 6 good packs. I am really getting comfortable flying her, almost as much as I flying the Alpha. This is what I wanted, to get comfortable flying her, not being so afraid of hurting or losing her, I'm flying her very well, learning how to bring her down and land her without going head over heels as often. She does tend to need a little speed on landing or be wheels on the ground as the speed bleeds off as she will abruptly stop flying and drop. I really enjoy flying her!

In between I spun the Erazor 450 pro up. The other day I tried to spin her up and a solder had come undone. I had fixed that and took her out today. She spun nicely, and lifted off. She drifted quickly off to the left and I set her down. Apparently a bit hard. The tail fin and a tail rotor blade broke. Fixed those at home today, and will take her back out tomorrow. I still suck at flying helis.

At BMF we had a small Wednesday crowd, but it was a beautiful day for flying until a thunderstorm finally moved in. We called it a day, but will be back out tomorrow!

MX2 Version 2.0

I wrapped up the rebuild on the MX2 today and she's flight ready (here's part one). The new motor (GForce 32 from Value Hobby) looks ginormous! I removed the metal motor mount and Dremel'ed the new mounting holes, mounted the motor and rewired it in. It has an 8mm shaft, so I had to go out and get a 5/16 ths drill bit to rehole the prop and the spinner plate. I then had to Dremel down the holes in the new red spinner to fit the prop, and notch the prop to allow the posts inside the spinner to connect past the prop. I also noticed that she has a slight bend to the left along her fuse, very subtle, but there.

In with the new, out with the old.

Re-drilled motor mounting plate.

GForce 32 installed.

MX2 the Red Nosed Airplane

I made a very interesting discovery when I test ran the motor. All of the control servos were reversed!  I reversed the servos in the radio and everything is ready. I wonder if this contributed to the funky chicken  dance that lead to her last crash, but I always check surfaces before flying. Very curious... Charging the batteries now, looking forward to flying her tomorrow!

UPDATE: Hmmm.... yeah. Well, I forgot the servos are all new, so I shouldn't be, um, surprised that the servo normal-reverse is all different. Yeah...

Flying on the Fourth!

I got back from Boston last night, and after 10 days away, I was itching to fly! I took the suicidal Cubby up, and flew her for the rest of the day. She took off and flew perfectly, landed great. Mid-day her motor sputtered and inspection revealed that the Exceed RC Alpha motor's wires, which have been cracking and breaking were splitting further (you can see the black tape covering other breaks. The wire isn't coated with silicone, but is passed down a much larger silicone tube). Also one of the plug solders failed. Easily fixed.

Her batteries were coming up a couple minutes short all day, I think because so much thrust was being lost with a soft slow-fly prop and finally one of them brought me up short. Changing the prop for a new one solved that problem. And then she committed suicide... she took off and at about 10 feet blendered into the ground! This, after a day flying great... Fuse snapped in the front of the cockpit, completely. Easily fixed with some spars and glue, on the work list for tomorrow.

It was a small crowd at BMF. Steve was there and flew several planes. Most interestingly, he flew a new BlitzRCWorks MX2 like mine. Exactly like mine. But not exactly like mine... His flew sweet right out of the box! He flew it great, and it responded nicely.It was only the second and third flight he had flown. He flew it unmodified, stock, right out of the box. He didn't even balance the 3-blade prop! We stood there in awe, and tried to think what was different. The only thing was that he had left it in the car and the wings drooped a little from the heat, one side more than the other, but really, nothing was different. Hmmmm..... I should have my new motor for my MX2 in the mail tomorrow and hope to get my rebuilt MX2 in the air on Monday. This should be interesting. I flew several flights on the Alpha and the Stearman. I am getting much more comfortable flying the Stearman and its becoming a joy to fly!

Vinsen was there too with K'sean, his grandson. Vinsen flew a new Edge and flew it well. Man got skilz! Last week he lost the Hobbico Nextstar over the Northern Ents (heard Ron lost his profile Edge too). I flew some photo recon but couldn't run the vid at the field. When I got home I found it didn't record properly, so I will fly recon again tomorrow. Both planes are on the ground under thick cover, so it isn't likely that I will find them...

Lots of errands tomorrow, and I am getting a lot of parts in, so I'm not sure I will ge to fly tomorrow.

10 Definitions

10 definitions from Erick Royer's Blog. Bet you have some too?