On the '107's, I've found that just taking off the flybar links, turning them over, and snapping them back on, got them smooth enough to work right.

Brand-new, those flybar balls/links are a bit notchy sometimes, and fiddling as described helps.

Originally Posted by Blooner

Very cool water skids.

Pretty daring to fly your copter over water though :P

I certainly won't try it when I get mine. Though you naturally have a lot of spare copters in your hangar, whilst I am still waiting for my first one to arrive.

believe it or not my fleet is alot smaller than KillBucket and Redbaron25,
at the moment my only fully functioning heli is the S107, alothough while putting it all away I did snap the tail wires and a main motor wire off the board, found a photo of where they should go so it will be up again soon.

Here's what I have and it's current condition

1. Mk1 picooz, snapped tail wire.
2. RED5 Hummingbird, needs 75mAh lipo.
3. S026 chinook, 210 lipo replaced with 420mAh, teathing problem.
4. S006 alloy shark, needs new 1000mAh lipo
5. S012 apache, needs new 90mAh lipo.
6. silverlit Xtwin, broken elevatator.
7. chinook, jamming blades.
8. chinook, water damaged cell (before I had it)
9. chinook, snapped main motor wired, fixed.
10. 7 X picooz sidewider, 1 is my daughters the rest are mostly parts bin.
11. S022 chinook, needs new 7.4v lipo.
12. S107, flying guinnie pig

If the more refined floats work well and look good I'll cover the PCB in spray on plaster (it's great when your cutting lemons and limes).

I couldnt even start to list my helis, ive got from homemade scale to vario sports to hirobo 30's to walkeras to these things ive got over 50 helis easily lol my mates say its a disease with me.

I love the floats, i stuck polystyrene on mine to get the weight it would lift for my Kamov workings out, i attached the syrene and then stated sticking bits of things in until i thought it was at its weight, i never considered making floats even after doint half the job lol
Good effort.

Ive got some inflatable floats for a 60 size heli and although i only tried them once it was fun, maybe some silicone spray or simular on the styrene will break the water tension, some paint may even also work. Grooves along the bottom may be another option.

Hm, Scotchgard?

The PCB is not your worry- I've done a full dog-dish-dunk with an S107, and shook it out, kept flying. The board has conformal coating, or it's sealed, or just plain not affected.

However...water inside a Lipo is a "very bad thing". I do believe they're sealed up good, but...it's to be known.

Lithium polymer cell LiPo LiPoly cut open, placed in water, then acid (7 min 49 sec)

A good example of how much abuse a lipo will take.

Originally Posted by BrownOut

.....Ive got some inflatable floats for a 60 size heli and although i only tried them once it was fun, maybe some silicone spray or simular on the styrene will break the water tension, some paint may even also work. Grooves along the bottom may be another option.

I tried grooves along the length and 1 each outer edge diagonaly connected to thoes but no such luck in the 2nd video.

"TENTION" that's the word I was looking for! I'm gonna try and find the rough volume of the parts of the floats that are in the water then I'll work out how to keep the same amount of volume but make them more boat shaped, S107 was able to lift all but the last mm of float out of the water so if they taper to a point like a boat then there should be a decrease in tention the higher out of the water it gets.....


I just had a vision of makin the floats getting it in the bath again, giving it full throttle then rocketing straight up into the ceiling and splashing down rotors first! We shall see.

Surface_Tension

Good intuition on the grooves to 'let air in', but you've increased surface area. More adherence to overcome before breaking surface tension.


The best shape is going to be a hotdog.

You want to decrease 'wetting', so a hydrophobic coating is needed.

It is theoretically possible to have the copter sit on TOP of the surface, like a
water skipper.

Wax those pontoons.

Originally Posted by killbucket

Surface_Tension

Good intuition on the grooves to 'let air in', but you've increased surface area. More adherence to overcome before breaking surface tension.

You want to decrease 'wetting', so a hydrophobic coating is needed.

It is theoretically possible to have the copter sit on TOP of the surface, like a
water skipper.

Wax those pontoons.

oh ye, hadn't realised the increase in surface area as a bi-product, each float is about half the size (now 1/2 inch sqaureby about 4 inch) it was in the very first photo, the floatsin the first test photos (that were not attached the balsa wood base) only had about 1/8 inch submurged and lifting them out by hand I could feel the up coming tension

I was hoping to not have to buy anything on top the part a I had but if boat shape floats fail to solve the tension, I'll all the thing you have mentioned, would be nice to have a S107 that is always ready to get wet.

I'm not sure about the S107 sitting on the water, a couple of weeks ago I tried resting it on a block of polystyrene big than the foot print on the current pontoons and it kept trying to jump off, that's how I've removed the stock skids rather than trying to add pontoons under them, that said I will try just about anything for fun.

Well, I didn't say it wouldn't LOOK like a water skipper.

Seems I've seen packing foam 'tubes' used elsewhere.
Maybe chunks of those water-noodle pool toys?
Toy store, pool toy aisle will be filled with inspiration.

Yes, i hadnt thoiught of the increased surface area either but assumed since some of the area would lift out before the last it might work but i guess the grooves hold the water in rather than dispell it.
Hot dog floats are what mine look like, maybe its the tried and tested shape but i look forward to seeing the boat versions such as found on planes.

I have been thinking about making polystyrene hot dogs like I remember from the jaws movie.....

As in the photo of the jaws2 heli is almost flat against the pontoons like I had to do, last night I just didn't have the technology to make hot dogs.

I was thinking about making a hole melting iron (I would put the pipe on the outside to make it a tube melting iron) from a crapped out £4 eBay soldering iron I got a while back.



This is basicaly a soldering iron with the tip removed and a section of pipe or pipe collar mounted using the tip holding screw, I would make this with the pipe next to the shaft not over it like in the image above.

of course I would have to be quick as I wouldn't want it to get up to full temp as almost all the poly will practicaly evaporate!

Hey DJ I see you have no Dolphin listed in your heli fleet - I just noticed on the Red5 website they've dropped the price of the Dolphin heli from £30 to £20.

Mine is still flying without any damage - definitely worth getting at that price (gyro equipped, remember)

Originally Posted by Redbaron25

Hey DJ I see you have no Dolphin listed in your heli fleet - I just noticed on the Red5 website they've dropped the price of the Dolphin heli from £30 to £20.

Mine is still flying without any damage - definitely worth getting at that price (gyro equipped, remember)

£20 you say? I may have to get one next week, they didn't tell me that when I was in there last.
When they gave me a used top blade grip I noticed that it was made of the same black plastic as the S026 grip, the guy said it must have been a different batch, the last lot of dolphins they had was better quality he said.

what's the heuy in the jaws pic I posted called?


I floating/flying one of them, based on the S107 would be really cool, prob really light too.

Unlike a chopper's pontoons, an airplane's have to move forward through the water and air, so

Hotdogs aren't aerodynamic.

First off: What the heck is that floating hot dog video??!??!

That kinda disturbed me...

Anyways: My S107 is not as stable as I imagined him to be...
But I'm not sure what the problem is.

It could be me, it could be some sort of crossbreeze, some sort of IR interference or the S107 itself could be unbalanced...

Aside from the TBE I've been seeing it does the following:

When flying forward, it also goes slightly right. And drops down.
When flying backwards, it also goes slightly right (so same direction as forward). And goes up.
When 'hovering' it sometimes goes slightly forward+right. But other times slightly backwards+right.
Also I still can't seem to get her to stay on the same altitude. She is either moving up or down... I might want to remove the spring in the lever and test whether it still can't stay level, or whether my fingers are just twitchy. Are there any tutorials on doing this?

Any help/remarks are welcome.

Or if you just want to say: "Stop whining and learn to fly the thing first" then that is okay too :P.

Greets as always,
Blooner