Retracts? - I have a cunning plan!

I have stuck with Deans predominately because of their small size and light weight for their rated amps which as you can imagine are important issues for many of my planes.
They can indeed be hard to separate with cold fingers. Another weakness is they have no cable support so if flexed much there is a good chance the cable strands fracture leaving the shrink wrap the only thing holding the contact. The now limited contact area gets warm, the shrink wrap softens and no power. :woohoo:
To make matters worse there is good chance the resulting crash impact will restore the contact so it appears to all work normally.

One way to separate Deans is to drill a small hole in each side and use a pair of circlip pliers to separate them, this does ease the stress on the wires. Another is to put epoxy putty on each side to make a finger and thumb hold, if you don't mind the weight.

Having tediously glued it all back together I took the "no wheels" Ballerina out this morning. Check everything carefully (different battery) and even did a range check. It did exactly the same again!

This time I do what the problem is, its the Rx.
It flew away under perfect control but after about 3 second no motor, no control. I was a bit higher so after a 2 second? shallow dive control returned. This time I made a conscious decision to land asap whilst I still had control but if failed again just too soon. Crashed a good 200 ft away and of course the controls worked perfectly despite the damage.
I then switched off & on the transmitter to see how long it took the Rx to re acquire the signal, 2 seconds! Did it twice to make sure.
The Rx is a Redcon CM703 with diversity aerials. It was new and had not been used on any other planes so it may have always been suspect. I had even made sure the unshielded aerial ends were at 90 degrees to each other and as far as possible from anything else.
In the next rebuild it will be replaced!

Gee Simon, you have no luck do you? Commiserations.

Slowly started repairing the Depron Ballerina. First salvage and repair what is basically sound of the badly crumpled fuselage.

Importantly I have managed to 'save' enough to the fuselage to cover the coplete fuselage wing mount which saves much tricky work to refit the wing bolt nuts. In theory it is just? a matter of building a new nose and grafting it on.
The wing itself suffered only minor tip damage so has already been repaired.
I have already 'printed' a motor bulkhead to replace the broken ply one.

No real advantage in strength or weight but as the motor is bolted on to the bulkhead printing does make it easy to arrange for the nuts to be 'captive'.

So far so good but there is still quite a bit to do.

The nose of the Depron Ballerina starting to take shape.

As I have plenty of it to hand I am using 5 mm laminate underlay rather than the 3 mm real Depron of the original. The slight extra weight (10g?) will not be noticed as without the retracts it has a considerable excess of thrust.

At last some positive progress rebuilding the nose with the first coat of paint.

The crash took out my last 9x6 so a new one ordered. My how the prices have risen. At the current level my draw of 'spare' props would cost a couple of hundred quid to replace! :woohoo:

If you are stuck, I have a new spare APC e 10 x 6 for equal size replacement when you can get one.

Thanks for the offer Eric
I have several 10x3.8 & 4.7 and 9x3.8 & 4.7 from when I was trying to find the most efficient set up for the Endurance just no longer any 9x6.
The 9x6 actually arrived today from Manchester, 'traced' delivery & in a proper cardboard box. No wonder it was expensive.

The 'no wheels' Ballerina is all back together.
2 weeks from this:

To this:

All tested with a new rx. Just the battery hatch to add.

With the Big Dragon's old wing aileron replaced, the aileron arms on its new wing extended and the strong easterly preventing any flying means the 'repair list' is now actually getting shorter.
Just the nose of the EPS Hawker P1052 to finish off and the nose of the Depron Airbus A350 to repair.

Flew the repaired Ballerina this evening - eventually!
First attempt with the HK TX6i was aborted without leaving the ground.
Did a modest range check but at about 20 feet control was lost but when the ESC 'beeped' control returned. After about 5 seconds the same thing happened again. No control, ESC beep and it returned. It did this regardless of the range. This of course was exactly the sequence of events that caused the Ballerina to crash.
Went back home, reorganised things (dual ail on ch6 rather than ch5) and rebound to the Spektrum DX6i. Took it to the field, range check no problem and it flew faultlessly.
So the last three crashes, Sea Hawk, P1052 and the Ballerina were indeed all down to the Hobby King Tx. :woohoo:

Oh! well. We live and learn.

Gee Simon, you don't seem to have any luck at all!