Now THAT's a bulkhead!

Constant problems with the bending of the front landing gear on my Greatplanes Twinstar lead to replacing the gear with a much hardier gauge. This worked great, transferring the energy to the bulkhead, so that broke. Finally got around to rebuilding it. I think I was building mad, because like the chimney at a house fir, this is all that will be left standing next time!

You can see the thinner plywood of the original bulkhead that is also the front landing gear hard point.it was all pushed in, so just pulled it out, cleaned up the spot.

3mm plywood.

I put in a couple of layers of 5mm plywood, dammit.

I  the end 3 layers! I have issues.

I  the back I added a small piece to add some support to the deck.

Used the same hardware.that is one solid hardpoint.

Sits perfectly!

Of course the engine ran fine...

I had omens.

Every one in! We be flyin'!

As before, runs smooth on the ground, in the air, sputters like crazy, but runs like crazy!

I noticed something fall off in flight, no effect on controllability. Turns out she tossed her nose cone, broke the head of the retaining hex screw right off.  Louis helped look, but no joy. No problem, she hand starts fine, just one of those annoying things. She flew wonderfully, did several 45 deg landings into 90 deg crosswinds with no issues.

I started the Evolution 10cc on the Sbach. My first inclination was it was too windy for this small 10cc, cranky touchy on a windless day, but the gust, while magnificent (20-25 mph), they were not frequent, and always that 90 deg cross wind. I started her up wingless and with one small Hi needle adjustment she started and ran better than ever! Consistently. I decided to put the wings on and take her up. She flew her usual touchy self, 20% DR with 30% Expo and she was still touchy. The occasional gusts tried to flip her, and in controlling back she would be a bit over controlled. at altitude this didn't matter. Made a couple of missed approaches not because of the crosswind, but because she responded very aggressively to the changes. On final she dropped flat as a pancake from about 10 ft up, and broke her back, snapped the wing spar. Unrepairable, but I am kinda done with her. She has never been fun flying. I am not at all sad. I am annoyed that I just got the engine to run sweet. She crashed because of course the engine finally ran fine.

Opportunity to find something new. I have not had a good relationship with the Sbach or the spitfire. I don't want another Edge/Cap/Sukhoi stunt plane. I don't want an Ultrastick while my Stik is still flying fine. Not sure what I will do. For now she is on the Morgue Bench and we will strip her for parts.

I was putting batteries into the Trex 600e Pro, but the gusts were aggressive and I was no longer in the mood for excitement, so I decided that waiting was the better part of valor, the better part for which I live to fly another day.

Maxxpacks.com 1S 10,200 mAh Panasonic Transmitter Pack for iX12

My Maxxpacks 1S 10,200 mAh transmitter pack arrived within a few days, about $35 delivered. As promised it is quality in build, exact same dimensions, same plug; simply remove it from the box, and plug it in. I simply removed the OEM battery, plugged in the new one, and that was it. Charged overnight. Works fine!  Glad to have done this, makes routine use, leaving stuff on, no longer a problem! Highly recommend.

HDX (Lepton) 500

Once upon a time HeliDirect I am told, sold a version of the Hirobo Lepton 500, called the HDX. I know I have one, but I don't know the real history, as it has gone legacy. I bought this used, and believe it is an HDX 3D-500SE, as that is what I was told when I bought it back in 2011. I am trying to get a manual from HeliDirect. It was in great condition, I did crack and replace the frames with a much sturdier version several years ago when I could get parts for it from HeliDirect. This is an amazing little heli. It uses a push--pull system that is very busy, allowing it to use micro servos instead of standards on a 500 sized heli. It has run wonderfully but for having developed a seizure disorder that has plagued me and kept me from flying her for the past few years, which I think I solved today! She would be fine and then all of the sudden her controls would "seize up" and release. In flight this never amounted to more than a "WTF?" and she would return to normal before any badness happened.

As I was tuning up her CCPM cage today, she did it a few times and I was actually able to see what happens. I don't know why I never noticed this before, it's not the first time she has done it on the ground. What I noticed in two separate events that the reciever blacked out, came back, but didn't show a drop: steady reciever light. Now in chasing this problem I have replaced everything electric, not sure about the ESC and its piggy-backed separate UBEC, which is key. I even tried grounding the boom and its Van de Graff static to the frame, and oiling the belt. When I saw this it occurred to me this was a power problem. Is the UBEC bad? 

I removed the separate UBEC circuit and resoldered the wires from the ESC (when you use an external BEC instead of the one built in on the ESC, you should/need to cut the red wire from the ESC to isolate its BEC, so I had to re-establish the red wire). The BEC on this ESC is not a linear BEC, but UBEC, with plenty of amps, so I really could have used it, so, I am. Since completing this repair, the problem is gone! Huh. We'll see tomorrow when I take her up. I'm pretty excited.

HDX 500SE with the stronger frames. 

Look at that complex set of levers! Pitch and Elevator servos.

Rebalacing... 

Perfect as is!

That's the one 4S battery I have left. I used to fly her 4S as that is the biggest battery that will fit. I plan now to series two 3S batteries for 6S voltage. (Um... that isn't actually going to work now that I think about it. They are only 2200 mAh, so they would be way to short of flights).

Curiously the CCPM wasn't quite square, the swash plate was a bit high. Did my technical standards go up? Well... One issue I can't fix is the swash pitch. She is all square now, everything's 90 deg on the cage. The most up pitch I can get is 10ish deg because the mechanism tops out, but there is plenty of room for neg pitch to almost 15 deg. How little was I getting before I lowered the swash to square it? Is this why I had her a bit unsquared? This should be fine for sport flying but I may need to bring the swashplate down more to get a more even pitch range with more up pitch.

Very nice!

I don't think I ever had the OEM canopy (is the one she came with original?), so she has this one now. I want to change it to read HDX instead of Trex. I think the tail boom is also a replacement.

No matter what she is one very nice machine!

UPDATE (6/8/20): So... HeliDirect has no manual, and no parts. I can use a lot of Trex parts, but what if I strip the main or autorotation gear? I think that is really the only parts that are specific to it, that I can't replace. What do I do, not fly it????

Heli up, heli down, heli up!

I brushed off the Align Trex 600 EFL Pro, and programmed it into the iX12, an easy process on an FBL system that is already set up and programmed, as is the case with this heli's Spektrum AR7200BX (since discontinued, an AR 7200 receiver with a BeastX FBL system). Create the model in the transmitter, make a reversal here and there, the usual model programming and she was all ready.

I fly her 10 to 12S, Sport. So much tech!

Once I set her up took her out and flew her, tuned the tracking one turn, perfect. She flies wonderfully. I was pretty nervous, and brought her nose in to land. She came down sweetly but the tail landed first and the tail blades caught in clumped grass. The tail blades delaminated and the front torque tube gears stripped. One tooth on the auto-rotation gear split. There is no other damage. Pictured above is after I removed the tail assembly, so it does look like devastation! I have to replace the front toque tube gears set, the auto-rotation gear, and the tail blades. Since this is one of my two pure Align helis I searched for all Align parts. Medusa Heli on eBay had everything I needed, ordered and parts are in their way, $50 later!

UPDATE:  Turns out I have the Front Torque Tube gear set for a 600 heli, so I went and installed that. Now waiting on the replacement auto-rotation gear and the new blades.

I turned my attention to the Align Trex 600e PRO with its beautiful flybar cage! Programmed it into the iX12, and reset up the entire cage from servo control arms to the blades, all 90-square now! I increased the pitch from 11ish to 13ish, and aileron/elevator to about 7.5ish.  Oiled the bearings, re-balanced the blades and ran her up on the bench at low speed to make sure everything stays put and runs balanced and smooth, sans main blades.

Bench run up.

Heli day in the lab.

Align Trex 600e Pro, Quark gyro, Castle 80A ESC, Align servos all around, Spektrum AR8000 receiver. Very nice machine.

All the electronics and wires tucked in.

Ready to fly! My favorite size of heli, the 600.

Heli magic, Pulse XT60 Noise

Gnarly skies, but no wind to speak of!

Brought out the HK500 FBL and flew two wondrous packs! 

She flew wonderfully. I gained confidence and felt in control. A couple of errors were quickly recovered from, flew nose in and landed, took off again, never out of control. I really enjoyed it! Was ready to fly some more, but some others showed up and I don't really feel comfortable with others watching. I am going to get the other helis set up on the iX12 and focused on flying them,  and more sim time!

The Pulse started fine, but for a couple of times would slow and quit at WOT after a minute. This stopped. On the ground she is pretty smooth, a little 4-cycling. Up in the air she flies well, but gets really noisy with sputtering and the occasional backfire at WOT. I don't know why this happens. It's weird, but she otherwise works great. I have taken to flying 40:1 because of the oil spitting, mostly in the 10cc's. I don't think it will make a diff, but I am going back to 30:1. I thought it might be rich, but the needle is cleaned out as much as is good, and I read 4-cycling isn't from being rich, and that a little is normal. I don't know how to fix it. I worry only because I don't want the engine to be damaged, especially the occasional backfire pops which scare me. Have to wait to test it.

Oh, this pic. Not a crash. Landed fine, taxing in, made a turn, and all the sudden she dropped on her knees. The hardpoint delaminated, and just came off. 

It was in one solid piece, it didn't break. No damage to the plane. The front tabs were stuck in the fuse, the back one's came out clean. 30 min epoxy, tapped into place snug, then clamped.

For good measure I counter-sunk a couple screws forward, one aft. 

Should be good and sound! 

Sbach Evolution 10cc running and flyable

The Evolution 10cc on the Sbach has been a challenge. Recent over haul damaged an O-ring on the low needle which has two of them, none to be found anywhere, but Horizon Hobby found a carb set and sent them to me! I replaced the damaged O-ring, and set about tuning the needles. Idle is best achievable, pretty much at stock settings, Low 4-1/4 and Hi at 2 (stock 2-1/4).

Idles good, nice acceleration, good high RPM. The pull back to idle is slow. This usually indicates a rich Hi needle, but leaning it doesn't improve it. 

She still spits a LOT of oil... at 40:1.

Looking forward to taking her to the field so it can go wonky again. I'll put the cowl on guaranteeing it will.

I like the look of wheel pants, but at grass fields they take a beating. I have 3 planes with them still. I removed  repaired, repainted and reinstalled the Sbachs pants.