You live and learn. Tried to tell ya need water proof ESC
It’s all good what do we do. Rebuild better and bigger 
Cheers mate… yeah learning from my mistakes still, but the day ya stop learning ya may as well give up on life! 
Pulled out my housemates cordless blower and sent a cyclone through the ESC and motor, still fkd, so plugged in another brushless motor to eliminate any issues with the original motor…nah, still fkd, so it’s definitely the ESC that’s cooked.
It’s going on 2:30 in the morning, but the RANGER is all “Doctored” and ready for hopefully more than one flight tomorrow.
Took 2 hours looking through the parts pile to find the original MAD FLOW waterproof brushless ESC as a last minute brain fart that I MUST have something laying around to do the job until the new parts arrive.
It’s a 30A, so larger than the stock 20A unit, but only has a 2A 5V BEC compared to the original 4A 5V one.
Had to get the angle grinder out and lop off the water cooling tubes to get it to fit, but has some gnarly ali air cooling fins that will do the job just fine… Hopefully!
It’s mounted up in the Cabin, as not enough room in the Cowling, but CG is still all good and will get plenty of airflow pushing past it.
Plugged everything in and overloaded all the control surfaces to test if the 2A BEC could handle everything, then checked the linear throttle response, as some cheap digital ESC’s still act like the old 3 step mechanical units!
All smooth as silk and nicely linear response, after swapping the wires to get the motor rotating the right direction.
So yeah, maiden Part 2 tomorrow if the weather allows, but won’t have to worry about any spray off the waves fkn the ESC any more, now only worried about those flight control Servos shitting themselves. 
What communication is for. Never stop learning and I don’t. Minute you stop but is interesting as I don’t but as you know with your skills can come back better you know what I mean.
I lit myself up with a 9" flames coming up under the helmet.
Hmm I smell Mohican burning, me Mohican must be me
Classic… Looney Toons
Awesome by the looks, wheels up in 5
There were 2 Eagles out today, chasing the little half metre Warbird Planes instead of the Speedboats this time, but the larger and brighter coloured 1.2 metre RANGER scared them away!
I do believe that I said “NO MORE” in an earlier post in regards to not buying anything else after the last 1100mm CORSAIR Warbird model purchase…
… but after many months of putting one of these into the “too expensive, you don’t need it” category, a supplier offered a deal too hard to refuse!
I have always limited myself to a sub $300 purchase cap no matter how desperate I was to own a particular model, simply to try and set some “boundaries” somewhere as to 
money on things that could be destroyed in the blink of an eye.
This particular “wish list” model was always in the $400-$500+ price range, so I had come to accept that I would never be able to own one.
But as my comments in other recent threads here, suddenly this became offered to me at a SALE at a price I could only dream of with FREE shipping … so the “buy now” button was smashed and I went straight down to the shops to stock up on more 2 minute noodles.
That’s DEFINITELY IT, NO MORE! 
But at $37.50 per week for 4 weeks, it’s not a big pill to swallow, 2 minute noodles are cheap!
If you try to get this same model from the same seller right now, it’s back up to over $400 to get delivered, even though it’s exactly the same model that I paid under $277 for what was originally worth over $800. 
PS: yes, I’ve already got the float kit to suit this model in my shopping cart!
I’m gonna have more float planes than land planes!
Yeah… you know what I’m calling on that one, Doc
“We’re gonna need a bigger boat…” springs to mind.
Resistance is futile
I nearly spat my baked beans out 
People are looking at me a bit strange 
@DocBob btw as haven’t had time your advice on the fuel is the go as I was having hell trouble. Thank you for taking time to help me with that. Really appreciate it.
Friggin chainsaws and bikes wouldn’t go.
They farkin do now once I know what I’m doing.
No worries mate, glad to help out and save you constant grief trying to keep equipment starting and running … because ain’t nobody got time for that shit!
What an interesting afternoon!
Now I see why the RC Aircraft expert that I follow on YouTube warned about checking out the strength of the factory Glue on the outer wing strut connectors.
The FMS RANGER V1 that he reviewed had issues with the outer strut mechanisms detaching, causing the wing to fold and snap off under load.
Then he later reviewed the new FMS V2 version with an additional carbon fibre wing spar rod fitted to strengthen/connect the 2 wings together to help share the load across both wings… which is the model that I purchased, so was never expecting wing separation to be an issue… but boy was I wrong.
Practicing my water takeoffs and landings again today, and was confused as to why it suddenly started to tip hard to starboard on takeoffs, thinking maybe it was copping some portside winds out in the middle of the Weir or maybe not properly lined up directly into the wind.
Then on the third tilted takeoff and into the Air, I noticed that it was handling like a bag of potatoes and seen the right outer wing strut had completely disconnected from the wing!
Obviously the couple of previously lopsided handling characteristics were from the outer strut connector slowly coming loose from the wing, creating an uneven wing loading on takeoff.
Backed off and nursed it around for an approach over the shore to head into the wind to get it landed back on the water close to shore, then only 20m or so before reaching the waters edge the right wing snapped clean off, sending the whole Airplane diving down nose first into the sandy shoreline. 
DAMAGE REPORT:
Munted the thread on the prop shaft.
Snapped the fronts off both floats.
Bent the float struts to the starboard side.
Cracked both strut attachment mechanisms on the front of each float.
Tore out both front and rear Landing Gear/float mount brackets out of the fuselage.
Starboard wing strut laying in the sand with the wing attachment outer mechanism still attached.
Starboard wing was still semi attached, pivoting off the wing spar, but with the inner locking mechanism missing/still pegged into the Fuselage.
I can understand the stresses applied to the wings where these blokes online are doing all sorts of STOL flights and heaps of high speed aerobatics… but I’ve only flown this Airplane for 2 days like an absolute Nanna whilst getting accustomed to the flight characteristics, and yet it STILL lost a wing the same damned way as the earlier V1 model. 
So today was spent picking up the pieces and dragging out the “RC Repair Tool Bag” to see what could be done to put it all back together again.
Luckily it did actually nosedive into the sand rather than the water, as was much easier being able to pick up all the broken parts off the ground rather than doing search grids out the middle of the Weir in the Kayak, possibly losing even MORE parts to the murky depths … but also possible that the damage wouldn’t have been as bad if it nosedived into the water rather than the shoreline.
Glueing everything back together and using whatever tape I had in the tool bag that I use for the RC Speedboats to clamp repaired sections while waiting until tomorrow for the glue to set … ESPECIALLY the Starboard wing strut!
(Used the clear Speedboat Hatch Tape on the starboard float to start with, then thought “that shit’s expensive”, so used the cheap Leccy Tape on the rest of the parts! )
Just needing to come up with a plan to do some “Docs Mods” on the inner wing to fuselage locking mechanism to strengthen the crap out of it in the event of another possible strut failure in the future.
I’ll pull off all the tape and straighten/reassemble everything tomorrow, as the glue should be fully cured, and see if it can survive at least more than a single day in the air without something going wrong!
Day #1: Lost Spinner and fried ESC.
Day #2: Lost a wing.
Day #3:
Wheels up in 5
What goes up must come down or so they say. Up is preferer able but sometimes.
Oops houston we are going down .
Should have seen the brown out crash that I had. Ah fk theres a 1.7M bonfire you beauty
The bonfire after the Air Crash Investigation seems to be quite the ritual!
Luckily I’m not quite at that point yet, but won’t dismiss it happening at some point!
You’ll be alright, all part of the fun. Was only a Cessna anyway 
The Ranger is based off of the Cessna 172, and might also end up in a funeral pyre one day the way it’s going!
Got everything back together today, beautiful sunshine and clear skies, but is gusty AF and was no way I was going to be putting anything into the air or onto the water.
Had a few runs with the Rock Crawlers instead, until I ran out of batteries.
This weekend is going to be wet and windy, so will be working on the TYLOSAURUS with all the parts that arrived on Wednesday for the custom build. 
I’m just hoping that the Hull can withstand the stupidly fast gear and mods that I have planned for it! 
Look out, I’m thinking 10 second bracket
Classic example of the water drenched ESC issue that I experienced with the FMS RANGER on my very first flight off the water.
I also have one of these FMS Maule’s already shipped out to me, but have also already ordered a 60A waterproof ESC that’s currently on its way to replace the stock 40A non waterproof ESC as soon as it arrives… from the lessons learnt with the Ranger and the same as this bloke found out on his first water flight as well.
Problem is that FMS must have picked up on this issue and moved the ESC to the rear midsection of the Cabin, and yet this bloke says in this video that he moved the ESC forward, into the same position as the Ranger, as he was trying to achieve a more forward CG… big mistake!
It’s super clear in the video how water gets thrown into the Prop off of the Floats, which gets sprayed directly into the air cooling opening for the ESC. 
This moron says that it’s a “reciever” issue, but it’s definitely 100% the ESC getting soaked that short circuits the whole electrical systems and causes the motor to make those horrible grinding noises and the Reciever signal functions getting disrupted.
They are a 3 phase motor, and the water damaged ESC is crossing the phases trying to run the motor in the correct direction, but throwing mixed phase signals trying to reverse rotation the same time as applying the opposite rotation signals.
The very second he wing tipped it at the end of the video and you hear the water striking the Prop, it died AGAIN in less than 60 seconds, despite him replacing the receiver that he thought was the issue in the first instance, it’s obviously water getting thrown into the ESC again that is the problem.
Luckily this annoying idiot has somehow snagged the BEAUTIFUL Miss Amy as his Missus to make his videos worth watching! 
She’s definitely not the sharpest Crayon in the Pencil Case, but I’ll turn a blind eye to that in the interests of product “research”!
I’m going to order a GPS speedometer for the RC Boats, as I think it will be very interesting to see exactly how fast these things are flying across the water. 