HK 500 FBL Refit Underway

Began the refit of the HK 500 FBL today, deconstructing it and assessing the damage. The boom was pretzled of course, but the rest of the tail assembly is fine. I will check the servos here soon. The main shaft, not unexpectedly was bent badly and has been replaced. The main block upper bearing is bad, so today 

I ordered a new block set from Medusa Heli on eBay. I think the old one was going bad for some time. That will be here next week. I may have to open the frame to get the lower one swapped out. The upper one had one of the canopy struts on it that snapped off and I can't get the bitter end out, so it was a waste anyway. Two reasons to replace it. I don't like have the struts embedded like that, so I will move them back a little on the frame. The canopy will allow it.

The gears are all fine, so all in all, not too bad. I decided to sand and repaint the landing gear, as I had painted them black during the US Marines Drone phase of its life, and I hadn't prepped it so it was flaky. I like the bright orange tail, and am thinking of adding a splash of color on the skids, maybe yellow, maybe white. We'll see. 

Looks worse than it really was.

Took the MX-Bach RCGF-USA 35cc on it, and she flew marvelously!

She is a pleasure to fly!

Her idle got a bit higher with each flight so that on the last one she was flying too fast to get her down on the ground. After several passes I tried a procedure I have failed at because for some reason I am unable to hit the kill switch and fly the plane at the same time... well, she landed but tipped forward as I hit the kill and broke her prop. That was all that happened fortunately. But, that ended the day. She was very touchy, and I flew her on low rates. I lowered the rate even further and she is still touchy, despite 40% expo. I may have to bump that up too. Her engine ran fantastically other than the idle shift. Even with my 3 idles, the landing one was still too fast in the end. That will need some tuning,

 

I flew the HK500 FBL a few times, and ended up losing control and pretzeled her after I had a "WHOA..." moment.

Enjoyed a couple of flights on the Align Trex 600e Pro. There is such a huge difference between flying a 450, 500 and the 600, each getting more and more stable. I really enjoy flying the 600 sized helis, and will someday get a 700 just because I can.

So it looked like it went worse than it really did. Ir was a great day of flying!

Death and Reincarnation HK 500 FBL

I took the HK 500 FBL out, with a Trex 600 and my MX-Bach (more in that later), and she flew very well!

At the end of the second pack I had a close "Whoa..." moment tail out, and recovered , but she was flying off to my left, and I kept compensating in the wrong direction, still a bit shocked by the close encounter, and I rolled her into the ground. Pretzeled. Broke one blade, cracked the canopy thrown by the battery, and bent the tube. A swash control arm bent. Haven't gotten to the main or feathering shafts. The battery took a hit, so I have since recycled it.

I immediately started planning the rebirth, and I could replace the swash control arm, or, I can turn her back to her previous 4-blade head with the Align 4-blade head I have had for years. I use 450 sized blades with it, I have four similar blades and a new 500 size tube. I am considering using 500 blades, especially if I am going to 6S.

So that is the plan, I will make her a 4-blade heli, and probably fly her 6S! 

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????