RC AIRCRAFT FLYING Flying @ “The Field” Flying @ The Field 2021 A not so quiet Saturday Fly-In Reply To: A not so quiet Saturday Fly-In

#8589

Uncle G, you will be pleased to know that there was NOTHING wrong with the iNav flight controller in the Raptor.

I know I was a bit under the weather (what with a bad headcold & the several lots of medication-mixed with a beer or two) when I assembled it earlier last week but in-depth checking today showed I was far worse than I thought.

Interestingly enough on the first flight and in servo trim mode the Raptor flew almost perfectly, it was only the second flight when I deployed the flaps on takeoff did it play up a bit.

Turned out I had the Left Aileron connected correctly but the Right Aileron output was connected to the Left Flap, the Flaps output was connected to the Right Flap correctly but also the Right Aileron.

So it ended up that the Flap Switch operated both the Control Surfaces on the Right Wing and the Aileron operated both Control Surfaces on the Left Wing, luckily they both went in the same direction. The iNav system obviously made sense of it as she flew fine till I used the flaps.

Moral of the story is don’t try and assemble complex machinery when even slightly under the weather.

I’ve left the cold meds alone today AND relabelled all the connections correctly so after a controller reset and a quick repair of the Rudder she should be ready to take to the air again.

I need to practice what I preach and actually check correct operation of ALL control surfaces before flight, not just wriggle the sticks. Lesson learnt (hopefully).