Christchurch and District Model Flying Club
Sloping Off - our newsletter

WHY ORANGE RECEIVERS ARE ORANGE

BY IVAN PETTIGREW (Chilliwack Electric Fliers)

A few years ago when Orange receivers came on the market I bought a few for using in models we flew indoors. In small models every fraction on an ounce counts, and it was discovered that the orange case weighs more than the receiver. So most of mine were stripped of the case and just the receiver taped inside the model.

When Ron Snow gave me a small foam Rare Bear a few years ago I put one of these receivers (without the case) in it because I wanted to keep the weight of equipment to a minimum.

Lately I got caught up in becoming involved with the combat team at the lake and decided to fly the Rare Bear. First day out, Dan Whalley and I touched each other with a glancing blow, but both models survived and kept flying. Second time out last Monday we improved our aim and had a near head on mid air. Both models hit the deck, Rare Bear coming down in four different places; wing one place, half the tail in another place, the nose section with motor quite a distance away and the rest of the fuselage someplace in between. Chunks of foam floated down elsewhere.

We thought we did a pretty good job of cleaning up the environment, but when I got home, I discovered that one piece of foam from the wing was missing, and there was no sign of the receiver. Going back to the field in the afternoon, I found the missing foam piece, but no trace of the receiver. Finding a tiny circuit board in a picked over strawberry patch is not easy. Then the penny dropped. It would have been much easier to find it if it had been in the orange case! Smart guys, those ORANGE designers.

No big deal, the foam pieces all glued together like a jig saw puzzle, I borrowed a receiver out of another indoor flyer, and the Rare Bear was back in the air this morning. All the other equipment in it still worked perfectly.

I was not going to go looking for the receiver again, but Gerry insisted. When we were at the point of giving up, I was calling to Gerry to go back to the pavilion when I glanced down at my dusty shoes and there noticed some small pins fanned out in different directions, sticking out of a strawberry bush. Check the attached photos.

Can you imagine the tug of war as the plane broke up and the servos and speed control went in different directions with the components they were attached to. But not a single wire was broken, and in spite of the rain on Wed morning, after straightening out the pins, the receiver lit right up without even having to go through a new binding procedure. Long live the ORANGE receivers, but don’t remove the case when flying combat.

Ivan