ah, working better now.  i bought a stupid quad copter from 7-11 that flew once and now just goes crazy.  noticed that hair was wrapped around the props.  didn't fix the quad, but it thought to look at my smartplane again.  noticed that the prop was shoved so far back on the stem, it was brushing the wing - no wonder why the plane just flew into the ground.  used a knife to push the prop further out, and it's flying again.  and i bend the body upwards a little, now it flys better - tended to dive easily.  still having turning problem. the rudder deflects to the left much more than to the right.  think i'll try a little piece of tape and a bit of paper to make a rudder stop to even it out.

i looked carefully at the alignment of the wings, body and tail.  they are not perfect, but not wonky either.  no different than when i first got the plane.  the rudder does appear to flip to a greater angle to the left than it does to the right.  i tried to gently twist the servo mechanism in it's mounting, thinking maybe it got out out alignment.  i wasn't able to move it enough to compensate - i felt like i was stressing the mounting to much.  "reverse" is off in the settings.  is the buzzing sound from the rudder servo normal?  it appears as soon as the plane is synched to the phone.  that sound has been there since i got the plane, but it's intermittent.  i'm wondering if there is interference from other bluetooth or WiFi devices in the building.

newest problem: there isn't enough power to fly!  push up full throttle (flight assist on, trim off) and the plane just flys to the floor.  not sure what's going on here.  is there a way to "re-flash" the onboard chip back to 'factory settings'?  i need to check with a magnifying glass and see if there might be something, like some dust, wrapped around the prop shaft, but i can't see anything like that with naked eye.  my flying goal was to fly out a full charge without crashing once.  i'm not there yet, and the flyability problems are preventing any progress towards that goal.  thanks for the reply.