Yesterday I had some issues with the EXI 450 FBL that resulted in a fractured swash follower arm and a displaced aileron ball link.
Today I replaced both swash arms (they have to be the same size and aren't exactly standard, so to keep them the same I had to salvage two spares and replace them). I fixed the displaced ball link, and removed the blades. I test spun the system and found that the main shaft was bent. I replaced it. I also checked the feathering shaft, since a bent main often means a bent feathering shaft, but it was fine. So I cleaned up the bearings and re-greased them, put everything back together. New balanced blades put on, re-zeroed the pitch (whenever I do anything to the rotor head I always recheck the swash. I find that when I make sure both blades are zero at zero pitch I never have to fuss with the blades being off in tracking). Set her up for test spin, everything sweet, tracking fine, balanced and vibration free.
I still don't know for sure if the follower arm failed first or I crashed it through pilot error (I am still a beginner heli pilot, after all), but things were going just fine until they weren't.
Posted with Blogsy
No comments :
Post a Comment