Winter Flying

Hi Guys !

I have just started cold weather flying on ski's from the local pon and have encountered a problem.

My last eight or nine flights on ski's have all been successful and had a ball ! The air temp has been a minimum of 35 Deg. F..I'm flyin at approx. 7200' A.S.L., an O.S. 46 FX, in a Tower Hobbies kit buil "Kaos".

My problem is that the last flight was made @ 28 deg. F. and the plan went crazy;a hard left turn about 30 ft. after lift off. I recovere nicely and as soon as stick was centered ,it went left again.I cut th throttle,did my thing, but still bit the dust.

Does anyone know if the cold effects transmitter/receiver/serv operation ?The cold did bring down the battery readings,but they wer still above nominal voltage.

I'll try it again after it's back together (in warmer weather) but i the mean time, any thoughts or comments will b appreciated-----------------Thanks Dave Bel

-- Dave Bel

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I had a similar thing happen with one plane in the cold. I think I had a cracked crystal. I managed to catch the problem while the plane was still on the ground.

Other days, other planes, just as cold, no problems.

Marty

Reply to
Martin X. Moleski, SJ

The last two times I had a similar problem, it was because I had accidentally moved the trim lever all the way to one side.

Reply to
Steve

low temps can bring out defects in electronic circuits. Strip out all the radio gear and test it on the bench. Then put it all in the freezer for an hour or so and test before it warms. RC gear should work fine down to unbearably cold temps. If it doesn't work at the approximate 0-10 degrees F of your freezer, then it is bad.

Electronic technicians use cans of refrigerant to freeze individual components to find out precisely where the problem lies.

Reply to
mike tully

Electronic gear should tolerate any temperatures a human can. However, connectors may shrink, giving a intermittent control response. Also, batteries don't tolerate cold very well. A battery that shows "good" on a voltmeter may drop below acceptable levels under load and cold temperatures. Dr.1 Driver "There's a Hun in the sun!"

Reply to
Dr1Driver

Hi, Two ideas here:

-If you use NiMh Tx/Rx batteries try to switch for NiCd's as they sustain lower temp. Nine flights times 10 min/flight have drawn lot of energy from cold batteries.

-When you picked up you Kaos after the last landing did you feel it heavier? Could it have being "iced"? Cheers, Daniel

Reply to
Daniel

"Dave Bell" skrev i melding news: snipped-for-privacy@rcgroups.com...

28 deg Farhenheit can hardly be called "cold". If I remember the conversion correctly, water freeze at 32 deg Fahrenheit. "Cold" is starting when the temperatures go below 0 Fahrenheit.

Just make sure you keep your fingers warm and the batteries charged.

Kjell Aanvik Oslo, Norway

Reply to
Kjell Aanvik

Reply to
jim breeyear

Depending on what your pushrods are made of the extreme temps will shrink or expand the pushrod,especially if you use the plastic golden rods.I've had this happen before,but yes,low temps take a toll on a battery.

Reply to
TX_QBALL

Thanks Guys,

You have given me a bunch to check out.

The tail feathers are connected with solid wire in plastic sleeves s that most likely isn't the problem.

The batterys were checked immediatly after crash,under 250 m.a.h. loa and were above nominal voltage.

I think the best guess at this time is possibly some cold effecte defective electronics or connectors as was sugguested.

As far as 28 deg. ,it might be a warm sunny day in norway, but a poo country boy like my self can't his false teeth from biting his tongu !

Thanks again to all for the input----------- Dav

-- Dave Bel

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