Maiden Flight (kind of long)

[sidecar53]

Well, just got home from the park- wind 0 mph and blue skies, never flown before. When I bought my Super Cub I had the forethought to buy an extra battery, which turned out to be a good idea. I can't throw my plane because of a failed rotator cuff surgery on my throwing arm, so I tried a rotg flight. After several attempts with battery #2, the plane didn't seem to have enough power to get off the ground so I installed battery #1. Taxied the plane into whatever slight breeze there was, applied full throttle and- HOLY CRAP- I'M FLYING!!!!! Settled down a bit and rose to maybe 200 feet and played around, seeing how the plane responded. Made about 3 million beginner mistakes in judgement, then came in for a landing (loose term). After righting the plane I once again took to the skies a few more times before the battery got low and I came in for the final landing of the morning. All in all, very happy with the morning's events- flew a bit and no damage sustained. I do have a couple questions though. Both batteries were run till dead before initial charge and charged as per instructions. Any ideas why 1 battery was capable of flying the plane and the other wasn't? How can I test the batteries and do I have to kill them before recharging? On a fun scale of 1-10, this morning was about a 39. Thanks for any and all responses. I'll be checking back in a couple hours. Rick

[flydiver]

You can run batteries down to LVC (low voltage cut-off). Do NOT run them until actually 'dead', like with a light bulb or something. This is an 'old men's tale' about rechargeable battery memory and has been proven full of crap. They DO benefit from a half dozen cycles so you very well may see improvement with use.
Sometimes the PZ chargers are not completely reliable about charging. The battery should be warm when it finishes. It will also lose about 10% in the first 24 hours and 1-3%/day after that. A FRESHLY charged battery (still warm) will give you the best power and time.

If that questionable battery doesn't 'come around' in a couple cycles I'd return it if possible (soon). Sometimes a battery will sit on a shelf so long a cell will go bad and once that happens there is nothing you can do about it-the pack will never work right.

BTW-not good for the system to run the battery down on a static plane. No airflow makes for excess heat buildup.

fly