UPDATE TODAY: Well, I just started on the wings and the aft fuse so I could get them in the trash before the trash man came around, an dust went from there.
Some of the dirt shaken off the engine after removing it. This here is the throttle control rod. Needless to say the throttle servo is toast.
The muffler pipe broke off. Ordered a new one from RCGF-USA. The spark p,ug is undamaged, thought is was broken off.
All done. Cost was the fuseand the throttle servo. When the muffler comes in I will test it on the engine test rig, and if it runs good will put it on the Spitfire which is waiting on the other RCGF-USA 10cc engine to return from the RCGF-USA shop. This one runs perfectly, or did. I expect it to. Despite landing on its prop so precisely the crash site was one foot square the prop and soinner survived. The Spinner will need a paint job, but thats it. Took me a lot of time to clean all the dirt off the engine, between the fins and in all the nooks and crannies, but she cleaned up nicely. Everything rotates clean and smoothly with good compression. These original RCGF cylinder heads do strip the spark plug easily, so I hope its tight enough to hold compressiona and not get low out. Ine3moved it and cleaned it. Not eager to tighten it much at all, made it as snug as I dared. Stripping it is a $55 mistake I can't afford right now,
We begin with the acknowledgement that I am and always will be a total Spektrum Fanboy. No company has been more progressive in developing technology, and until this debacle I have never had any issues attributable to the radio system. Its just hard when you get scared of using a radio, but I am reassured this is not an unfixable problem and that Horizon Hobby will make this good. There.
Prelude: Two days ago, final flight of the day, lost controllability of my Trex 450 using my iX12. I simply had no control authority in the final several seconds of flight. No telemetry on this Orange receiver, and the receiver was ejected from the ESC wire, so no blinking "holds" clues. The battery had 3.89 V per cell still. I was simply flying straight, slight down attitude, and she stopped responding. Since I had nothing else to attribute it to, I checked it off as that once in 10 years signal loss. Pretzeled the heli, already rebuilt it. This was the last flight on my iX12. Everything worked fine afterwards...
What happened today made me very doubtful about my new Spektrum iX12 radio, it being the most likely cause. Spurious reports on the webs suggest that this isn't common, but also isn't an isolated problem. The 450 accident (and to think of it, the loss of the Ugly Stik back in June might be related), then this, causing a loss of confidence. I love my iX12, just need to be able to trust it.
This was the next flight, and the first since I lost the 450, and first flight of the day. Took my RCGF-USA 10cc Sukhoi SU-26 up, engine running great, flew touchy as it does, quick landing and hot adjusted the Expo up a little to 40% all around, and took off. Again flew fine. She has been in the air for about 15 min. Flying along the treeline just above the tops about 1/4 mile away and she seemed not to respond to elevator as I tried to move away from the trees. Thought maybe I wasn't flying her, just thinking I was, but she responded late and cleared. Decided to do a low speed low pass and turned to final. Dropped the throttle to idle to slow her down a bit... but nothing happened. Wiggled it, no response. Tried to pull her up out of an increasingly steep dive, no response. She is WOT with a slight nose down attitude, then suddenly straight down into the ground. I mean straight. From the wreckage pattern you can see she is tightly packed all in one spot.
Again, level-ish flight, nothing going on, just stopped responding to inputs. The Spektrum AR 7010 receiver light was steady, no signal loss, and all the controls/servos worked, except the totally crushed throttle servo (crash even stripped off the servo's stickers), so no signs of actual signal loss. Just loss of controllability. Now remember, this makes two consecutive flights on the same transmitter. That's not good. So setting up a service ticket and sending it to Horizon Hobby for a look-see. They have ALWAYS done good by me, which is one reason I prefer Spektrum.
Oh, and by the way, yesterday I bumped the G switch lever with my hand going for the H switch while bench working a heli, and damned if the thing didn't snap right off! Must have banged it on something before that loosened but didn't detach it. Have them fix that too. I can fix the ones on the DX's, but I am told that this one has the switches "on the board" and they are a bit more involved. Besides, I don't want to open the back until HH/Spektrum takes a look at it.
Next iX12 gripe: I have tried a couple of times to export the aircraft files to the SD Card, but all I get is a set of empty folders. Maybe the files are not in a format a PC can see? This happens every time I try to back up the files. Formatted in FAT32. Have a query out to the Facebook iX12 group.
UPDATE: Found a YouTube Video on how to do it, not intuitive at all, but once learned easy to do.
So for now I am grounded. I can program a couple of planes into my trusty Spektrum DX8, but I have to do that for everyone of them... and the helis are not easy to manually transfer over. I may put one of the 600's, the 500 and the Pulse XT60 on it. I think the Waco is still bound to the DX8 as I hadn't moved that one yet. I suspect it will be well over a month before I get the iX12 back.
Once I get around to it, maybe tomorrow, I will tally up the butcher's bill on the Sukhoi. The spinner and prop on the engine look undamaged but I think the sparky is cracked, and the muffler pipe snapped off. The fuse, of course, is matchboxed, but the servos, receiver and battery survived.
Not good at all. In our hobby you have to trust the radio system, a lot of time, money and effort are banking on it. Grateful it wasn't one of my irreplaceable planes like the Pulse XT60, or the original Eflite Stearman, or an expensive one, like a 600 heli. That would have put me off my feed for a week.
COMMENTARY: Reading the responses on Facebook I always am annoyed by commentaries by people who bash clone recievers like the Orange one on the 450, failing to recognize there is no data to support they are inferior, and that this one has been on this heli for years without problems. Its on that aircraft because it was what I could afford, and has worked fine. I enjoy hearing ideas from others, but think about the data and circumstances described, and reason it out. If you don't have the technical knowledge to back you up, keep silent; for example antenna length doesn't increase range, its a requirement of frequency, and the helimwas 10 feet away with the reciever antenna facing me without obstruction, and has a satellite 90 deg offset. If you then have something to add, share, but if its just to bash, or without thought, its just embarrassing. Orange recievers are fine. Now that I can afford them, I use only Spektrum, but that is no guarantee of reliability over an Orange reciever. Thousands have used them without a problems for thens of thousands of flights reliably. Don't be a hater.critically. Learn how to think critically.
I have recently fallen in love with my 450s, traditionally a challenging heli to fly due to their small size. They require skill and patience, and are very intolerant of any deficits in build and piloting. Only recently have I been able to fly them with confidence.
This is my Trex 450 FBL. It has a Tarot XYZ stabilization system that I program using a dongle and FBL Programmer. I crashed her a long time ago, or was having some technical problem. Too long ago I have forgotten. It was blameless and the tail was just the shaft. I want to replace all of the servos including the tail servo, but thats going to have to wait. I replaced it, put a new tail rotor set on it, and changed out the main shaft. I just found out that the cheapo 450 shafts I bought off eBay all test fine, but are not straight. I had one last pack, and the one I pulled is not great either, but its really close. It has a smal vibration only on lower throttle at start up, none in flight speed. I have ordered some new Align shafts.
The naked 450 FB. I don't know which version of the Trex 450 this frame is, but its different than the Sport.
There is some slop in this flyabar cage I can't fix, whicu is why I abandoned it i the first place for the tight plastic HK one that flew so well. I am grounding it for the next few weeks waiting for the new ones to come from China (no one is selling them in the US). I hope the shaft that comes with them are true. Once that's done she will be sweet!
So the 450s are grounded for now. Looking forward to having all of my helis flight ready!
Better than before! I have had my helis for a long time, last one I bought was the Trex 600 EFL Pro about 6 years ago. When I was building those 450s, the 500s, and the 600s, I was still learning. I did a pretty good job, but have learned a bit since. One of the most important things I have learned is to respect the lack of tolerance the helis have for out of tolerance building and flying. On my 450s I allowed imprecision in the builds that I have since been building out of them. The rebuild of the 450 Sport is no exception. The last rebuild was tight. As I rebuild this time, I am sticking to that.
We started with a pretzel.
I decided to step up to a quality tail servo, moving away from the Emax one I had. It had a little twitch that made me think about it, and since I am now committed to precision and better affordable parts, especially on a 450, time to toss the Emax. This is the KST DS215. This thing is tiny.
All that is left is installing and programming the new Spektrum AR620 reciever, then rebuilding the flybar cage, which is going to be a project. I decided to go with the glass-fiber reinforced plastic tail assembly because it is tight and well made. It is well up to the stresses, and has a new belt. If I didn't use it I would have had to take it apart to pull the tail shaft as I don't have another one. The plastic head performed so well, up to the damage it sustained at the crash.
Next the reciever. Will allow me to test the entire mechanical systems without the blades.
Today was a first! I flew 4 packs on a 450 sized heli and enjoyed all of it, even the crash at the end! I have never flown a full 450 flight set, and have never liked them, until today. As a novice heli pilot, even after 10 years of flying them infrequently until recently, I have been flying sport really well, confidently and with error free precision. I am making it a point to fly a heli everytime I am out, and a lot of sim time. Its paying off.
I brought out the MX-Bach to try once again to land her without breaking a prop, the Trex 600e FBL which I fly 10S. I will be doing more 12S though flying sport I don't need those headspeeds, I only have 5 of the 5S batteries, I think 4 of th 6S. I use the 5S batteries for the Trex 500e, though I can also fly it 6S, the latter getting a little tight under the canopy.
Winds were wierd. There was no base wind to speak of, but brisk gusts of 30 seconds to a few minutes would come from all different directions mostly cross winds, so I landed from the south in left and right hand patterns, and from the north.
The 35cc RCGF-USA engine happily swinging a 20x8 scimitar prop. With the taller tail wheel setup and that big prop, its clearing the ground on all three wheels by about 1 inch at best. I have to land her perfectly. Even even keel mains first and she will strike the prop. I am toying with changing to a taller set of mains I have, but today I landed time and again without any problems. We liked each other today! No broken prop!
She can be a nice flier, but needs really low rates and high expos for a sport flier.
Twitchy if there is any wind or speed. Challenging to fly, but still fun.
Beautiful wierd plane. MX-2 fuse, Sbach wing.
Flew all told about 30 minutes, until I noticed in a preflight that the muffler was loose again. I haven't use JB Weld on this one, but will be. Removed the muffler, cleaned it, painted it with BBQ Grill paint (heat resistent), and will reinstall it tomorrow.
Trex 600e FBL. What a great flier! See her smaller sis behind her.
Nice bits on the 600e.
The EXI/Trex 450 Sport with its beautiful flybar! This plastic head was sweet. Tight and responsive, perfect disk, and flew great. I did find her better on her low to mid rates. On high rates her collective was really touchy and over reactive. I think I need to use 14 degrees instead of 11 to give it better resolution.
Everything is so small!
At the end of the fourth pack I lost her. Now, I know what you are going to say, but this really was a signal loss. She was starting to become a bit slow to respond, and I was bringing her left to right to land, high to lower when she topped responding to all inputs and just continued right down to the ground as her disk was slowing. The main head is toast, many of he plastic parts great for sport flight, didn't survive the crash. I think I have enough parts to build a nice flybar head. The servos at first glance survived. All three shafts are bent, the featuring shaft is almost 45 degrees off at both ends. The tail shaft is also bent. There is a dent and a barely perceptible bend in the boom. The gears are okay so far. This is going to take a bit of work.
UPDATE: I suspect I flew the pack too low. It was an old one, and signs were the sketchy behavior just before the crash. Need to check the pack. It was a bit puffy.
Last beats of her dying heart...
When I got there the reciever was disconnected from the ESC , likely from the crash itself, so I wasn't able to tell if there was signal loss, but I am pretty sure. I wasn't doing anything but a slow descent in straight line. I haven't ever had problems with Orange recievers. This one is several years old. When I rebuild this I will use a new Spektrum AR620 I have NIB.
I so enjoyed flying the 450 that I think after rebuilding the Sport here, I will rebuild the waiting 450 FBL with its Tarot XYZ flybarless system and have two of these. I have so many spare 450 parts. I think I am really going to enjoy these!
Got out to the field today! Blustery cross winds over calm. It took a few landings this time before I stalled her a foot off the ground and broke another prop. No other damange.
The RCGF-USA 35cc runs so frickin' sweet with this 20x8 scimitar prop! She hummed, reacted perfectly, had good vertical, idled perfectly. This is the prop of this engine, no doubt! Reset the crash clock.
Flew two packs on the Trex 500! First pack was all nerves, hands shaking, sometimes over controlling, but no mistakes! Approached and landed nose in!
Me after that first pack. Thousand mile stare. Took a 15 minute break before the second pack, and it made a great difference! Flew calmly and confidently, put the heli where I wanted it, and enjoyed it. I need to keep flying my helis so it becomes as common to me as flying my planks.
Flew the Twinstar with the heavily fortified bulkhead, first time since making the repair. The nose gear stood up to the stresses, the main gear still took a beating. I should probably put stronger gear wire on them. Eventually.
The back securing screw was along as the front one and the backwards flexion pushed it into the wing cote. Repaired that after this pic, but had already trimmed the screw. Did this on both sides.
When I got home I took another look at the bearings in the new red swash arm. The installed ones are new design, using 2.5mm bolt, the old was 3mm. I decided that they weren't helping sitting there with the tight bearings that are too small. So I took a mallet and Phillips screw driver and punched one bearing out, the one already damaged by my previous attempts. I had to work the other one out and that took some doing, but I finally got it out without damaging the arm. So I installed it and now have two matching swash followers! So this will be a problem. Heli Direct confirmed that Align changed the part, and the part number, but discontinued the other part. So when I bend one I will have to pound out the smaller bearinings. All the more reason not to damage them.
A few weeks ago another crappy approach and landing lead to breaking the prop on the MX-Bach. I ordered a couple of Turnigy Scimitar blades from Hobby King, in most part for the price, but also because I like that shape. For safety and looks I like to paint the tips, re-balance and then install.
Tips painted fluorescent green with white center stripe over white primer.
Props are very nice quality.
Installed. I went up from 19x8 to 20x8 as the smaller prop was the lower recommended prop for the RCGF-USA 35cc engine. See what diff, if any an inch makes (easy, killer...).
