A surprise way to lose a plane

[patterndude at attbi.com]

The pretty picture of my new Aries on the aeroslave.com website is how I'll 
remember her.  Got a full day of flying on the new bird with the Mintor 170 
pulling it before the battery unplugged while in straight and level flight and 
she exectuted a 70 mph belly landing.  The wings have minor damage but the 
fuse is toast.

Why did the battery disconnect?  This angered and surprised me.  I used a 
Parsons yellow clip to "make semi-permanent" the extension from the receiver 
to the Radio South 5.1v regulator.  These clips are coded for JR/Futaba and I 
had a Futaba one.  They hold the male/female connector bodies together and 
clip around the joined connectors. The battery lead contained only two wires, 
with the 3rd signal wire missing.  This left only 2 of 3 pins in the 
connector.  Thinking I was doing a smart thing I clipped the Parsons clip with 
the empty connector housing in the base of the Parsons clip.  The leads were 
taped to the fuse to prevent flopping around.  The Parsons clip crushed the 
empty housing and the battery lead vibrated loose.

I inspected the plane carefully after every flight, but never suspected this 
connection could ever come loose.  If I had clipped the parsons clip so that 
the wire and pin were in the base, I'd still have my plane.

I hope my description helps someone.  If you use these Parsons clips, make 
sure there is a wire/pin on the side of the connector that fits in the Parsons 
clip base.  I've used this product in the past without problems, but never on 
a battery with only 2 wires.  If my explanation is unclear, just don't use 
this product on battery leads.

--Lance
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