An Awesome Heli Day!!!

Parts arrived! I reconstructed the rotor head on the CB180D, took it out for a test spin, did some minor tweaks in trim, and damned if the little bugger didn't fly like it should have right out of the box! Still needs a bit of rudder trim, but I was so happy! It hovered, hands free even (with some drift). It was controllable in all directions, and I "walked the dog" in a low slow flight around my house with excellent stability, even in a breeze! I am back in the game, baby!

My CB100 #1 also continues to be operational. It is scheduled to receive the new 2.9g hot rod tail motor I have coming from WOWHobbies with the new tail stabilizer set (http://bit.ly/b7rHwS). I installed the Xtreme Harden blades and the Xtreme Skids upgrade as well. I suspect I will be updating the motor soon.

CB100#2 remains grounded because I couldn't save the tail motor... I tried soldering the wires, but the frail ones on the motor were just too short and broke easily. I ordered a regular 2g motor to replace it. I took the broken carbon fiber tailshaft from the UFLYS and cut it to make a replacement tail boom. I had to sand down the ends to fit it in the heli and in the replacement tail motor holder. I applied ca to both ends to keep it from splitting. Looks really good. When the new motor comes in later this week I will solder the wires and run them externally (its a solid carbon fiber boom). I alredy have the replacement mount, and its stabilizer is seriously better than the stock one; thicker and sturdier by far. These break so easily with a hard landing. I noticed that the wires on the replacement motor are all black, all 3 of them... I asked for some advice on HeliFreak; hope someone knows how to handle that. In the meantime I replaced the broken battery basket, installed the Xtreme Skids and replaced the cannibalized flybar links. Later I will put the Xtreme Harden blades on that one too.

I am still waiting for HeliDirect to get the UFLYS head guide set in stock; recall they are sending that to me free (see early posts). I did receive the replacement tail strut support. I found, however, that the tail shaft and the tail power-takeoff pinion still don't mesh properly and the tail rotor wasn't developing adequate headspeed. I removed the shaft and realized there was way too much flex at the junction of the pinion and the tail shaft. I removed it and found that the tail shaft connection to the pinion was delaminated; it was like a brush! So, I ordered a replacement tail shaft, and another pinion... I got another tail boom while I was at it as I am not sure this one is true. I really hate this part of this heli and will  not by another shaft driven heli with a similar power takeoff arrangement.

All in all, after todays flights and successful reconstructions, I think my serious heli issues are under control. My 3 weeks off from work is coming to an end, and I will return to work on Monday, seriously slowing down my adventure.

Well of course inkjets can't print white...

Noob mistake. I realized that anything white was going to be "clear"; I think a couple people on Helifreak.com pointed this out as well. So I re-did the "white" and gave them a color. There are still a few I will have to print on white decal paper.

Parts came in today, got CB100 #1 flying again. Went well. Despite having the pitch out to the furthest spot on the bell crank, there is just no oomph in this bird in any breeze.  I will need to learn something about electric motors and upgrade this puppy's main motor.

Decals are us!

The weather mocks me... perfect flying weather, no helis to fly.  

So I made decals!  I was wandering around the internet when I came across a vid on You Tube about printing water slide decals on decal inkjet paper, letting them dry, spraying a bonding agent over the them 3 times, then using them like regular old water slide decals. You know, the kind you cut out, soak in water, and slide off onto your model! It was that simple. At Hobby Lobby I found the decal paper and the bonding spray (the paper is not cheap, $11 for 6 8.5 x 5.5 in sheets, and the spray was a bit less than $5). I searched the internet for the logos I wanted.  I created a PowerPoint (ppt) slide that was the size of the decal sheet (8.5 in x 5.5 in), and took logos from my favorite heli websites (rchobbyhelicopters.com just couldn't be read when made so small, so I excluded it. Sorry, John), some rescue arrows, etc (you can see what I found on the photo). I made them various sizes by manipulating the photos on the ppt slide, and crammed them in. I made a few text boxes with the names of my pilots, my helis, and crammed them in there as well. I had decided I only wanted to buy transparent decals (the Testors ones also come in white background), so any decal that needed a white background (like the Heli Freak logo) I made sure had a white background in the photo (I manipulated them using freeware called Ultimate Paint).  With the first batch, the printer couldn't hold on to the paper at the end so it cut off the last decals. I made a second sheet but taped the back to a sheet of 8x10 paper and it made a complete sheet. I had to center it by hand as my inkjet printer accepts regular letter paper or two sizes of photo paper only. Worked fine).  Tomorrow I will put them on my helis!  Very nice!  Ill post photos after I get them on the helis.

Good day!

Calm this evening, so I took the CB100 #1 out front and flew it. Hovered great! Flew good, just still no pitch authority, so sometimes it was hard to move it forward or backwards. I broke a blade when it struck the street trying to keep it from going backwards. I realized this one has an unbroken servo bell crank on the pitch servo, so I just moved it from inner most to the middle (may need outermost). Looking forward to flying it again with more pitch authority. The boys came out with their Syma and Micro-micro mini coaxials and loved it, until they realized that their IR transmitters were controlling both helicopters and they flailed about. That was actually funny! Good day!

Waiting for CB100 parts, including Harden blades, battery try replacement, better skids, and a better tail assembly and tail motor. I need to order a more powerful main motor too, if I want to fly these outdoors. I'll hot rod one of them, and if it works out, I'll do the other one. Nice to have one bird doing what it is supposed to!

My name is Job...

This morning, coffee in hand, I fired up the computer and started my Clearview flight sim. It decided that my trial period was over and locked me out, inviting me to register. This being my bought, paid for and registered Clearview. I tried to reactivate it, couldn't. I removed it, cleaned the registry, it persisted to demand I register. I emailed the programmer who promptly got back to me. We have tried a couple of things, finally getting me back to demo, but it now thinks I am already activated, it won't let me deactivate so I can reactivate because it considers me activated, but won't let me fly because it considers me unregistered and in need of activation. Such is my world...

CB100 #2 made it clear today it is an indoor heli. Once again finding itself on the wrong side of another neighbors fence, ignoring any and all control inputs as it disappeared despite what really was a dead calm morning. On recovery, inspection revealed that the tail fin snapped off and disappeared. The tail motor would not develop headspeed when it did spin. Further inspection revealed the thin wires had separated. I spent the morning doing microsurgery and soldered the tiny wires back together, restoring the tail motor function. I thought I would take the tail fin off #1 And put it on #2. I found out that to get the fin off you have to cut the wires, remove the motor, remove the fin, replace the motor, resolder the wires. This just after I spent the morning working the other helis wires. I thought I could just barely clear the motor, and pulled on the tail fin, only to snap the outrunner off the brushless motor. This sucked... I decided I didn't want to run the risk of doing that to #2 in fixing it's tail fin, so put everything back the way I found it. The outrunner flys off in a crash, but I managed to get it to spin and develop the needed headspeed (after I super glued the blade base to the out runner as it would nit stay seated) and it works pretty well. I'll replace it someday. I decided to cannibalize #2 it and fly #1. Had to trim it, but it flew, indoors, fair. It has this occasional gyroscopic wobble, during which I cannot control it as it ignores control inputs. This became less of an issue the longer it flew. It still responds variably to inputs, but I could hover it and recover it when it got a mind of it's own. I had fun with it, but it's instability makes it not ready to fly around a crowded room.

So today I learned I can trouble shoot a broken motor and it's mount, wire and solder microscopically small (and way too short) wires, tune and fly a broken bird.

Still trying to get my Clearview flight sim to work...

And today I realized that my name is Job. I figure the kingdom of heli heaven is my reward if I prevail!

It's the lucky guys that make me want to spit...

It's YouTube vids like this one, over and over again, showing the insane stability of these helis, that makes me so frustrated. Search YouTube for UFLYS, and there are dozens of them. I purposefully bought simple, extra stable helis so I could learn to fly, enjoy it, then crash them trying to do more. So far I really haven't done anything except try to get them to fly, and fix them when they don't. Many of these vids talk about how stable these are right out of the box... Mine can't even hover with the training gear still on the ground and my hand off the cyclic without skewing off quicker than a skittish bunny.

Watch this... He can do this because he doesn't need any cyclic to stabilize it, as it does so on it's own LIKE ITS SUPPOSED TO, otherwise he'd have to have both hands on the controls.

Click the post title above or http://bit.ly/ahR4eQ

Keeping the faith, one day at a time!

Mixed day

I got CB100 #2 up, trimmed and flying. Needed to move the pitch servo linkage out to the farthest attachment to get the control I wanted. I wanted to do that to the roll servo, but the end of it is broken off, so it stays where it is. I'll be buying another one of those...  But it hovered nicely in the Man Cave and gave me some satisfaction. Still waiting on parts for CB100 #1 which continues to be grounded.

Took the UFLYS out to hover, still a little breezy. The damn thing remains very unstable, not at all like others enjoy, even in dead calm. As it gets light on it skids it starts to get ziggy, and as it lifts, it is off an running in some odd attitude. It runs off in different directions each time, so its hard to figure out what is wrong.

I will never buy another shaft driven tail rotor heli unless it has its own motor at the end of the shaft as this UFLYS has been one problem after another. Despite my repairs, the slightest blade of grass causes the shaft pinion to grind unmoving on the main gear. The rotor shaft remains snug, so that's not the problem. Took the tail off and the pinion looks good. I did break the bolt connection to the tail "stabilizer", so I may have to buy a whole new tail assembly.  In removing the tail boom the connector piece that hold the horizontal "stabilizer" and the boom supports, as well as the rudder linkage broke. This thing is so fragile... I will need to replace that as well.

So far it seems these Walkeras, in my experience, are those "money pits" that John Salt warns us about.  I haven't gotten one to fly normally, except the single CB100.  Not sure I will buy another one.

Addiction is in coming back again and again despite the pain... I am addicted.

UPDATE: Hmmm... I wonder if the broken H guide of the rotor linkages is allowing the swash follower too much play? I thought about this looking over the a/c. This would be nice, because it means I could soon have that balanced heli.