Something about the Pulse XT60 has been bugging me.
The thrust line is a tad south of midline. Can't really tell from these pics... This is stock at the firewall so maybe it's supposed to be this way? I realized this after having to modify the cowl, and later thought I should have made an adjustment in the engine mount before changing the cowl. You can see the down angle here.
Better here. Not just the low lying shaft, but the angle.
This isn't the best pic, but I put about 1-2mm (2 washers) of washers on the lower mounts to raise the thrust angle a bit. This does that. I fell better, but we'll see.
Day off today, Memorial Day, so when I finally got out of bed I packed up the Sukhoi RCGF 10cc and yet to be flown Pulse XT60 RCGF 20cc and headed out to SNHRCC in Hudson, NH. The winds were about 7 mph with some calmer periods, increasing to about 10 mph, which brought my flying day to an end. I flew her using the 12x8x3 and really thought she lost performance even though she picked up a few hundred RPM. I quickly changed back to the 13x8x3.
She is up. She flew well, and a couple of hard and one off field landing her infamous landing gear stayed on! The new design proved itself.
Saw the antenna starting to come off so ordered a new one, arrived this afternoon when I got home, but for now I am flying ghetto with package and electrical tape.
Louis Rios, heli pilot, rather nice guy! I think he is going to be very helpful getting my heli skills sharpened.
Clarence White. He is always here, and makes sure the place stays clean and mowed. Ted, don't forget to pay him!
Me flying the Sukhoi in strong 8-10 mph winds for the practice and fun of it. Louis recorded this for me and let out a Jesus! because a wind gusts picked up. You can hear the wind. The winds were down the runway maybe a 45 deg off centerline.
Louis with his 700 Nitro heli.
While short as the winds picked up on Mt Hudson, it was fun flying. I learned to come in higher (thanks, Louis!) and avoid the down draft vortex at the southern end of the runway that pulled the Sukhoi down once despite full power! Landed facing backwards but unfazed otherwise! It was nice to meet and watch Louis fly again, and its always nice to meet Clarence! I have 4 days off coming up and hope to maiden both the Pulse XT60 and the Spitfire, winds permitting.
A day off, the promise of possibly awesome weather, yeah, we are going flying!
Just took the Pulse XT60 with its RCG-USA 20cc, and the Sbach with its Evolution 10cc.
Jay and Louis were there flying their helis. When I first went up there were a few winds up high, and the rotor at the south end was active, but things calmed down amazingly, and it turned out beautiful just as I had to leave.
So the Sbach is tuned and running well. There was a curious period where in idle when I moved her from the start bench to the ground and held her nose up. The fuel pump failed to maintain flow and she quit. This repeated itself. I decided to just fly her anyway. After a long flight I held her up again and she ran on fine. She flew well, ran perfectly. She needed some DR/Expo changes. I turned the ailerons down from 40% to 35%, and the elevators to 35%, and she tamed right down with a bit more authority. With the higher expo I was over driving the sticks, and my style is a bit more subtle on the controls. The Sbach is always a twitchy wench, one has to pay attention as she is very unforgiving. Remember, I had to put vortex generators on her wings. She catches the thermals over the dump parking lot and rises rapidly, and is sensitive in the rotor between the south end Ents and the rise of the landfill we fly on the top of an after rising over the lot, drops like a stone in front of the trees, and then rises again as she approaches the runway on the top of the hill. She isn't unique in this habit, but does seem more affected. Combine that with a tail wind on the base in front of the trees and a 90 degree crosswind on final, and it can take 2-3 approaches before we get wheels down. And then we are hauling ass, so we run out of runway fast. FUN!
She doesn't have a lot of power, is fast, but runs out of vertical fast. That's with the 13x8 two blade. I decided to look at the 12x8 three again, so will fly her that way.
Incidentally, at the field her power switch failed. Noticed that the vibration when the engine was running was making the light blink.. I had my suspicions this past week and today she was twitching her surfaces like crazy and the engine was missing. We figured out it was the switch with that blinl, so I was flying her by connecting the battery directly to the reciever. This evening I replaced it with another one, exactly the same, and she is behaving.
I also flew the Pulse XT60. she flew without any drama. She still sputters in the midrange, but idles well and has plenty of power! She wasn't bothered too much by the winds, but that Hershey Bar wing liftes in the crosswinds.
After yesterday's debacle, I moved forward with getting the rest of my fleet flight ready, today starting with the Pulse XT60.
Took her off the wall and out to the work table. Decided not to lug the wings out just yet. Spent an hour running her and tweaking the needles. She started right up and ran pretty well, but I felt she was running rich still.
After repairing the stripped aileron connector, I attached the wing and ran the engine to see if the ailerons wanted to play the fool and jitter, but nope, all is well. Has only been a problem on the Stik and the Stick.
I'm pretty happy with her and look to take her out tomorrow, weather permitting. I will do a few cosmetic fixes before then.
This is right after starting her having had her on her back repairing the lead. She had to cough up some air first. As I wound the needles to full closed to reset them I stopped counting after about 4 turns... I set them at 2 and 2, finding that's the min to start and run up, probably ended up closer to 2-1/2 for the high, but closer to 3-4 for the low to get a smooth run up. It still stutters a bit with crash to WOT, but its quick and consistent. Last year she ran smoothly on the ground, but 4 cycled in the air at WOT. Will see.
Took the Pulse XT60 out to the garage, put her wing on and checked the controls. Realized the ailerons were on a Y, changed it to separate channels since it has them, and setup flaperons because I could. No mix yet, will see how she behaves first.
First start took forever. She was lean and dry. Tried my 12V starter, and burned it out while melting the plastic on the spinner. Oops... Have another Hangar 9 Pro 12V starter coming from Amazon Prime. This one was over 5 yrs old.
Took a long time to get the carb fuel. This being her break-in tank, i ran her at half throttles and less, occasionally WOT, setting the needles just to get her to run. By half tank (30 min) she wanted more. It was neat seeing her performance improve as time passed bd I ajusted her tuning. She would quit, take forever to restart, but each time less and less quits and shorter restarts with less need for choke. By the end found a decent idle, powerful WOT. Full tank gave more than an hour! 15x6 Zoar.
Pretty much ready to go. Throttle in 1.2 sec arc speed to allow a nice gentle transition. She shook her pants off, literally... The idle keeps getting better.
Got back in the shop, cut the cowl in. The holes were already drilled and were off... In the end decided it was better to try to keep the holes and instead modify the front opening, as the holes were off just enough to mess up the cowl if re-drilled. Ended up modifying two top holes slighlty, still. Final adjustments and everything clears.
Cut in nicely.
Sweet!
Using a larger cone spinner worked out to cover up the large oblong front opening.
Actually worked out, not perfect but pretty nice.
Howard.
Will need to check CG again. And then maiden!
Got her wheel pants back on. The screws were wood, needed bolts, replaced in reinstall, will post a pic later.
I took the Alpha Sport 450, the Hacker MX2, and the Pulse XT60 out to my old flying field, Jopa Hill Fields in Bedford, NH.
The grass is nice but too long, so the Alpha and Hacker has issues. Then a cheesy wiring solution converting the Alpha from EC5 connector to EC3 went wonky, so she didn't even get off the ground. Fixed that when I got back, did it proper.
The Hacker could get off the ground with max elevator and gunning the throttle. Flew wonderfully and I flew 6 batteries, just practicing basic airmanship. Landings were a bust due to the the long grass, she would just tuck in and flip.
After that I felt more or less ready to take the pulse XT60 up. She started right up and ran wonderfully. She still is a bit rich in high, manifesting as a step down when the throttle is quickly brought from full to idle, but it's quick and she reduces well to a good steady and reliable idle. Full open she rocks! As expected, the 15 inch prop doesn't provide enough clearance in grass, so the first landing she prop-stoped herself, and in the second she just broke the prop. I ordered the 14x9x3 I should have done before (am adjustment from 14x7x3). This will give me another half an inch which I hope suffices as I can't go lower on the diameter. I also went up to 9 from 7 on pitch. This should be a nice prop.
I still don't have a formal field with a proper grass or geo-tex runway. Hudson hasn't found a new home, Merrimack is a tight hole in the forest and a bit far off. There's a club in Serry, I think, but they are also in a tight niche with high power lines right there. So I will need to deal with the grass at Jopa. At least it's so much smoother and not as clumpy as several years ago when I last flew here.
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.
Decided that since the winds were damn near dead calm, I would take the two 500's and the Pulse XT60 out. This would be the maiden for the Pulse.
For 20 min I tried to start her. Decided to take a break. Dammit.
Flew two packs on the HK 500 FBL. MUCH FUN!
Took the cowl off the Pulse and inspected the engine quickly identifying the cause. Throttle linkage lost its nut. Loose fit it, and she started right up. Packed her up. I'll run home, fix her, and come back out.
Flew two more packs on the HK500 FBL! MORE FUN!
Drove home to fix the Pulse. 30 min one way... Decided to replace the wire holder gadget, with one with a good screw end. Washer, nut snugged, then a dot of solder using a soldering heat gun so both pieces were hot. Cooled, added a touch of super thin CA.
Pre-Maiden walk-around. The power of this thing!
She Fly! This is a powerful, wicked fast, awesome flier! Stable, predictable, unlimited vertical. She was a touch nose heavy, but o/w trimmed out nicely. Put her through her paces with a couple of tanks. I love this plane. One thing I was worried about happened. The 15x6 prop barely clears the ground with the tail down, and is way close with it up in level flight. On one of my touch and goes the prop touched and snapped.
I decided to fly the heli again and at the end of the pack, flying low, I dumb thumbed a rotor strike and that was the end of that. All that power and energy had to go somewhere.
On the way home I picked up another Xoar 15x6, and this APC 15x6. I think the APC may be more likely to survive light prop strikes and stall the engine instead of snapping. I also added 10 gms to the tail, on top the the boatload already there.
Tomorrow looks like an even better day to fly! I can't wait! I think I will take the Spitfire to maiden as well.
This going to sit here for a while. Rebuilding and setting these up is laborious, so I will need to have everything else done. I still have the two 600's. I wasn't able to fly the HDX 500 because I forgot it takes 4S batteries, I only have one, and it was at home...
