Vince
Oct 29, 2003, 04:00 AM
Hi to all,
I'm hoping to attempt my first hover this weekend but I have 3 concerns.
But first here is what I have:(I'm sorry if this gets a bit wordy but I hope
other Calber newbies can benifit from my experience)
Caliber 30 bought as an ARF w/ OS .32 sx-h installed.
Futaba 6XA (I didn't think I'd actually go and buy a heli when I bought the
radio to fly fixed wings with. Though I'm probably wrong, I think the only
difference between the 6XA and the 6XH is the detents on the throttle?)
Futaba 3004 for the throttle and Hitech HS 5625 MG for everthing else.
Futaba GY-401
Realflight G2 with as close a setup to my reallife caliber as I can get. (I
think) 6 or 8 hours of practice now and I don't crash if I'm not being cocky
or it doesn't throw a radio failure at me.
I tried to set it up as closely to the way the instructions said figureing
it should fly just fine with minor trimming right?
Naive?
I'm using CCPM with swsh 3 selected but when i turned it on the collective
and the cyclic response was reversed.
I did note that my radio manual shows the pitch and aileron ball links
towards the front and the elevator to the rear. Opposite to the swash on my
machine.(that was where I realized I may have to actually think my way
through this setup-damn)
After some head scratching I reversed the the recomended Function rate
values (- for + that is) and it worked correctly.
I leveled the swashplate using subtrims because the supplied links are not
ajustable. (the most I had to use was -50% on the elevator).
My first concern was this:
Without any further modification of the radio the collective ranged from -15
to +9
I the noticed the other blade was -13 to +11.(glad I bought that pitch
guage)
I adusted low pitch rod out a turn and now they're the same -13 to +11.
The part that concerns me about this is that I had to set the low stick
pitch rate setting to it's lowest setting just to make it stop going
negative at -4 now I have it set for -4 to +10 and I'm pretty sure I can fly
on that but the pitch response throughout the stick travel is quite
non-linear.(much slower at the bottom)
Is that acceptable?
My second concern:
I went out back and strapped it to a couple of cinder blocks to break in the
engine.
while first spinning up the rotor I noticed a pretty pronounced vibration
not too far off idle.(made me question my strapping job) I could power out
of it but it showed up again a little farther up in the rpm range. I again
powered out of it but it shows up as the rotor spins down too. The tracking
was good.(way to go pitch guage) so after running a couple of tanks of fuel
I brought her in and removed the blades.
Dynamic balance was within 1mm and bolting them together and hanging them
from the bolt had me adding 2 small pieces of tape at the mid point (cg) to
one of them. Doesn't seem like much.
Was that enough to cause that much shaking or is something else at work
here. Oh, the paddles are straight and equally distant from the head.
Third concern:
While spinning it at speeds that didn't shake (seemed pretty smooth then) I
started to play with the cyclic a bit (of course)
I noticed that at higher foward elevator inputs the rotor would tip as much
to the left as it would forward. ???
As much to the right as backwards too. Forward with right input and back
with left.
Didn't seem noticable with the light inputs I expect to use to hover.
Can this be normal?
I would greatly appreciate any input on these issues as I really want to fly
this thing saturday.
Thanks
Vince
I'm hoping to attempt my first hover this weekend but I have 3 concerns.
But first here is what I have:(I'm sorry if this gets a bit wordy but I hope
other Calber newbies can benifit from my experience)
Caliber 30 bought as an ARF w/ OS .32 sx-h installed.
Futaba 6XA (I didn't think I'd actually go and buy a heli when I bought the
radio to fly fixed wings with. Though I'm probably wrong, I think the only
difference between the 6XA and the 6XH is the detents on the throttle?)
Futaba 3004 for the throttle and Hitech HS 5625 MG for everthing else.
Futaba GY-401
Realflight G2 with as close a setup to my reallife caliber as I can get. (I
think) 6 or 8 hours of practice now and I don't crash if I'm not being cocky
or it doesn't throw a radio failure at me.
I tried to set it up as closely to the way the instructions said figureing
it should fly just fine with minor trimming right?
Naive?
I'm using CCPM with swsh 3 selected but when i turned it on the collective
and the cyclic response was reversed.
I did note that my radio manual shows the pitch and aileron ball links
towards the front and the elevator to the rear. Opposite to the swash on my
machine.(that was where I realized I may have to actually think my way
through this setup-damn)
After some head scratching I reversed the the recomended Function rate
values (- for + that is) and it worked correctly.
I leveled the swashplate using subtrims because the supplied links are not
ajustable. (the most I had to use was -50% on the elevator).
My first concern was this:
Without any further modification of the radio the collective ranged from -15
to +9
I the noticed the other blade was -13 to +11.(glad I bought that pitch
guage)
I adusted low pitch rod out a turn and now they're the same -13 to +11.
The part that concerns me about this is that I had to set the low stick
pitch rate setting to it's lowest setting just to make it stop going
negative at -4 now I have it set for -4 to +10 and I'm pretty sure I can fly
on that but the pitch response throughout the stick travel is quite
non-linear.(much slower at the bottom)
Is that acceptable?
My second concern:
I went out back and strapped it to a couple of cinder blocks to break in the
engine.
while first spinning up the rotor I noticed a pretty pronounced vibration
not too far off idle.(made me question my strapping job) I could power out
of it but it showed up again a little farther up in the rpm range. I again
powered out of it but it shows up as the rotor spins down too. The tracking
was good.(way to go pitch guage) so after running a couple of tanks of fuel
I brought her in and removed the blades.
Dynamic balance was within 1mm and bolting them together and hanging them
from the bolt had me adding 2 small pieces of tape at the mid point (cg) to
one of them. Doesn't seem like much.
Was that enough to cause that much shaking or is something else at work
here. Oh, the paddles are straight and equally distant from the head.
Third concern:
While spinning it at speeds that didn't shake (seemed pretty smooth then) I
started to play with the cyclic a bit (of course)
I noticed that at higher foward elevator inputs the rotor would tip as much
to the left as it would forward. ???
As much to the right as backwards too. Forward with right input and back
with left.
Didn't seem noticable with the light inputs I expect to use to hover.
Can this be normal?
I would greatly appreciate any input on these issues as I really want to fly
this thing saturday.
Thanks
Vince