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Join us for the main discussion, practical takeaways, and stories from this episode of RC Plane Lab.
After someone else crashed another airplane into the corn at the local flying field, Tom wants to talk about what it means to fly a couple mistakes high. Ron and Tom also talk about whether or not plane finders work for a downed airplane, how many stories 400ft is, and give a shoutout to the patrons of the RC Plane Lab Podcast.
Episode 76 Transcript
This transcript has been lightly edited for readability. Timestamps are retained.
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[0:00] Hello everyone, welcome to the RC Plane Lab podcast. I'm Ron. I'm Tom. How's it going, Ron? Good. How are you? I'm good. So this week, I would like to talk about something we talk about when we're training new pilots, flying so many mistakes high and what that means. And what got me to thinking about this is that, I don't know if this or not, but last weekend, another plane down in the corn. Oh, no. Yeah, I didn't know that. Who was it? Don't say who.
[0:36] Yeah, it was one of our club members. Apparently was flying a little bit too low, trying something new and yeah, put it in the corn. And oh, by the way, we'll talk about this too. yeah put it in the corn and oh by the way we'll talk about this too it's still in the corn so what does that make three sitting out there now there are currently three airplanes that i know of yeah out in the corn lonely with no nobody to love
[0:59] on lonely cold at night cold at night getting rained the corn. So that's what I would like to talk about tonight. What kind of plane was it? Apparently it was a foam, like a foamy EDF, electric ducted fan. Oh. So probably not going to have much to salvage out of that one. Probably not. Okay. So that's what I would like to talk about. At least there's still hope for my motor. I still think there is, Bob. i'm done hey but before we get started i just want to take a minute to
[1:29] thank all of our patrons on patreon good idea folks who have voluntarily emptied out their wallets to help us continue doing what we're doing maybe not empty their wallets but they certainly
[1:47] Maybe not empty their wallets, but they're certainly very generous with what they've pledged to do for us. So starting in no particular order, Matt Leroy, Jeffrey Arsenault, Rick Maddox, Rob Alexander, Ron Struss, Jason Veras, Garrett Newhart, Jeff at Flight Team, Don Schack, Steve Yum, all one word, and Rob Derrick. Guys, thank you very much. And girls, if there's girls out there, sure appreciate the support. You guys helping us out is really kind of what kept us going to this point. Yes.
[2:23] When the time comes and we don't feel like sitting down, it's like, what? There are people that are depending on us for a little bit of entertainment. And hopefully we've provided at least a little bit. But yeah, so thank you very much. We do appreciate it. If you want to learn how to become a patron or if you have any interest in doing that, rcplayinglab.com slash Patreon, maybe? I don't know. Just go to the homepage and click on the Become a Patron link,
[2:48] and it'll walk you through how to do it. And the homepage is www.rcplanelab.com, right? I mean, we can't make it any easier. Yeah, we try to make it as easy as possible for you guys to support us, because, like I i said we wouldn't be here recording today if we didn't have people that were counting on us for riveting entertaining entertainment entertaining entertainment that's the only kind to have right well we don't want
[3:18] boring entertainment because then it wouldn't be entertainment i don't know all right so anyway got off the rails there we go that's what we do we got off the rails. There we go. That's what we do. We get off the rails and then we get back on. And so, yeah, we don't even have rails half the time. That's true. Sometimes we have notes. Not today. This is going to be a fun one. So I'm just going to sit back and let you tell your tale and we'll see what the conversation brings because I have
[3:42] no clue. Right. So something like I mentioned a little bit ago that I always tell students, like whenever I'm teaching, it's been a while, but you want to fly so many mistakes high, two mistakes high, three mistakes high. So what does that actually mean? How high should you fly? Right. Well, I mean, we know how high you shouldn't fly. There's the episode title i just came up with it yeah good exactly so we know we know we have an upper
[4:10] limit right 400 feet 400 feet what is 400 feet well that's basically like a four and a half to five story building i mean you could think of it that way it's not a four and a half no a four a story is roughly 10 feet yeah so that would be 50 feet for a five-story building i'm sorry yeah i'm doing the math the wrong way yeah so it's about a four-story building or less right what yeah so four stories is oh no 40 excuse me
[4:40] i'm an idiot that does seem kind of low four stories that's not very high not much that's not even a mistake high i'm an idiot okay sorry so about a so about a 40 story building that's about as high as you want to very roughly there you go roughly yeah ah So that's the upper limit, right? So for… Sorry, that tickles me. I just… Go on. I'll wait for you to finish. I'm good. So a mistake, right? So it depends. There's a lot of factors. It depends on the pilot you're teaching.
[5:23] It depends on the airplane.
[5:37] So it depends on the pilot you're teaching, depends on the airplane, because a mistake for a high-wing trainer-type airplane is not going to be the same altitude difference maybe that a mistake on an extra or some kind of 3D plane might be. Well, it depends, too, what you're trying to do. Like, if you're just trying to learn how to fly, you're right. A mistake is not going to drop you 300 feet out of the air. Especially if you have somebody helping you out. Yeah, exactly.
[5:55] But if you're trying flat spins for the first time, thinking that it's going to match, what it's like on a simulator, then, yeah. 300 feet is not enough to recover. Exactly. If you don't know what you're doing, like me. Exactly.
[6:11] Exactly. So generally speaking, for me, when I'm teaching a student, I generally consider one mistake to be two loops. So if you can imagine what a Cuban 8 is. So a Cuban 8. Explain it just for those that don't. So take a loop, whatever the altitude, however much airspace it takes for that airplane to complete a loop, multiply that by two, and that's roughly, when I'm teaching anyway, that is about one mistake.
[6:33] So if you're flying a high-wing trainer and it takes 50 feet to complete a loop, then your one mistake high should be about 100 feet. And what's a Cuban 8? So a Cuban 8 if i recall correctly is basically you start at straight level you kind of roll inverted do a half loop roll inverted again do another half loop split s is half of that so it's i think it's
[6:57] called a cuban eight so your level you pull up or down if you're up high because you can do it okay i guess you can't start more yeah start from the top okay so so that so that is in my opinion a mistake and a high wing trainer mistake is going to be probably a lot less altitude than a jet of some kind that really eats up the airspace that That moves quickly. Yeah. And the reason for that is just like the name suggests,
[7:29] is to allow you to recover should you make a mistake. So if you're flying a high-wing trainer, which generally speaking, high-wing trainers, especially today, you let go of the sticks and they'll pretty much correct themselves. I mean, they're that good these days. Yeah, but I still, like, honestly, the trainers I have flown, I do not like the way they fly. They just don't seem to have, and I don't know what's different about them,
[7:57] but, like, the Cavalier, the Sig Cavalier, that flies very well. And that flies better than any trainer I've ever flown. And to me, it's easier to fly too so I don't know if the trainers are just considered trainers because they're easier to put together they're simpler there's no it's a square body yeah it's a flat bottom wing right it's usually held on with rubber bands and there I don't want to say disposable, but they're ones that you don't necessarily
[8:27] mind crashing if something happens. Yeah. I don't think they're trainers because they fly better than anything else. It's not that they fly better. Okay. So, you have to sort of quantify or qualify the word better. better doesn't necessarily mean more stable or less stable or more aerobatic or lesser. It depends on, you have to qualify that. So a trainer is not really designed to fly aerobatically, which somebody might think that's better. What a trainer is
[8:58] designed to do is to allow a beginner to learn to fly. And to do that, you don't want an airplane that's very maneuverable. You don't want an airplane that's capable of doing rolls or spins or flat spins or any of these other types. You want an airplane that is very, very stable and somewhat resistant to change. Like you tend to want a trainer to be something that is difficult to move off of straight and level. Does that make sense? Yeah, maybe that's my issues with them.
[9:33] Because they seem to be more difficult to, I think they're more difficult to fly. Which might be a good thing too, because you get used to flying something that's a little bit more difficult and then you move on to something intermediate. I would say that they are more difficult to fly anything other than a standard racetrack pattern. Okay. Because that's what they are designed to do. They're designed to fly somewhat straight and level with the student moving it off of
[10:06] the center and then if they panic or whatever they can let go of the sticks and the airplane will return dynamically stable i think that's the term they use it will return to that sort of it's kind of like trying to push a bowling ball up a up a hill it wants to come back down the hill that's what the trainers want to do yeah with the hydra and all that right exactly so they they fly great as long as it's straight and level and then kind of basically just a
[10:32] racetrack pattern they can do basic turns and which is what they're designed to do because as a beginner if you've never flown anything before you don't want something that's gonna because that's gonna go off the rails as soon as you move the sticks because you don't know how to bring it back. And that's what the trainer teaches you. So better doesn't necessarily mean bad. So we don't want to give people the impression that trainers fly bad or they fly poorly.
[10:59] They are very, very, very stable. So they are difficult to sort of move off of that center. And that's what they're designed to do yeah i guess i i guess i can see that sure so but still not very not very fun to fly so yeah when when i'm teaching a student one or two mistakes high and it depends like you said earlier also what what the point of the lesson is. If the lesson is basic flight with some basic turns,
[11:32] one mistake high is usually enough. Again, one mistake being the altitude you would consume if you did two loops, one on top of the other, especially if they're soloing like if you're not and by soloing i don't mean like out there by themselves i mean not with a buddy box they have the transmitter in their hand and there's no cord and you're going to need some time to grab that transmitter if you're teaching without a buddy box which yeah today there's no reason not to
[12:01] use a buddy box because it's they're so easy to to come by and yeah but you you get to a point where you have to go without it eventually you still would want somebody next to you for the first few flights on that just in case something happens and a true yeah a true solo for a straight and level flight with basic turns or a figure eight pattern which is something i like to have my students do out in front of me over the corn because we don't fly over the runway.
[12:27] Of course, we don't fly over anything but corn because that's all they ever plant. That's right. Did I mention there's three airplanes out there right now? Yeah, probably more by the time the corn comes down. Yeah, probably. But anyway, so for straight and level flight, if they're solo or IE, just me standing next to them without a buddy box, one mistake high for that type of flying is fine. And for that, it's the altitude of two loops, one on top of the other.
[12:53] What are common mistakes, though? So, common mistakes are over-controlling. I know we just kind of went over how stable trainers are, but you can over-control them. And that's usually the first thing that we try to overcome is too much stick movement or too much over-correcting. And then the second one, probably tied for the first, honestly, is the whole backwards thing when the airplane's coming at you. Yeah.
[13:22] Yeah, I mean, that's just difficult to get. And once you get it, it's so simple. Once it clicks, then you never have to think about it again. And a little tool I've always used that works really, really well is stick to the low wing. When the airplane is coming at you, if you move that right stick towards the low wing, it's going to correct it. It's going to bring it back to level.
[13:43] move that right stick towards the low wing, it's going to correct it. It's going to bring it back, to level. That's something that I was taught way, way, way back when I learned to fly. And I teach that to my students because it works really, really well. See, I still think, well, I obviously started with cars, like RC cars. And I think that helped. Probably. Because you get the basics without the downfall of learning backwards when it's coming at you.
[14:08] Maybe you run into your foot instead of crashing from 150 feet in the air. You don't have to worry about fixing anything other than retying your shoe. But yeah, so I think once you get it, and like you said, once it clicks, then you don't put any more thought into it. But man, that is difficult. It is. It is. But yeah. So until it clicks, a mistake high for a straight and level fly. Now, advanced students, like students who are capable now of flying without a buddy box,
[14:41] they can take off and they can land. And now want to work on, maybe loops or a roll or something like that. Besides turning up the rates on the airplane, to make it so that you can do those maneuvers, now we're moving into the two mistake high level because once an airplane is upside down, especially if it's coming at you, everything is backwards. That's all locky. Yeah. The only thing that's not backwards at that point is the throttle. So having that extra airspace is
[15:12] really, really important, especially when you're, introducing aerobatics into the mix. So that's sort of the rule of thumb I use. And that height or that altitude, that so many mistakes high is totally dependent on the airframe the type of airplane and the type of how quickly you can roll back over and and kind of recover yeah upside down flying i still have a huge problem with yeah i mean like
[15:37] it upsets me all the time i watch you flying you just go upside down it's like that has not clicked with me yet. Yeah. Maybe one day, but it's- I don't do anything fancy. I mean, I- You don't crash. Like if you ever notice, I may flip it upside down, but I'll just do loops or not loops, but racetrack patterns. Yeah, but you still get pretty low over the runway. Well, for me, pretty comfortable. Yes, I'm not comfortable with that whatsoever. Not over the runway, I'm over the corn.
[16:05] Well, that's what I meant. Well, that's where I land, in the corn. That's the new runway, right? Yeah, right. So, two mistakes high is roughly, well, it's twice one mistake high, which whatever that happens to be. In the case of a trainer, I always just, two loops of, like stacked on top of each other, whatever that altitude tends to be. Now, I've heard some other guys that train, this is a neat
[16:30] idea too, but you have to have some experience for this to work. I've heard some guys say, let's say you're flying a 40 size trainer. They'll tell their student, fly at an altitude to where it looks like a foam whatever like like a foamy cub or something why it's got to be foam well because generally speaking they're smaller so if you fly a 40 size trainer up high enough to where it looks like a little foamy
[17:00] cub then probably you're high enough to give yourself time to react. But like I said, you have to have some experience. You have to at least have been to a field to see what, a foamy cub looks like. So foamy cub, that reminds me of something. Can I interrupt for a little bit? Absolutely. Well, does it have to do with crashing? It does. Oh, perfect. Yes, please do. So, I got a call from somebody we know that, well, I'll make this as short as possible.
[17:33] Well, you don't have to do that. Every good story, if you draw it out, makes it that much more entertaining. So, I got a picture sent to me. I think he might have, I don't remember if you were on that text group or not. But anyway, it's a picture of a battery. And the guy says, would you still use this? And it looked like about the last inch of it was pretty smashed up. Oh, like impact damage? Yeah. Like it wasn't puffed like a normal
[18:06] puff battery where it's over the whole battery. This is just the very end of it. Okay. And it's hard to tell in a picture what kind of battery it is, but it was just one I looked at really quick and I said, no, I wouldn't use it, discharge it, get rid of it, whatever. Well, we were talking on the phone later and I kind of, well, see, I don't know how to word this politely. I drug out of him what actually happened. It was a battery that had been crashed.
[18:36] It was a crash, obviously, because it had impact damage. And so… Either that or he dropped it from a really high distance. Which, about flight height, I guess, is the really high distance. But anyway, so he said he was flying a foamy cub. It sounds small, right? It does. But no, it was a Carbon Z cub, which apparently he, I guess those have pretty large wingspan. I'm not familiar with those very much, but he said it's like a seven-foot wingspan.
[19:04] Oh, wow, that's big for a foam airplane that's what i thought too but the battery that was in it was a six cell seven thousand milliamp hour battery that would be a big so it's a big airplane but anyway so he said he's flying it in an area that i guess he's flown at before but a little bit too small for that airplane. Okay. And it seemed like I didn't really… So it'd be like a good area for a small foamy, like a little backyard park flyer type thing? Yeah. Okay.
[19:32] But not a big seven foot foam. Not a big foam airplane or big airplane at all. But anyway, so long story short… Well, electric doesn't really change that much, does it? Well, some people associate electric with environmentally friendly so if this thing is environmentally friendly then my neighbors won't care if i fly over their house with it well it's usually quieter well they are first off but anyway so he's flying out in in this field loses control of the elevator which sounds just
[20:02] like what happened to me like it's deja vu pretty much and so i'm sitting there thinking okay i know the feeling so i know where we're going with this this is not gonna end fun yeah so anyway he said he ended up he got it straight and level but he had no control over the elevator so he just cut the throttle and tried to get it to fall out of the air because i mean that's probably a good idea to get it out as soon as you can. Well, yeah. You don't have control over up and down.
[20:32] No elevator. Throttle didn't, sometimes you can use throttle to gain or lose altitude. Yeah, but I think it would depend on how that elevator is. Like, I don't know if it was stuck down or if it was stuck i i he didn't it was heading to the ground regardless right he throttled back and tried to minimize the yeah okay try to minimize the damage and it went into a tree okay well i wouldn't think a tree would cause the sort of damage to a battery you're talking about maybe
[21:00] though i guess i guess if you hit the trunk of the tree square on, I guess it could be possible. Well, I don't know if that's actually what caused the damage to the airplane. There's more. It gets better. So after it comes out of the tree, and so it crashed farther away. He couldn't quite tell exactly where it was, he said. Okay. Long story short, it was getting dark. It was getting kind of stormy out. Went into a tree, couldn't tell where it was. He lost it for that night.
[21:30] Like he couldn't find it that night at all. Okay. He ended up going on, I guess there's a little, Facebook has like a neighborhood group or something by wherever the neighborhood that he was close to. And he posted on there at one time, hey, lost an airplane. If anybody finds it, blah, blah, blah. And he said after he found, or after he posted that, so it must've been like later that night or the next morning or something when he posted it,
[21:53] he saw somebody had already posted, found an airplane. If it's yours, here's my contact info. So they hooked up and he got his airplane back. However, this airplane apparently come out of the tree is this airplane came out of the tree and landed on the guy's roof to where the guy heard it hit the roof and he went outside to try and see what was going on poof there's an airplane yeah sitting on your roof so it was torn up pretty bad. Okay. it went through a tree.
[22:26] Yeah, went through a tree. Hit somebody's roof. Set outside, I assume set outside. Do we know how tall this tree was? I mean, if this was like a 150 foot tall tree, I don't think it'd be that big. But it's possible. If it, yeah, if it just hit the tops and then kind of tilted out, I don't know. Ouch. But anyway, so the guy was very cool. Like he apparently was not too upset about this totally different way seven foot airplane landing i would have been upset i
[22:51] would have been i i i would i i like okay so my roof is metal so i don't have to worry about anything like damaging it but i don't want to have to worry about a roof i don't want to have to worry about messing anything up or anybody else's roof up or anything like that so i would have been a little upset if an airplane hit my house yeah i would have been could you imagine okay so to put a serious spin on this i'll be the i'll be the one
[23:15] that does that what would have happened if that airplane would have say some kid was playing in the backyard yeah soccer or kept having a catch with his dad and it, fell out of the tree and hit the kid in the head. Yeah. Or even worse, some, mom's pushing her baby in a stroller out front and plane falls out of the sky and hits the, I mean, this could have been very, very bad. Yeah. And here's the other thing too.
[23:41] Like when you're flying like that, you're not covered by AMA insurance anymore because you are not in an approved AMA flying site. You're not at a CBO. There you go. Community-based organization like our AMA field. Yeah. So no coverage whatsoever. So you're just hung out to dry. Yeah. Could have been very bad. Yeah. Thank goodness nothing like that happened and thank goodness that was just a foamy if that had been a nitro or something like that
[24:12] probably a little heavier maybe even damage the guy's roof i mean not necessarily i mean think about it that's a seven foot foam airplane that's probably weighs more than a 40 size trainer probably not yeah not very light but yeah so he said he's not gonna fly there anymore. That scared him straight on stuff. So he's, which that's the point. I mean, you hate hearing things like this because it's not a good thing. Right. But take it as a cautionary tale.
[24:39] Don't fly places you're not supposed to fly. Let's move on. Well, at least he got the airplane back i guess right oh and that yeah that was the other thing so he said when he got it back and he was looking at it the the elevator for the i'm sorry the servo for the elevator where it plugs into the receiver was pulled out a little bit oh the plug was pulled out of the receiver and he
[25:01] said he didn't know if that happened during the crash or before the crash to cause issues with the elevator but that kind of makes sense that it would have been i would the reason behind it probably yeah yeah because if there's a little bit of slack in the cable when it's plugged in fully then probably not going to pull out in the crash unless the fuselage separates and pulls them. Yeah. But I wouldn't. You're right. I wouldn't think so.
[25:32] The way you're describing it, I would suspect that that's probably the cause. Somehow. I mean, I don't know how it happens, but it got pulled out. Who knows? If you have to plug the wing panels in and you're down there fiddling around by the receiver,
[25:41] it's entirely possible when you unplugged the aileron from the last flight. It's possible. If you pulled it out a little bit, you never know. Enough to where on the table it's it's entirely possible when you unplugged the oh i never thought of that and the last flight possible hold it out a little bit you never know enough to where on the table it was working yeah but once it jiggles around in the air a little bit and stuff moves a little bit
[25:53] that it pulled itself loose enough to not make contact yeah so anyway anyway fly only where you're supposed to fly no matter what it is yeah so yeah mistakes high could have prevented at least i think one of these airplanes from being oh and an interesting story so according to bob who witnessed this i think he witnessed it or maybe not sure how that's not the one not the one i'm just talking about witnessed witnessed the other guy that went down at the field. It's in the corn.
[26:30] Regardless, so Bob has this cool little device that I call it the plane finder. I think that actually might be what it's called. It's actually this little directional antenna thing that if you have a transponder that you purchased along with this device it will locate with beeps and squawks and this sort of stuff it's a homing beacon yeah pretty much and yes so after i crashed my airplane 54 i think is what one of those costs and i
[27:01] went ahead and bought one oh for the transp the transponder? For the transponder. And I have not put it in anything that I've flown since. Well, here you go. So Bob demonstrated that for you. And what was your impression of it? I didn't actually get to use it from far away to see how it would work. So I was there when Bob tried to demonstrate how it worked. It beeps and makes noises. It does beep and make noises.
[27:28] I'm just going to preface this by saying I have never witnessed with my own eyes someone crash in the corn with their airplane that has a transponder in it and someone going in the corn with one of these plane finder things and coming out of the corn with the airplane. I've never witnessed it. i've heard stories bob swears that that he he used it once and it took him right to it i believe bob i really do i believe it worked for him but i have never
[27:55] seen it with my own eyes successfully used and this last example this little foam EDF that went out in the corn had a transponder in it. Oh, it did? It did. And they still didn't find it? It's still in the corn. Why? And Bob went out there with his little plane finder gizmo, and it's still out in the corn. Now, Bob says, and he's probably right, that this particular guy hasn't replaced the battery in that transponder in a while or maybe
[28:25] he had it in there and never took it out i i don't know the details we'll see with with the one i have it's just a little cr2032 little button cell battery that goes in it like i wouldn't store it in there like you're only going to have a finite amount of time that can actually produce signal with a battery like that. Right. I get that. And I'm assuming the individual that crashed this airplane understands that and probably took proper care of it.
[28:54] But Bob says the battery is probably dead, and that's why it didn't find the airplane. But I'm chalking this up as another example of where this thing doesn't work. See, you made fun of me when I bought one. I did not make fun of you. You told me they're pretty much worthless. I did not say that. What did you say then? I told you exactly what I just said. I've never seen one successfully used with my own eyes. Which I extrapolated that to me, and they're pretty much useless.
[29:22] Because I see your eyes when you tell me that. Okay, so to the point where I have not purchased any transponders. Right. For myself. And I have, like I said, one. I hope that you never have to use it. Well, the problem is, like… That's the hope. I really planned on putting it in the telemaster when we went out, just in case. Didn't. I really planned on putting it on another airplane when i went out after that
[29:46] and guess what didn't i mean so yeah the idea is there well but it's going to happen to me to where i crash and i don't have the transponder in it and that's just that's how it's going to be but like in my defense with the telemaster i figured and i probably shouldn't have but i figured that's a big enough airplane
[30:09] and there's enough of us watching it to where somebody is going to get a bead on where it went down it flies slow enough yeah it's big enough to where we would have a good idea on just being able to walk out okay i meant to ask you so when when you when yours went in the corn did you take the transmitter in the corn with you the first-hmm. The first time, okay. Yeah, I tried moving everything around to try and see if I could hear anything, but no, it went straight into the portal
[30:30] down to Middle Earth or something because that thing is just gone. Just gone. So anyway, I look forward to seeing, now that you have a transponder, I look forward to seeing this thing successfully used at some point, hopefully way, way, way down the road. But anyway. So, should we just throw it, like take the transponder, just it, and throw it out in the corn and have somebody find it? Will that make you appreciate it?
[30:56] You and I had the same sort of impression, right? So, the exchange happened at the field. you had Bob order you one of these transponders and you picked it up from him at the field. You had Bob order you one of these transponders, and you picked it up from him at the field. And he happened to have his little plane finder with him. The little gun thing that it uses, yeah. So he told us, he said, here, I'll show you how it works.
[31:15] You just hold on to this, and I'll point this at it, and you'll see. So you put the battery in the transponder thing, and he turned the gun on on or whatever it's called. And it did. It beeps and squawks and makes different noises and stuff. But to me anyway, while I was sitting there watching, I didn't see any rhyme or reason to the beeps it was making. Like he would point it at the transponder and it seemed to make the same beeps that it was making
[31:42] when he was pointed 180 degrees away from it. I think maybe if he had gone, put a little distance between him and the transponder, maybe then it would have been more convincing. We were less than 10 feet apart. Okay, well. And so I think that it's probably just getting overloaded with signal at that point. Well, and you have a fresh battery in the transponder. Right, the signal is so strong when you're that close that there's just no really delineation between where are you.
[32:09] And if you're that close to an airplane… You'll see it. You'll see it. Yeah. I agree. So, that's my thought. And when you're far away, you're supposed to be able to walk towards it. And, as that's in that field, as the gun is pointing at it, it's going to make a different noise. I've not seen this work, so I don't know if it's clicking faster or if it's like a, what's it called, when the people on the beach that use them like for metal detectors.
[32:37] Like, I don't know if it's something like that to where it makes a different tone or what, but that's the gist of how it works. There were several dials on it that he messed with, and I'm assuming one of them was probably gain. So you can probably dial up or down the sensitivity of the thing. But anyway, I thought it was interesting. The other thing that I don't necessarily like about them, they're each numbered with a different channel. Oh, yeah.
[33:01] And so you have to remember what the number is. I don't remember my channel right now. Like, obviously, if I was to fly something with it in it i would go look at it and it's 60 or 62 or so i don't remember exactly what it might have been 60. because i got to pick and i picked the easiest one i could remember but i still can't remember like here's a good idea it might have been a waste of 50 pounds or write it on whatever you always take to the field.
[33:26] Well, it's in my transmitter box or in my case. So, like I said, I would look at it beforehand. Before you put it in. Yeah. Okay. But right offhand, I don't remember what it is. I don't know. Might have been a waste of money. Well, I hope not. I mean, the surest way to not need it is to have it. Right? Well, but then you have to remember to put it in the airplane. Well, there's that. Yeah. So you're going to have to remember to do that every time.
[33:53] But eventually, I mean, we're going to fly so much that we're going to be so good, we're just not going to crash and never need it. See, your mistakes high thing, though, would not have saved me from crashing. It has nothing to do with how good you are. It may not have saved you from crashing, but it might have saved us from searching. But I was, no. If you were higher on that. But that doesn't make any sense to be higher.
[34:19] When I'm clearing the corn, it may have just crashed onto the runway and we'd have found it. But it doesn't make any sense to be higher when I'm trying to land. No, I'm just teasing. Okay. I'm just making sure because you're all like so serious and so sure about flying higher. I'm just trying to defend my point, even if it's senseless, because that's what we do. Your point is good for those that are learning to fly. The first crash at the field, I don't know who that was or how.
[34:44] I don't know the details of that i just know that there's another airplane somewhere yeah like farther opposite yeah yeah so and i don't know if some extra altitude would have helped yeah i don't know perhaps i don't know but it might have been the same situation oh speaking of situate same situation so i talked to reggie the other day and he's putting one of those Great Plains Steermans together. Guess what kind of elevator push rod setup it has? Same as what was in mine.
[35:13] They went down. That he put together. That he shouldn't be doing with this one. So we talked about that and I gave him a couple of suggestions. So what I'm talking about here is it's two push rods, right? So it's a split elevator, two elevator halves. Two separate rods come off the elevators, right? One for each one. And then they come together before the servo. One has a bend in it, at least on mine. Like a jog in it to bring it over to the other one. Two 90s. Yep.
[35:39] And then they are probably two 45s, right? Anyway, it doesn't matter. Okay, sure. They come together and then they are bound together with a wheel collar. Yeah. And in this one, Reggie said that the Great Plains actually gave him two wheel collars. Oh, that's good. To double up the safety. The wheel collar. And then, the one rod goes to the servo. Same setup as on the plane that you put. Which on the servo, it as as on the plane that you which on the servo it was connected
[36:05] with a quick connect with i don't know if i asked him how it's connected at the servo but i told him i said if you can this is a big enough airplane if you have room for a second servo i highly recommend going dual servo on the elevator. Really? On this airplane. Because, well, number one, I like having independent control of the elevator halves. I don't know why. I can't explain why. Have you ever programmed it to be different? I have. Oh, okay. Well, then you can explain why.
[36:38] So I have experimented with trying to use the elevator kind of in augment the aileron. And it does work. It actually does make it roll. But it does weird things to the elevator kind of in augment the aileron yeah and it does work it actually does make it roll but it does weird things to the elevator trim but anyway i digress but as a nice little safety margin if you lose one connector at least you have half your elevator
[36:56] sure does that make sense yeah so i suggested number one do that if you can and if you can't do that just make sure that lock tight everything those two wheel do that if you can. And if you can't do that, just make sure that, lock tight everything. those two wheel collars, if you've got room for a third one or maybe even a fourth one, put it on there. Because I'm telling you, with the vibrate, especially vibrations from these big single cylinder gas,
[37:18] 30 CC, I think is what he's putting on this one. Oh, that's bigger than I was thinking it was then. They vibrate a lot. Yeah. And if it's not secure those wires are slippery and if you don't grind a flat on them where the set screws go and all that sort of jazz and even then i'm just not a fan of that setup so hopefully reggie if you're listening please please please do everything you can to avoid a potential catastrophe yeah with that one
[37:46] that i ended up crashing that was the first time i'd ever seen a setup like that yeah like most of the time it's the elevators are connected right or if not on some of the bigger ones i've had too yeah it's it's two two servos i didn't realize that when he was putting together was so big though yeah it's what's a great plane super airmaster i think he said he's putting a 30 C. It's either a 20 or a 30. That's still good size. I don't know why I just,
[38:08] from the pictures he showed me of it, it just didn't look as big. It's a little bit bigger than your Skybolt. Okay. Yeah, it's a good size airplane. I think that only has a 15 CC out of the tank. Last time I was over at his place, he was, he's working on it. It's a pretty airplane. Nice. He's doing a good job on it too, so. Cool. Taking his time, which I like. Well, it's the best way to do it hopefully hopefully he'll
[38:30] avoid any potential catastrophe or putting it in the corn i don't want to go out in the corn if i don't have to i'm done going out in the corn so i know you are but i swear as soon as that corn turns brown i'm gonna go out there and find it. I'll have at it. I'm going to. Maybe I'll look this weekend. Okay. So anyway, yeah, a couple of mistakes high. Hopefully that made sense to everybody. Depends on the airplane and all that.
[38:56] But just whatever you do, just make sure if you're trying something new, give yourself some altitude to recover in case things go wrong. Because they probably will. Sometimes they can't. But that's all I wanted to talk about. If you fly, you're going to crash. Eventually. The odds are against never crashing. Yes. Almost like a double negative. When you double negative. That was like a double positive.
[39:25] No, you said against and never. Those are both negatives. So it's double negative. When you double negative. That was like a double positive. No, you said against and never. Those are both negative. So it's double negative to make it a positive. So the odds are with crashing. And you can fly higher than four stories. I was mistaken. Yeah, I don't know what, yeah, just. I don't know. sometimes you get it in your head and you can't get it out of your head
[39:41] until somebody shows you how much of an idiot you are. Yeah, we all make mistakes. And that one's staying in yes it should all right anything else you want to talk about no that's it get out if you guys if you guys have any questions especially if you guys have had positive experiences with these plane finder things let us know send us an email we'll read it on the air cool all right well thanks for listening until
[40:02] next time i'm ron i'm tom good night tonight. We hope you enjoyed this episode of the RC Plane Lab Podcast. For topic suggestions, to ask questions, or to give any feedback, connect with us at rcplanelab.com or email us direct at either ron at rcplanelab.com or tom at rcplanelab.com. You can also text us or leave us a voicemail at 818-351-9846. Please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, may your landings be gentle.
