My scale Bowlus Baby Albatross has had four sudden crashes this year. Before the last one, I had replaced the receiver and flight battery. The next step was going to be replacement of all the servos. Today I put a Servo Analyzer ammeter in series with the flight battery and I was trying to trigger an intermittent connection somewhere in the RC system. When I wiggled the wire from the on/off switch to the receiver the servos went wild. There is a bad connection at the switch! Faulty crash analysis has meant that my building time has been replaced by rebuilding, over and over and over. The first crash occurred at the Tulsa aerotow in April. Prior to the crash I had been adjusting the servo for the scale aerotow release and I put a lot of tension on the wire between the receiver and the switch which was mounted in the cowl. After the crash I wrongly assumed that the connection at the receiver had been pulled partly out. The second crash occurred at my home field and I wrongly assumed it was caused by a sudden wind gust and a tip stall. The third crash was at the NATS. That is when my brain finally realized there is a pattern here, it must be the radio. So I rebuilt it for the third time and replaced the receiver and flight battery and then crashed for the fourth time! With a scale model one crash is too many. I was ready to retire the Baby Albatross if I could not find out the cause for the crashes. So after one more rebuild and a new switch, and a few scars, it should be flying again. Elmira Aerotow 2000 here I come. Bob "CRASH" Harold RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
