I Bring You... Fire!

And a crash too! :)

After years and years of rain and wind (OK... 2 months... but it felt like years...) this weekend finally gave me a break. Well... sort of...

On Saturday afternoon I noticed, much to my surprise, that it wasn't raining. Also, the trees weren't acting like a Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flaling Tube Man. So what the hell was I doing home?

Unfortunately, I'm building an FPV dedicated FT Versa Wing which isn't quite finished yet and "absorbed" most of my gear. So all I was left with was a small motor/ESC combo that I had already tested with not-so-good results.

Because the motor weights next to nothing I had to add something to balance the plane. So I carefully placed a pack of bolts inside the power pod, right next to the ESC, with a nice piece of Velcro so it didn't move.

So I get to the airfield, unpack, plug in the battery and start the pre-flight checks. The control surfaces were fine but the motor just moved half a turn and stopped. That's when I noticed a yellow light behind the firewall... Oops! I immediately unplugged the battery and the "light" went off.

Damage above the power pod

Because it's a small motor/ESC combo, the motor wires are soldered directly to the ESC. So when I built the power pod for this motor I left a hole big enough for the ESC and the XT60 connector. Unfortunately, when I installed the motor I must have damaged the shrink tube that protects the ESC. That wouldn't have been a problem... if the ESC wasn't touching a pack of bolts...

It was hot enough to melt the solder on one of the wires!

ESC exposed. The top/left component disintegrated when I tried to clean it.

No problem! At least the plane didn't catch fire! I'm glad I'm using a translucent fibreglass firewall instead of wood, otherwise I would have only seen the fire when it was already too late...

Sunday came. And so did the Sun!

As the ESC was dead, I added some 3.5mm connectors to the motor and borrowed a 30A ESC from the Versa.

As my fire extinguisher and I got to the track I noticed that the wind was a bit strong... OK... It was actually VERY strong... But I needed my fix so I tried to convince myself that it was no big deal. After all, flying in the simulator with 50 mph winds was a lot of fun so... how hard could it be?

As the plane got off the ground I had such a hard time controlling it that I could barely gain any height. At this point I realized that it might not have been a good idea to fly such an underpowered plane in such winds, so I decided to land. I went downwind to the end of the runway and as I started to bank right the plane just plummeted to the ground...

It all happened so fast that even after watching the video I still don't know if the plane lost power during the last turn or if it was me who cut the throttle to minimize the damage.

So... on to the damage report!

The plane seemed fine, the camera was ejected and sustained no damage but the motor, on the other hand, was completely stuck.

As I got back home I was able to get the motor running again. The bearing had moved 2 or 3 mm. Nothing that a hammer couldn't fix. :)

But when I examined the plane a little closer I noticed that there were so many cracks and wrinkles that I'm not even going to bother trying to fix it. The wings and the vertical and horizontal stabilizers are OK, so I'm just going to have to build a new fuselage. No big deal.

So... Did I learn anything from all this? Sure I did: Always carry a fire extinguisher, always use translucent firewalls, and never buy small motors! Jeremy Clarkson was right all along: POWEEEEEER!!! ;)

Have a safe crash,

Miguel