Psyching Myself Out

I had a beautiful day, no wind really, even on top of Mt Hudson. I took the Waco 26cc out, and the HobbyKing HK 500 with its BeastX FBL system. I could not have had better conditions. As is common here, I was all alone.

The Waco was as charming as ever. Turns out up high there was a bit of a crosswind, so I working on my approaches and landings, I had to contend with a crosswind behind me that clears as I got closer to the ground, no muss, no fuss and it was fun. On my last roll out she tipped a bit forward and caught her prop, tipped over on to her back, and knocked her rudder loose, ending the day (already fixed). But what fun!

LOVE that sound! She ran perfectly.

Aw, I love my HK 500! I have worked hard and finally had her perfect. The setting were spot on in the programming, the gyro tight, the tracking perfect. I have been practicing on the Phoenix Flight Sim and have confidence there. IRL is the trick... Nice pre-flight photo!

I took a moment before lighting the fires and chanted to myself, "Just fly the little fucker... Just fly her!" My hands stopped shaking, and I felt in control. Pushed the throttle and as she spun up put her into Flight Mode (my normal is zero pitch all across), lifted up into hover, and she was rock solid, just like the big boys. I inched forward, and then started to fly her! I took her out in circles, figure 8, see-saw back and forth, tail in, tail out, and had her in perfect control! After 4 minutes, with another 2 left in the tank, I landed her perfectly, exactly where I wanted her, and shouted out! I jumped up and down! I have done it!  I have done this before, but was always on the edge of who-is-flying-who, but this time I was in complete control. It felt awesome!

Big Smiles! Happiness!

I felt wonderful, and having wanted to focus on getting my basic flight heli skills, have been working on it. I was moving forward! I put another battery in and did it all over again! As I was coming in from my left and began to bring her nose in, she rolled a little to her right and I corrected, my subconscious moving her left, a little gust rolled her a bit more, and I corrected thinking... in my conscious thought she is nose in, in my subconscious thought she is not. Conflict arises, panic rises, conscious thought wins and I roll to correct INCREASING HER ROLL! Subconscious hits HOLD knowing I have lost her, conscious starts the lamenting wails of all the hours and perfect setup about to pretzel into more hours! Anger and bitterness!

I am so mad I can't see straight, and the sun blinds me from seeing the screen, so I barely catch the scene of the crash, and forget to scour for cast off parts.

On the bench. Tail is pretzeled, the belt is cut in two places and I had to walk back out to find the tail rotor. The main shaft is slightly bent so will be replaced, and will check the main feathering shaft. The blades are completely delaminated. HOLD protected the main gear, and luck is mine as the servos are all fine. Not so bad after all, but will take a lot of time to set up again.

Not so happy face...

So that ended the day, as I had only brought the two. In accordance with my agreement with myself I don't count heli crashes now, as every flight is a crash and I would never make progress. I am not counting the tip over of the Waco as she is fine, just a little epoxy on the rudder hinge.

I have ordered the belt, and deconstructed the wreck. Later I will take the main shaft out, rebuild the feathering shaft, and put Humpty-Dumpty back together again.

Today I cleaned up, lubed and lit up the ancient Hirobo HDX 500se. I love this heli, but parts are getting harder and harder to get, nothing left from HeliDirect. She was my first non-450 sized heli and I got her for a steal many years ago. She is a flybarred 4S heli. She flew great for years, but over the past couple I have had a problem where she electrically twitches. I think not just in power up, but also at rest, all of her servos are quiet then a sudden destabilizing twitch. It comes in quick irregular succession. For years I have tried isolating it, from grounding the frame, to oiling the crap out of the tail belt (decrease the charge build up). Nothing. The only thing I haven't changed is the motor. I have set her aside because this makes her unflyable, and since I wasn't looking to invest anything in her now, I have a cheap Assan GA 250 MEMS AVCS gyro on her. It doesn't hold her tail well at all now, though she used to (and it has on my other previous flybarred helis, perfectly). My only other Flybarred heli now is an Align Trex 600. It has a Quark gyro, which I love (I used to use Align gyros, but haven't had much luck with them).

She is a beauty.

Her CCPM mechanism is WAY Rube Goldberg in design. Its leverage system allows smaller swash servos to drive the flybar. They are all micro Hitec HS-81MGs. Pretty ingenious, but complex. 

I lit her up today, she tracks perfectly, all the settings have stayed put. She is super responsive, I had her swash pitch set to 12 degrees, and had to turn it down to ~10. Her tail drifts, and oscillates... mixed messages. She doesn't have any slop in her tail. I ran her for a bit and I think she only twitched once! Maybe that gremlin has departed. I will keep running her and see it this twitch thing comes back, and if it doesn't will pick up a new high quality tail gyro.  I fear crashing her since parts replacement is a problem, but my policy is no hanger queens... We'll see how this goes. Too windy today to do much else.