[robair]

Gday Fellow Heli Heads

Just following up on the thread from the Airwolf "For Sale" forum.

The quality of the trex compared to the hk's is considerable and must make the point again that Gazz has done an awesome build job. Nice one Gazz. I have managed to bind ok (lucky I have small hands) and all is working as it should. Look forward to getting the settings completed as per the Gazz set up. Thanks KV for helping me with getting the gear channel/ switch sorted.

Dave, I understand the benefits of flybarless however I am more scale oriented and am likely to go multi blade rotor first. Having said that are there 3 or 4 bladed flybarless options available?

Bring on the heli school as per the other heli thread. Sounds like a great idea.


Cheers
Rob B

[Skidz]

Yes, there are multi-bladed head options available aftermarket. You might need to search through some of the other well known RC Heli forums to find information, or perhaps join and ask. The Trex600 is very popular and there are a great many who have put multi-bladed heads on for scale set ups. You will also need guidance on blades (size & type), motor gearing, etc.

Edit: Rob, looked up the airwolf on the interweb. Doesn't the real life airwolf only have two blades?

[gbanger]

Hey Rob
I found the extra set of stronger rubbers for the rotor head and the spare main motor gear.
I have them in my flying bag and will give them to you next time we get a chance to fly.
Gazz

[brotherblonde]

Dave, you are right about the 2 blades for Airwolf.

It's based on the Bell 222 which is a 2 blader.

Rob, if you want a scale static look, go for a flybarless setup. Otherwise, leave it as is because once flying, people can hardly see the flybar so it will still look scale.

Just my 2c worth (whatever 2c IS worth nowadays.)

[robair]

Gday Andrew

I was chatting to Dave about this on the weekend. I am not going to mod the airwolf, it looks the goods already. My attention in regards to multi blade rotors would be applied to the HK500GT.

I have found a couple of aftermarket head suppliers that have stuff at a not too bad cost.

Cheers
Rob B

[robair]

Gday All

Hope you had a good AGM, apologies I could not be there, I was seriously delayed flying back from Brisvegas so missed the show.

When I got home I decided to have a bit of heli practice in the backyard with the ever faithful HK500GT. I had just fitted the training gear and was looking forward to pushing it a bit more and not worry about tail striking which I had come close to a few times whilst nose in hovering and landing. Went through one battery no issues and then went for the second flight.
Disaster..
I had just picked her up into a 1 foot hover when one of the main blades failed completely at the root. I saw a blur of white blade fly past me, the heli launched itself sideways about 10m and side buried itself.

End result, flybar bent to crap, the remaining blade also smashed, tail boom now a banana, main gear and pinion stripped in places, 1 servo stripped, a couple of links MIA, main shaft probably bent, small "hole" in my lawn and one freaked out wife who was watching from inside and is still in awe of the way the whole thing occurred. The blade that failed is on my neighbours roof!

From my perspective it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen, when a heli decides to fail it does not stuff around. If I was in the path of the failed blade I would be in hospital now, if the heli had shot off after the failure in my direction I would not like to consider the consequences.

In summary I have been lucky so far as this has been my first crash and it was not caused by dumb thumbs however the speed at which it all happened and the forces involved are phenomenal. I can only imagine at what the result would be if Skidz's Logo let go in some shape or form.

She will be replaced! Heli's rock!

Cheers
Rob B

[gbanger]

Nice explaination Rob, could not have said that any better if I tried
Sorry to hear old faithful tried to decapitate you.
Gazz

[robair]

Gday Gazz

I am still spun out as to what happened. Stay tuned, I would like to bounce some theories of the fellow club rotor heads. I am getting info together and I am going to try an suss out what failed first the link or the blade. Also thinking my head speed may have been a factor, ie too high?

Cheers
Rob B

[gbanger]

You are in the same boat as Kieran (scratching your head)
His little 450 deceided to commit aviation today while flying perfectly.
It carried out a half heimlic following by an impersonation of journey to the centre of the earth.

[Skidz]

Rob, description fits a failed blade. Any chance they were "E-bay" type blades? There are numerous reports of budget blades picked up on E-Bay and the like that were failing at the root. That also explains the sudden & violent ending.

If you are running 13T or less pinion, the head speed is fine (based on 1600kv motor). 13T on the 150T main gear gives around 3000rpm at full throttle. That is what my Trex500 is set up for. That is provided the rotating parts are of sufficient quality to handle life at that sort of speed though.

[kizza42]

Maybe it felt a tremor in the force about its little brother and let go in sympathy. Luckily have my new MCP-x to tie me over.

[robair]

G'day Dave

The blades in question were HK 3d composite jobs and had come from Darren so can't question their integrity from that perspective. Ran some calcs as per your equation and was well below max head speed.
Kieran, you may be right however isn't the force supposed to be "with you" not against you? Ahh hang on, I forgot, heli pilots are on the dark side!

Cheers
Rob b

[Skidz]

Be careful!

This happened to a guy with a Trex 500. He turned off the TX before disconnecting the battery and didn't have the failsafe set up. It spooled up - he tried to grab it - you can see the result.

http://www.archeli.com.au/forums/showthr...p?t=148046&page=3#22

Imagine what a 600 size heli could do.

[Too Drunk to Fly]

My cousin sent me this.... http://www.seek.com.au/Job/remote-contro...y/21205850

[kizza42]

I applied, only a month late! Got nothing to lose at the moment

[Too Drunk to Fly]

Good Luck

[brotherblonde]

The website said "extensive travel"...I hope they didn't mean China!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BKR9nbQH2Q

[Skidz]

That's the Yamaha RMAX. Pretty pricey. Developed for Japanese farmers to spray their crops.


Link: http://www.gizmag.com/go/2440/picture/3592/

[helijeli]

Turned 50 yesterday and thought about what would be an appropriate gift. My wife suggested a new computer or some other useful thing...
Nah!! Another aircraft!
I received a new Heli from Hobbies in the Hills - a Blade 450X. I was planning on a Blade 450 3D (Flybar) but the salesman convinced me that for only an extra $130, I could have a Flybarless version with the AR7200BX flybarless system, more powerful motor & CF blades.
Only problem is that I've already returned it (with my DX7) for checking. As you spool up and about to lift off, everything goes dead, and have to rebind the Tx - then wouldn't even bind. Looks like some kind off power problem under load. Am thinking if the flybarless is temperamental, might be better off with the cheaper flybared 450 3D. Hopefully will be sorted - maybe a dodgy ESC - might be worth fitting a BEC for security - flybarless/receiver going offline midflight would be bad!
Anyway, hopefully it'll be sorted and will get it back by the weekend.
I think I've definately turned to the dark side looking at my Heli fleet (450X in the middle).

[smuzz]

Well, helicopter aside JohnJelly - happy birthday and welcome to the "Ol' fart's corner", Gazz will show you around.

[secant0give]

Happy birthday John !!

[Claudius]

That is a nice looking plane there Frank - look forward to seeing it fly.

Happy Birthday John!

[paulj]

Happy birthday John.

[Stuka]

Happy Birthday John and hopefully even more Helis

[helijeli]

Looks like I'm grounded for a couple of weeks. The problem I had with my 450X has surfaced again and I've returned it to Hobbies in the Hills today where I bought it 4 months ago. The Heli and my DX7se are being sent to OMP in SA to be looked at. A couple of days ago I found that the Heli had lost it's bind and I couldn't rebind it. Then it looked like it did bind and initialize but the servos wouldn't respond. Another attempt to bind with no luck. On Sunday I had one flight at the field successfully but a few seconds into the second flight and everything went dead around 3m off the ground. A slow spiral down and it ended up tail first into the Pilot Box netting (it did it's job I guess and also kept damage to the Heli minimal - just $20 or so worth of tail rotor parts & damaged cyclic servo gears). Afterwards I realized that a spiraling out control Heli being blown back towards the Pilot is not ideal - it didn't actually come near me but still!).
Anyway, it didn't play up at the Hobby Store when I tried to show the staff the problem but the repairer at OMP apparently have wizz-bang data testing rigs that will analyze it for hours and hopefully find the problem. My DX7 went along in case it's the cause - although it works OK for all my other aircraft. Other variables are at play DX7se has 11ms frame rate but still DSM2 and the AR7200BX (in the 450X) is DSMX - they're all supposed to be compatible but who knows? The Salesman at Hobbies in the Hills was looking for a setting in the DX7se to disable the 11ms frame rate but I don't think you can. Anyway. no Transmitter to fly with till I get it back. I could bind my spare DX4e to one basic aircraft if I get desparate I suppose.

[Skidz]

bummer John. Just remember the DX4e has a low power output so don't fly anything other than the mCPx - which you cant see if you fly too far away anyway.

[Flying fisho]

I recently bought a DX8 and still have my DX6i. I am happy to lend it out if needed if you want to fly on the weekend

[helijeli]

Thanks for the offer Wayne. Will let you know but might take the opprtunity to work on the growing number aircraft I have that are in need of attention. Also no shortage of renos around the house to catch up on.

Thanks for the tip Dave. I was under the impfession that the DX4e was full range. Would have been annoying to see one of my bigger planes fly off into the distance!