Eflite Cherokee

[BRGT350]

I have never joined a forum before - of any kind - and I'm sure I'm not posting this properly, so a formal pardon is requested in advance. Here goes... I want to replace the stock servos in my Cherokee. The rudder and elevator servos appear simple enough to swap out as they are easily accessible. The aileron and flap servos in the wings are more of a challenge, at least for me. I assumed that the plastic "hands-free" servo connection plate on the wing needs to be removed to access the path for the servo wires/plugs to run through. After removing the 2 small, and 1 very small screws from the connection plate, I tried to pull it loose from the wing, but it wouldn't budge. I see that some folks have replaced this plane's servos and I'm curious as to how they went about doing so. Thanks

The aileron servos come out pretty easy. There is an extension wire that runs from the servo wire to the wing-fuselage connector, so you don't need to disconnect the connector at the fuselage joint. Slowly pull the aileron servo out from the wing and the wire will unravel enough to access the plug. You don't want to pull hard and disconnect the wire inside the wing. Depending on the servo, you may need to enlarge the plastic retainer top and bottom. I used EMax servos and they needed a little work with a Dremel and file to open up the plastic to let the servo drop in. I had to open up the mounting holes in the servo for the rudder and elevator, but that wasn't hard either.

As for the flap servos, I haven't found a good way to remove them. I have 2 Cherokees and no luck getting the flap servo out on either. It appears the wing halves were glued together with the servo installed and there isn't a window in the foam to pull the plug through. Given how little I use flaps, I decided to just leave the factory servos. The aileron, rudder, and elevator servos have all been replaced. I also added a servo-saver on the nose gear steering push-rod. That should take some load off of the servo and steering tiller arm in case you have a landing that isn't perfect or are operating off of grass.

[BRGT350]

The biggest aid I found to help servo removal was Sig CA Debonder. I first tried it with my Turbo Timber because I couildn't figure a way to cut the original servo out of the fuselage without carving the plane apart. However, a word to the wise - This stuff will remove a lot more stuff than glue if you leti it run amok inside your fuselage.

Good tip, but you shouldn't need to use it on the Cherokee. None of the servos are glued into place. My Timber, much like your Turbo Timber, had the rudder and elevator servo glued into the fuselage. I used an x-acto knife and a bent paper clip to work around the servo to loosen the glue. Then used needle nose pliers to pull them out. Not the best solution, but worked. I think your debonder might have been better to use. I wonder about getting some shim stock, bending it into a 90 degree angle, and using that to work around the servo to break the glue.

[Rando]

Thanks Bill and BRGT350. That helps a whole lot. Now I can decide what servos to get - hopefully Futaba has a suitable product. I suppose one could make a shallow cut in the foam to run the servo wires for flaps, and ailerons too for that matter. After a bit of fussing I discovered how the plastic connectors are assembled and come apart. That, along with your input, gave me all I need to accomplish the task. Thanks again.

[Bill Wakeley Jr.]

No problem Rando. It sure is strange being the one to help someone than being the one begging for it. Everything I know about planes, flying and related subjects I have learned myself from magazines and web sites. I'm fortunate in that I can pick up a book and learn anything. And I think I might even be a decent teacher, but that remains to be seen. In any case, theres a ton of guys on this site just waiting to help someone out. It feels good to give back and that's what I endeavor to do.

[BRGT350]

Rando, I use EMax ES008MA II servos in both of my Cherokees. They are reversed and use metal gears. If you are using the factory receiver, it is important to get reversed servos so the AS3x will work properly. I ran another 5 batteries through my Cherokee last night and I am really happy with how well the EMax servos are working. I had a not so perfect landing and hit a chipmunk hole on one of the landings, but no issues with the front gear steering arm or rudder servo thanks to the servo-saver being installed.

For the EMax servos, make sure to check your throws and adjust accordingly. I found that the slight differences between the Spektrum and EMax servos and horns made the Cherokee a little too responsive in the air. She was flying more like a fighter plane than a Cherokee. I like my Cherokee very sedate and calm in the air, so a slight reduction in throw was all that was needed.

[ChloePug]

Hey Guys I'm new to RC planes & was hoping you could help. I got a Carbon Cub S & got pretty good w/ it so I got one of these cool looking Cherokees. Every-time I take off w/ this thing, I stall & eat dirt. I haven't used flaps on takeoff & have been taking off like I do w/ my cub (get the plane moving & then throttle up and pull back. This might be a dumb question, but how exactly do you take off w/ these Cherokees? I tried to get more gradual w/ my lift off, but the plan always starts pulling to the left on the runway... so I throttle up to get in the air & then stall...and crash lol. Do you constantly have to manipulate the controls to keep the plane straight as you're gaining speed on the ground?

Also, on my Cub you can CLEARLY see the difference on the control surfaces when you toggle between safe/intermediate/advanced. This Cherokee is not like that...in fact to the naked eye, there's almost no difference between flight mode settings. When I stall, the plane so sensitive in it's handling that when I try to recover and right myself...it's all over the place and I eat a dirt sandwhich. It's leading me to believe that maybe the Safe mode isn't working or something. PLEASE HELP! I just want to get this beauty in the air.

Link to my most recent crash below.

https://youtu.be/0WkLF45ftyo

[xviper]

Hey Guys I'm new to RC planes & was hoping you could help. I got a Carbon Cub S & got pretty good w/ it so I got one of these cool looking Cherokees. Every-time I take off w/ this thing, I stall & eat dirt. I haven't used flaps on takeoff & have been taking off like I do w/ my cub (get the plane moving & then throttle up and pull back. This might be a dumb question, but how exactly do you take off w/ these Cherokees? I tried to get more gradual w/ my lift off, but the plan always starts pulling to the left on the runway... so I throttle up to get in the air & then stall...and crash lol. Do you constantly have to manipulate the controls to keep the plane straight as you're gaining speed on the ground?

Also, on my Cub you can CLEARLY see the difference on the control surfaces when you toggle between safe/intermediate/advanced. This Cherokee is not like that...in fact to the naked eye, there's almost no difference between flight mode settings. When I stall, the plane so sensitive in it's handling that when I try to recover and right myself...it's all over the place and I eat a dirt sandwhich. It's leading me to believe that maybe the Safe mode isn't working or something. PLEASE HELP! I just want to get this beauty in the air.

Link to my most recent crash below.


https://youtu.be/0WkLF45ftyo

Hi Chloe. I had the Cirrus and a friend had the Cherokee. Both are "similar" styles of aircraft except that I think the Cherokee flew better as it has a "better" wing shape. Keep in mind that the Carbon Cub S is a "floaty" plane. It has nice, big high wing (for stability and good lift). Looking at your video (thanks for that BTW - it helped a lot), I think you needed to get the speed up a bit more, with higher throttle, before lifting off. I realize that you were running out of pavement and you needed to get off the ground. Work on steering the plane on the ground so you can take advantage of the length of runway. Your climb angle after lift off was too steep with too little throttle. Then, when you realized it wasn't gaining altitude and airspeed as you would like, you gave it more throttle and more UP elevator. At that low of airspeed, giving throttle quickly and trying to climb even more steeply, caused the plane to torque roll - reaction to the torque of the spinning motor/propeller. There wasn't enough airspeed for the wings/ailerons to fight the torque and over it went.
Your Cherokee, like my Cirrus, is not what I call an overly powerful plane. You need good throttle to get and keep the speed up when taking off and doing banked turns. Try to keep the climb rate more shallow until you can get the airspeed up. Try some expo on your elevator and ailerons and maybe dial down the rates a bit so you don't over control, as some people do on a new plane. As for how the plane reacts when going through the different modes, that may depend on the style of the plane. Your Cub is a tail dragger and naturally sits with the nose looking up at the sky and as such, the gyro onboard responds differently to that attitude. The Cherokee is a trike gear and sits more or less level. Try this but don't fly it afterwards till you re-initialize the plane normally. Have someone hold the Cherokee with the tail on the ground to simulate what the Cub looks like and plug in the battery. You may find the controls surfaces will do something similar to what your Cub does. OR, go to your Cub and have someone hold the tail up to make the plane level. Now see what it does. The answer you seek will likely be there.
Check the the bind procedure. It may be slightly different between the two planes you have. I didn't have the "SAFE" RX in mine. Mine was a PNP with my own RX, so binding was simpler. I know that some SAFE planes have different bind steps depending on what you want the switch to do.

[BRGT350]

Hey Guys I'm new to RC planes & was hoping you could help. I got a Carbon Cub S & got pretty good w/ it so I got one of these cool looking Cherokees. Every-time I take off w/ this thing, I stall & eat dirt. I haven't used flaps on takeoff & have been taking off like I do w/ my cub (get the plane moving & then throttle up and pull back. This might be a dumb question, but how exactly do you take off w/ these Cherokees? I tried to get more gradual w/ my lift off, but the plan always starts pulling to the left on the runway... so I throttle up to get in the air & then stall...and crash lol. Do you constantly have to manipulate the controls to keep the plane straight as you're gaining speed on the ground?

Also, on my Cub you can CLEARLY see the difference on the control surfaces when you toggle between safe/intermediate/advanced. This Cherokee is not like that...in fact to the naked eye, there's almost no difference between flight mode settings. When I stall, the plane so sensitive in it's handling that when I try to recover and right myself...it's all over the place and I eat a dirt sandwhich. It's leading me to believe that maybe the Safe mode isn't working or something. PLEASE HELP! I just want to get this beauty in the air.

Link to my most recent crash below.


https://youtu.be/0WkLF45ftyo

XViper is on the right path with his comments. I fly my Cherokees from the grass, so my take-off procedure is a little different. I hold up elevator as I slowly add throttle to get a little weight off of the nose gear and get moving. Once she is moving pretty good down the runway, I release the elevator and continue to add power. If I hold up elevator for too long, she will start to rotate before I have enough airspeed, so I relax the elevator, gain some airspeed, and then climb out. I have a few take-offs like that. Instead of a linear climb-out, I get into the air, fly close to level about 2 feet off the ground, and then pull back to start a climb out. On pavement, I would just slowly add power, build up enough airspeed where the Cherokee will want to climb on her own, and then use a little elevator to climb. The Cherokee has a lot of elevator authority, so I have mine turned down with around 30% expo. I think the travel is around 80% and I use very light pressure. The worst is to have full throws, no expo, and pull back hard on the stick. That will put her into a stall very quickly.

The veering to the left is caused by torque of the motor and prop. Dial in some right rudder to counter and keep the plane going straight. By slowly advancing the throttle, steering with the rudder, you will extend the amount of runway you are using to build airspeed. The Cherokee will basically rotate (leave the ground) on its own, but a little elevator is all that is needed for climb out.

In your video, the save would have been to push the nose down a little or let off the elevator to drop the nose, right aileron to keep the wings level, build airspeed at low altitude, and then climb. It was the combination of fast full throttle with abrupt up elevator that kill it.

As for flaps, I rarely used them as the take-offs are more scale with them retracted. I also run far less deflection than the factory calls for. With full flaps per the book, she will float around at a walking pace. She feels too mushy for me, so I use less flaps and carry a bit more speed.

Check your throws and expo as you want the Cherokee to fly like a Cherokee and not an aerobatic plane, assuming you want to fly scale. I replaced all of my servos on my latest Cherokee and realized that I needed less throw than I had with the factory servos. A little bit longer horn on the new servos changed how the plane flew. I found it too responsive. Reduce the elevator throw for sure.

[Bill Wakeley Jr.]

Hey Chloe, are you aware of the hidden dash line on the right side of the fuselage? Theres a tiny line ( looks like a body line or a scratch.) You need to make sure your elevator is lined up with this little line or you'll never get her to act like a lady.

[ChloePug]

WOW thank you everybody this is fantastic information it's really going to help! One other thing...So according to the manual you have 2 bind options (with Safe or No Safe.) Once you bind to safe, you need to assign the safe mode to a switch. I went ahead and did that, and upon moving the plane around to see if the safeties are working to keep it level...it's not correcting itself like my Cub does when on beginner mode (which makes me think it's not working in safe mode.) All I can think of is it's something to do w/ the "SAFE Select is assignable on any unused channels 5-9." The manual is confusing because I thought when binding to safe mode...safe mode was just going to be on (the manual really is unclear.) I think that's part of why I destroyed my plane as well (because I had no safeties) and no experience w/ this plane.

I don't understand the relationship between switches & channels, so maybe that's my problem. Anybody have any idea? It's rather difficult to figure this stuff out w/ no experience so thanks again everybody!

[BRGT350]

I have not bothered to use SAFE Select on any of my planes that came with it. My Timber and Cherokees both have it, but I did not attempt to bind with it. I don't know if you need to advance the throttle to 25% to get SAFE Select to work like you do for AS3x. I always thought the original SAFE was super easy to use as it just needed a 3-position switch and nothing different for the bind process. It was super simple to use and worked well. The reports on SAFE Select seem to be not as positive as original SAFE. However, I have not used SAFE Select to compare. With how stable the Cherokee is, I would not bother trying to get it to work. I would instead lower the throws (rates) and use 20%-30% expo on the surfaces. Use small inputs and the Cherokee will fly around very scale and is highly stable. You may want to reduce the elevator rate down to 75%-80% and use 30% expo as it is very sensitive. As Bill pointed out, be sure to align the elevator to the small rectangular indent on the fuselage. The leading edge of the elevator (stabilator technically) should be centered in that indent. If it is not, the Cherokee will be a challenge to fly. Once set, the plane is very easy and relaxing to fly.

If you have had any rough landings or impacts on the nose wheel, you may want to swap out the rudder servo. Impacts on the nose wheel can chip teeth on the rudder servo and if it jams, the plane will spiral into the ground. I replaced mine with metal gear servos and use a servo-saver on the nose gear pushrod. I lost my first Cherokee to a jammed servo and my thoughts are that a rough landing could have damaged the servo and caused the failure.

[xviper]

Some stabilized and/or SAFE equipped models can't be tested on the bench until you run the throttle up to at least 25% to initialize the stability. IE, you will see no response to moving the plane if you haven't "blipped" the throttle after you plug the battery in and initialize the ESC.

[Rando]

BRGT350, thanks for the suggestion. I decided to go with the Futaba S3117, which fit in the mounting spaces really well - used a thin piece of cardboard from a CocaCola case on one side to snug them up good. My Cherokee is the pnp version and I'll be flying it with a Futaba 16sz and R617FS receiver. If anyone is interested, I figured out a fairly simple way to swap the flap servos, though most folks probably wouldn't want to go to the trouble. Your servo saver idea seems reasonable and I should have one in a few days. As soon as it arrives, I'll install it and then I'm headed to the field to see how she flies.

[BRGT350]

Thanks Rando, and yeah, I am interested in a method to swap out the flap servos. I gave up on both my Cherokees and my Timber. I don't use the flaps that often and figure a failure would a low probability, however, I would feel better with them replaced. I had a few not so great landings with my latest Cherokee and the servo-saver worked great! I also didn't notice any loss of steering control on the ground.

[Rando]

OK - here's what I did for the flap servos.

1. Place the wing top down on your work surface and remove the inner portion of the plasic plate with servo connectors from the wing root. (Note where the flap servo lead comes out through the foam just above the hard plasic insert inside the wing.)
2. Access the flap servo area, gently lift up the servo. ( Note how the servo lead is routed in the servo area and where it comes out through the foam.)
3. Use a 3/16" diameter round wood file, or similar tool, and slowly bore an opening from just next to the servo lead where it comes out through the foam at the wing root to the servo area.
4. Remove the servo plug from the plastic plate and remove the metal terminals from the plug. (Keep this plug! It has a hole for the tiny screw that secures it to the plastic plate.)
5. Bundle the metal terminals tightly together with a small piece of tape, attach some wire to use as a pull string, and slowly pull the servo lead out through the servo area.
6. Remove the metal terminals from the replacement servo plug, bundle them together with tape, attach them to the wire/pull string, and slowly pull them from the servo area out through the wing root.
7. Insert the metal terminals of the replacement servo lead into the original servo plug from step 4 and secure the plug into the plastic plate, then mount the servo into the wing.

As I said before, most folks would probably not consider this to be worth the trouble. For those who do, a couple of important things to note...
- An opening can be bored in a direct path from the wing root to the servo area - just be sure the path runs behind the hard plastic piece that the landing gear mounts into.
- Bore the opening in a trajectory so that your tool doesn't come out through the bottom of the wing before reaching the servo area.

In my case, the 7.5" replacement servo lead was barely long enough to reach out through the right wing root, so I'll be extending it about 2".

If I could do it over again, I might drill a hole through the hard plastic in the wing root just under where the servo wire comes out through the foam. The reason I did it the way described above is because I had no idea what was inside the wings that might cause me to abort the attempt to replace the servo. I'm not sure how, or if, E-flite/Horizon expects people to replace a bad flap servo on this Cherokee. Perhaps they just want you to buy a replacement set of wings - which means you're still going to be stuck with the original servo. That's assuming a replacement wing set comes with servos. If not, then what? I would be curious to know their solution.

This may not be the best way to go, but there it is. May the force be with those who dare. :[)

[BRGT350]

awesome, thanks Rando. Reading over the instructions, they make sense and I can see how you solved the two issues I had when I tried. First, the servo lead appears to have been installed prior to the wing being glued together. Opening up the foam allows the wires to be removed through the servo opening. Second is the connection to the plug in the wing root. My plan was to drill a tiny pilot hole in the new servo plug and run the screw into the new plug to retain it. No doubt that the flap servo swap is not for the faint of heart. The rest of the servos were super easy in comparison. I have done them on both of my Cherokees. I did my Timber too, but hated how the rudder and elevator servos were glued into the fuselage. I didn't do the flaps on the Timber either.

[BRGT350]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnCxWp9XhHI&lc=UgwLOlvpiWM9lr6DH0Z4AaABAg

thought I would share this, however, most of these topics have been touched on already. I will probably be doing another with my blue/white Cherokee, which has more details than this one. I will need to take the cockpit apart on the red/white one as the dash gatored and instrument panel is lifting after I had it on display at an airport open house a few weeks ago. Thinking of doing another video to cover the results of flying with the servo-saver, which has proven to work very well!

[ChloePug]

Just as a follow up (because I was given great feedback about how to fly the Cherokee I kept crashing.) So it turns out the receiver was installed in an incorrect orientation which is why AS3X was working in reverse against me. Turns out it was a factory defect for a batch of planes from Feb - May 2019. E-flite made it right & after reversing the receiver in the one plane I didn't crash....she flew just fine!

[xviper]

Just as a follow up (because I was given great feedback about how to fly the Cherokee I kept crashing.) So it turns out the receiver was installed in an incorrect orientation which is why AS3X was working in reverse against me. Turns out it was a factory defect for a batch of planes from Feb - May 2019. E-flite made it right & after reversing the receiver in the one plane I didn't crash....she flew just fine!

That would crash it every time. Good to hear they admitted to this error. It seems Horizon is better than most at admitting fault on their products.

[lkruse]

I'm in the process of installing the radio in my PNP Eflite Cherokee. I've not found anything in the manual addressing the elevator off-set for either of the the flap positions. Does anyone who has flown their plane have any advice on the elevator percentages?