Yesterday I tried to fly my little electric "Stik" model. After range testing I found that the aileron response just wasn't right. Checking the internals, the prime suspect was a home made Y lead which came with the model. Opening up the heat shrink sleeving on the lead, two joints were soldered (Positive and Signal) the rest of the wires were twisted together. Back home I replaced the dodgy Y lead with a new one, and to my surprise, I got the same result as before. I checked the lead, then the aileron servos, all OK. Thinking it must be a fault in the receiver,( it had been down in the dirt a week earlier) I changed to another one, which produced a dodgy aileron channel as well. Just to make absolutely sure , I switched the Tx over to another model and, you've guessed it, the model had a problem with the ailerons. By now I'd come to the conclusion that the fault was in the transmitter. I contacted Mike Ridley at Model Radio Workshop, but he couldn't help as he doesn't work on FrSky stuff. T9 Hobby Sport are Taranis agents, but the thought of packing the Tx and sending it off didn't appeal at all. I had a look inside the Taranis' case, all the plugs were in all the sockets and there wasn't a loose anything anywhere. I remembered that earlier in the year I'd left the transmitter in the shed during a cold spell, and when in the Sun at the field, the display couldn't be seen due to condensation. As there was nothing to lose, I unplugged everything with a wire on it, treated the terminals with contact lube, and plugged everything back in making doubly sure that the plugs were firmly in their sockets. The final result was that aileron movement is now as crisp as the rest of the controls, and as a bonus, the four channel receiver is back in business. This fault must have been developing for some time, as I noticed that my flying was a bit better with a Spektrum. I had taken for granted that the type of model as well as the different radio system was making the difference in control response. This year I've had a couple of unexplainable fly-aways, both ending off the field, both had me wondering why I couldn't get the model under control. Never gave a thought to anything being wrong, as range checks and stick waggling didn't really show up a fault.
