Stearman Unboxed!

The Stearman arrived and is unboxed. Waiting for the ESC and motor, then I can start on the build. She is beautiful. This kit is top notch! It is amazingly light. I am completely unready to fly her, so there is no rush with the build, but I love that I have her!

Right now she is tucked away and waiting for me to learn a couple of build techniques and get those parts.

Bent Shaft on Ground Flip

Yesterday morning I took the Cubby out (today I did too... see the account above). I was trying out the regular EP prop. It was a little breezy and the Cub was twitchy, never got her off the ground as I couldn't control her on the roll out. To prove the point on the second or third attempt she tipped forward suffering a blade strike, bending the shaft (the heavier EP prop sustained very little damage). I brought her home and could not figure out how to get the shaft off (now I know, see the account above). So I simply grabbed a pair of pliers and straightened it out. was able to get her so straight there was virtually no vibration at all and the blade tracking was tight! This pic is pre-repair. Looks like only a small bend but the prop wobbled something fierce with about 5mm to 10mm disparity between the blades in tracking.

Glad I fixed it, but at the time I had no idea how to get the bent shaft off a perfectly good motor, to say nothing of how I was going to find a replacement.

Hanging by a thread...

The other day I broke the prop on the Exceed J3 Cub 4ch. I went back to nitroplanes.com and found replacement 8x6 (8 inches, 6 pitch (6" per revolution) slow flyer props for $3, but shipping was going to cost me $9, so $18 for 3 props. No way... shopped around and everyone is not-in-stock. I go to eBay, where I usually start for these very reasons and find I can get 5 for $8 and shipping is free from rctimer in Hong Kong. So, $16 later I have 10 coming from China, but that's not helping me now. I call my LHS this morning and they have one 8x6 prop, but its not a slow flyer, however it is for an electric plane. That's the shiny new silver one on the Cub in the pic, nicely installed. It means my Cubby will be rather fast, which isn't likely a good idea as I am just getting the hang of it. But Daddy wants to fly, and as we read in the previous post, he has piss poor judgement, so I bought it and put in on the Cubby today.


The housing rubbed a little, and I could tell it was because the motor wasn't precisely centered, so I took the fairing off to widen the hole a bit, when I discovered that the motor was hanging by a thread... one bolt where three were supposed to be. (I've turned it on that bolt to see the holes where the other bolts were supposed to go. You can see they are pristine). The other two holes were virgin...no screw had ever been there! Jeez... I couldn't figure out how they mounted this thing since you can't remove the motor without the mount, so I tried to work a couple screws in the existing holes without direct access. Maybe that's why the guy who put it together cheated out the other two? It worked, but it ain't pretty. I had to use a smaller screw under the motor, a larger one I just couldn't drive. So I repaired that, and I installed the prop. It has a slightly shorter chord at its widest point than the slow flyer blade it's replacing. Its also a bit stiffer. We'll see just how much difference this makes tomorrow.



All fixed. You can barely see the tiny black screw.

I need to go back to work so I stop crashing my aircraft...

4 Seconds of Flight, Maybe 5...

Maybe its the Pentacostal's because that's all I got today flying behind their church. 4 whole seconds to a spinning death. It was breezy again, but not a bad day. I set up the CopterX 250, and spun her up. The first clue was that she wanted to rotate left again while still on the ground, just like before. This time though the tail rotor headspeed was quite adequate. That's when I should have stopped. But I thought... (yeah, I was thinking...), "I can compensate for it", so I throttled up. She went up about 5 feet into a twisting hover with a determined yaw to the left, rolled to the left as she nosed down hard, and continued the 360 right into the dirt as I hit throttle hold. Parts flying everywhere, one blade flying about 15 yards in front of me arcing about 30 feet into the air, the other flew over my right shoulder at head height and winged deadly silent past me 10 yards behind. I just stood there. Yup... I... was... still... thinking...  I went over to the heli about 10 feet away and she was on her side rotor head all twisted, a servo screaming in pain becoming silent as I picked her up... All that excitement in 4 seconds! Booya, this is fun! So I collected the parts pieces, took a few memorial photos and a vid, and put her away quietly.

4 Seconds... A Day in the Life of CopterX 250
"Phoenix" I refer to is the Phoenix RC Flight Sim.
The video is of the after crash walk of shame, not the flight itself.
Its only worth watching if you want to laugh at me.

Being stupid I pulled out the newly airworthy EXI 450. Now it was quite breezy. I set her up, powered her up, stepped back with my finger on the throttle hold, and a voice spoke to me.

"Don't fly..."

I heard it, softly, again and again, quiet, undemanding, persistent. Scenarios of my past flight mis-adventures flashed slowly through my mind. Uncertain, I paused... I looked around at the sky, the beautiful unbroken heli, listening and feeling the wind die down encouraging me. The voice was still there. But now that it had my attention it said, "Its not worth it. Stop for today, we are tired of repairing helis based on your wicked bad flight skills and piss poor judgement. Use good judgement this time, spare us the whining and the gnashing of teeth. Just stop. Just stop this insanity..."

Another moment went by in silence.

Wait a minute... that's not in my head! My 450 is negotiating with me!

Chagrined that either the madness had returned, or that this is what common sense sounds like, I stepped forward, set down the transmitter, pulled off the canopy and disconnected the power. Enough for today. Enough.  Lets go home...

I went home, finished repairs on the ERazor and set up her CCPM, put a new prop on the Cubby (the only one I could get while I wait for the 8x6 slow flyer props to arrive from China. The ones from nitroplanes were $3 with $9 for shipping. To hell with that... so I checked out my LHS and he had one 8x6 prop, but its not a slow flyer... I may regret this).

Then I flew the Phoenix sim on the "true model" settings. I wasn't aware I was flying on "stable, 50% fake" until I read a post on Helifreak... Now the sim flys just like I do. 4 seconds, duck and cover, clean up my trash.

Tomorrow we're flying the Cubby!

"Trying is the first step towards failure!"  ~ Homer Simpson

New Day

I want to fly sooooo bad! Have to hit the gym this morning with the wife, then I am free. Hope the wind stays settled down. After yesterday the Cub is grounded, though I will call the LHS to see if they have an 8x6 slow flyer prop and maybe getting to fly her later today. I also plan to take the EXI back out today... Hope I can get somewhere with her and get a decent pack of hover out of her. I am also going to try the 250.

The ERazor took quite a hit. I rebuilt her last night and she's almost flight ready. Needs a vertical tail fin to protect her tail rotor, ordered it last night. She needed a new main shaft as it was slightly bent (could only tell when I took it apart and rolled it), the sheared feathering shaft had to be replaced. One of the main thrust bearings is suspect but looks good and functions fine. Replaced the totally wiped out flybar, but the cage looks fine. the pitch servo and the elevator servo stripped and had to be replaced. Lastly new FG blades, and check the CCPM.

So, today is a new day. Hopefully new success!

Today's Carnage

It was just too nice a day, brisk gusts be damned. I found a new flying field. Just off Popp's Ferry behind the Pentacostal Church there is a big field, lined in the back by a small trailer park. Huge, with a small road no one drives on running through it. Perfect. And the road was heading right into the wind.

I took the Cubby up nervously. It flew great, but the upwind wing would lift with the cross wind legs, and it would scream down wind. I actually nearly hovered it into the wind, pulling back the throttle! On one of my landings, my last actually... it landed, then tipped forward with the prop hitting the ground, breaking the prop and flipping the plane. Broke the forward part of the wing. this thing reacts quickly. It was well balanced today.

This is a preflight pic of the CG centering check.
I made these stands, works great.

I decided, what the hell, I'm going to fly the ERazor. It hovered nicely for several seconds, but I just couldn't control it. I have a feeling I need a lot less expo than I have (I dialed it down to 25% and it was still too much). It was always a little behind my commands and then would suddenly over react. The Futaba GY 401 gyro held like a rock! Now that's a good gyro. But, alas, it too went to ground and blades went flying. Broke the tail fin, ripped the feathering shaft apart, bent up the flybar. Not sure what else just yet. It was cool, just like on the Phoenix sim, blades flying through the air! Needless to say, the 250 stayed in the car. it wanted no part of this.

I am really enjoying the plane. It flies. I must be patient with the helis. I am getting longer and more stable time, albeit small, each time.

It Stopped Being Fun About An Hour Ago...

In my previous post I tell about how great today was! But now it seems my EXI 450 and I have a tradtion too, just like the CB180D! I fly it, it bites the dirt with its blades, and I replace the main gear, the main shaft, and the feathering shaft. But tonight, there's more fun!

I knew I needed to replace the main gear, so I did, and in doing so, I had to pull the main shaft which I found difficult to do because it was bent... So I replaced it, and the generic replacement part is just a few molecules too big, so I have to break out the Dremel and grind it down a bit, but its easy and I get it to fit. Now, where the's a bent main shaft one checks the feathering shaft, and lo and behold, it too was bent, though quite subtly. And in replacing it and pulling the main shaft I had to move the servos a bit, and... wait for it... wait for it... yup, one of the servos was stripped! One of my nice strong metal gear digital EXI D213F servos. And this being a Trex 450 Pro clone, the pitch and aileron servos are impossible to get to without pulling the battery tray, which has 4 screws on both sides. So I remove the battery tray, remove the servo. I plug the new servo in the receiver to check 90 by moving the servo to both ends of motion and centering it, and then put the servo arm on it. Its pretty much spot on. I install the servo, rescrew the 8 screws with a touch of CA. I reconnect the swash links and then to check CCPM I fire up the transmitter, set throttle hold, and it binds. What's this? The servo I just replaced is up at a 30 degree angle tilting the swash. How can that be, its centered... but no, somehow its not. And because the servo arms on the Pro are buried in the frame, I get to take it all apart again. So I do. But I am pissed, and without thinking I accidently change the model in my Dx6i when scrolling the menus. You guessed it! It unbound, and the motor, which I didn't unplug (I ALWAYS do but didn't) fires up and before I can unplug the battery my nice carbon fiber tail blades destroy themselves on the glass lamp, which fortunately doesn't break. Geez... So, back to removing the battery tray and the servo... 7 screws come out just fine, but one just won't budge... and it strips, but not before rounding off my Mugen steel hex driver, which I then grind down as well to fix. Yay! I have to break out the extractors. Which don't work, so I drill out the bad screw, replace it, and put its 7 good brothers back in. I reconnect everything, and make a minor adjustment to the elevator link to level the swash. All that's left is to put the blades back on and recheck the CCPM.

And tomorrow I will do it all over again! But I hope to solve the tail wag problem... Yay...