Official FlightLine OV-10 Bronco Discussion Thread

[Evan D]

Phil, for others reading your posts it’s nice to add your location to you info area. Where down under are you? I’ve been to Perth/ Fremantle and Sydney…

[Phil34]

Thanks for all your input guys,big help trouble for us down under is our exchange rate is horrible makes the planes twice the cost and then add about 120 for freight as well.was a great model though,have some serious thinking to do cheers

[Evan D]

I agree, especially at the new lower price.

[xviper]

That's a heart breaker. This OV-10 is one plane that if it happened to me, it would have to be replaced with another one.

[MeyerVW]

Oh, Sorry to see that.

[Phil34]

Anyone who's interested this is the fatal maiden flight https://youtu.be/pPO-r33tmfg. Enjoy, or don't.

[xviper]

The lucky man!!!!!

He most definitely was. I, on the other hand, have not been so lucky. I've crashed 2 planes picking up the wrong battery, although both were fixable with a lot of work.

[Phil34]

The lucky man!!!!!

[xviper]

It's also not impossible and sometimes very easy to put in a just used or uncharged battery. I've done it a couple of times myself. Grabbing a battery that just came out of another flight. Same thing happened to a flying buddy who's been flying for 15 years. He didn't put his used battery in the usual place and accidentally picked it up. The next flight lasted less than a minute before he managed to dead stick back down.

[Phil34]

Ummmm you have really got me thinking thanks so much for your input most appreciated phil

[Evan D]

The aircraft as wired from the factory can not draw from a single battery. As you had one battery about right after a 1.5 minute run and the other dead I don't know of any way other than that battery not being fully charged (or discharging some way over night). Well, you could of had a MASSIVE current draw from that side but if that happened you would have fire or smoke.

[Phil34]

Hi guys thanks so much for your quick reply ,wow what you have said all makes really good sense however I only own 4x4000 packs and fully balance charged the lot the night before and never had any issues with any of them,as to the calibration only did the one that chimed as previously stated only one battery chimed on the bec side,my in experience. Question if only one esc chiming would that cause all the Amp draw off one battery and what would normally not work with this scenario. Many thanks for all your input phil

[xviper]

What Evan said. Also, it's important, especially on a multi-engine, to do a throttle calibration right after binding.

[Evan D]

Sorry to hear about your crash.


To me it sounds like one battery was not charged? If it was the battery on the BEC side, you would lose all radio signal especially the final drawing of power by lowering the gear. If it was the battery without the BEC then you would have basically an engine out causing severe roll.

[Phil34]

Before and after photos.

[Phil34]

Hi team my name is Phil and I'm from newzealand,I'm somewhat new to rc planes I have a small collection of warbirds all electric,freewing,fms etc i have only been flying about 2 years anyway I purchased the ov10 which is the first twin battery system I have flown anyway I have a conundrum that I would love to get to the bottom of,so her we go from the top.assembled plane ,went very smooth using James very good wiring video,a must see ,upon finishing did all tuning,cg etc and rechecked every thing about 10 times as per usual,very happy.
Maiden,using 2x fully charged 4000s taxied etc ,calm day no wind took off,seemed a little sluggish,managed to trim up as was diving slightly still felt heavy in like the cg was nose heavy ,on the second pass decided to land and recheck everything was still on full throttle,and here is when it all went wrong as soon as I deployed gear the plane went into a superfast uncontrollable spin/dive,I was flying 3 mistakes high and it hit the ground destroying every thing bar the rear stablyser including batterys,motors the works.Sorry this story is so long guys.
The aftermath was interesting her is what I found 1 remembering the flight was short 1.5 minutes 1 battery had 83%and the other 3.5%although this battery was very badly damaged as the plane hit large rocks ,no engines would turn as they were surverly bent.
Here is where I kick myself and have a dilemma, when I assembled the plane and first plugged in the battery's as per the Manual plugged in the lead with out the ubec and there was no chime ,so plugged in the second,ubec side and all chimed OK and bound fine,as previously mentioned everything worked correctly,elevator, rudder,flaps,gear and both motors all OK,, obviously I thought this was how it was suppose to go,as didn't have any issues,so can any one help explane what went wrong,I don't care if you laugh at my obvious novice mistake,I just want to learn before I buy a replacement,thanks for taking the time to read all of this sorry it's very long,many thanks phil

[EAMRC]

Has anyone 3d Printed a "D" model nose yet ?

[ElCid]

Lost my OV-10 today. I had a total of 2 good flights out of 5 attempts, before today’s mishap. After fixing the items in prior posts I thought I had all the gremlins sorted.
Take off was smooth and the plane was flying perfectly. On my 3rd loop around the field (flying from right to left) making a left hand turn towards the runway, the left wing dropped a bit, I corrected thinking it was wind. Then midway down the runway it went off tune, started to visibly yaw left and before I could cut power, correct and get the flaps down it, was in a uncontrollable left hand spin into the wood behind the field.
Upon retrieval of the plane, we found the left nacelle ESC was fried and the aircraft is un salvable.
On the one hand this plane has been a nightmare since day one, but on the other hand, when it was flying well it was a TOTAL JOY.
Now I am torn, do I roll the dice and buy #2 or change it up and go with something else?

[xviper]

Was the stock motor performance with the scimitar props verified with any onboard monitoring/logging equipment?

No. I have no such equipment.
PS, from the time I posted that, I have flown this plane many, many times. In level flight, it is much livelier and faster. Before, it could not do a loop from a full throttle level pass. It would fall out long before it got to the top. After, with scimitar props and new ESCs and motors, it could do loops all day long. climbing at a steep angle became effortless. Take off run, although not bad before, was much, much shorter after (if I so desired). As I said, the stock motors, even with the new ESCs, could not spin those scimitar props from the Eflite EC1500 up to speed.

[Gizmo6023]

Just finished installing Eflite P25's into the OV-10 so they can drive the 5-blade scimitar props. As previously noted, I've already installed 60A ESCs. The stock motors can't quite spin those props us to speed, so I'm hoping these motors will make them sing and give the OV the kick in the pants I'm looking for. The new motors are a bit longer overall than the stock ones and there's quite a gap between the cowl and the prop base plate, but I care more about the performance than the looks. The picture of the prop is with the stock motor. Test flight will be in a couple of days.

Was the stock motor performance with the scimitar props verified with any onboard monitoring/logging equipment? I'm curious to know how far out of the motor specifications the setup would be with a more scale style of flying. I have already upgraded my ESCs and have installed 11x8 APC props, but would like to run the 5 balded props on the stock motors if the only performance issue is during acro maneuvers. The gap between spinner and nacelle could be addressed with a 3D printed backing plate for those that the gap bothers.