I'm writing to vent. I bought the mSR X for my son. He's been flying my Trex 450, not quite expertly, and his own mSR - until it started to toilet-bowl.

I thought the mSR X would be a good step up. Not going up to the mCP X, just the mSR X.

What we got was not a step up from the mSR. In fact, it really isn't a product ready to be released!! There are so many things wrong with this heli that they should recall this thing.

Yeah, yeah, I've read the posts, talking about how the quirks separate the men from the boys and how it gives you more of a challenge, and if I ditched the included radio and used a nicer one and programmed in all sorts of mixing, it would fly better, yada yada yada.

To put it simply, this heli has serious problems. If you want a heli that can fly like a heli, then this is not the one. If you want one that you can take apart and rebuild and improve upon, then maybe this qualifies.

What are my complaints?

- On take-off the heli likes to slide to the left - and fast!. (The instructions strongly advise not to give the heli any rudder, aileron or elevator input during take-off! Ignore that and correct for the slide before the thing hits a wall.)

- During hover and level flight, the heli lists to the right.

- For landing, the manual instructs to establish a hover 18 inches up, and then to reduce throttle, without any rudder, aileron or elevator input! Basically they want you to drop the thing a foot and a half, and call that a landing.

- On an enclosed card, they mention that when you plug the battery in, to put the heli on a flat surface within two seconds so the gyro calibrates. While we were used to this with the mSR, I don't recall having to rush to do this within 2 seconds?? Really?

- Be very careful when turning otherwise the heli has a tendency to sort of lose control and turn onto its side and zoom off in some direction.

- With the included radio, it is extremely difficult to do any rudder control without changing throttle. Yes, I know, ditch the included remote.

I won't even begin to tell you how flimsy the skids are. After watching some kids play combat heli with cheap Syma counter-rotating helis, I don't understand why the Blade's can't be made out of more durable material.

Thank you for letting me vent. I hope this heli gets recalled or somehow these problems are addressed. As is, I have bought my last Blade product.

-mz

Flybarless systems needs time to calibrate.

Most of your points above are about not having calibrated properly.

I don't know about larger helis, but the small one [single rotor] all list in hover. Perfectly normal. It has to do with the t/r pushing it.

best wishes on getting it sorted

regards,
Bill

I hope spainman doesn't mind me quoting this, but it's absolutely the best description of why the msrx flies the way it does.

Originally Posted by spainman

Got the msr-x two days ago and so far I love it. The left turn issue actually isn't an error in my perception. The heli just wants to be piloted. I know it's not easy to turn it left but the virtual flybar just does what a perfectly tuned physical flybar would do - holding the heli in the attitude the pilot last commanded!

When hovering in a fixed position the heli is tilted to the right to compensate for the lateral tail rotor thrust and slightly tilted backward to compensate the vertical tail rotor thrust component that is generated because of the right tilted attitude (tail blows to the ground).

When left yaw is commanded the tail rotor thrust decreases while the helis overall attitude in the air is held precisely by the virtual flybar - so the heli moves to the right and back slightly because the tail rotor thrust is now overcompensated by the current attitude. The opposite happens when turning right.

Of course it isn't easy to control but what we get here is simply a micro heli with a perfect flybar. No gizmos to aid the pilots ability to pilot a super micro heli that is simply a handful to control because of it's tiny size and fast acceleration.

I don't think that mixing it out on the mainboard would be easily possible. That would mean that left yaw command would have to change the helis attitude. I don't think that is something desireable.

The main problem is actually that all this submirco fp's run a low headspeed with high pitch. This means high tourque on the main rotor and high thrust on tail rotor and lots of tilting to the right (or left) to hold a hover position. A much higher head speed would solve this problem. But then a higher head speed is more current, less flighttime, more damage.... well... mcp x That is why the left turn difficulty might not be that visible on the Mcp x.

Just think of a 450 class heli that would start skidding to one side on the ground like crazy just from it's tail thrust the way the msr x does . Sure it wouldn't stay neutral when yawing!

The 4#3 had the same problem by the way. Any heli that sits in such an crazy angle in still hover will do what we see here as long as it doesn't have a build in brake (aka 45° flybar).

Personally I take it the way it is. A nice living room trainer. Just pure, no gizmos, no pilot aid. Just a perfect v-flybar and a heading hold gyro - the rest is up to the pilot.

Br,
Ruben

I realise it isn't exactly what you want to hear, nor is it what you expected from the heli, but its more to do with the nature of the beast rather than faults in the design.

To answer some of your issues, in my own experience;

Originally Posted by eflyingman

- On take-off the heli likes to slide to the left compensate just as the heli starts lifting from the ground - after a few flights you'll get the hang of it and be able to take off without moving more than 6 inches laterally

- During hover and level flight, the heli lists to the right. again, compensate while flying - some people recommend trim or sub-trim. I'm still not entirely sure if trim should be used, I've been flying without. EDIT: I re-read the post and I think I've confused "listing" with "drifting" - mine does both, though there's no need to compensate for listing if the heli isn't drifting left or right - and as described by spainman, it is the reason for the strange pirouetting movements

- For landing, the manual instructs to establish a hover 18 inches up, and then to reduce throttle, without any rudder, aileron or elevator input! sod the manual, it's possible to land gently with good throttle management

- On an enclosed card, they mention that when you plug the battery in, to put the heli on a flat surface within two seconds so the gyro calibrates.I've actually found that the heli takes longer to initialise when the battery is connected while the heli is moving about - as if its disregarding the gyros until they are stable - in any case, to be sure - connect the battery while the heli is sat on the edge of a table/solid surface

- Be very careful when turning otherwise the heli has a tendency to sort of lose control and turn onto its side and zoom off in some direction. yep, pirouetting is a right bugger. Especially when in a hover. Again, as explained above, its down to physics, rather than bad design. This does make it difficult to master small circuits in a living room

- With the included radio, it is extremely difficult to do any rudder control without changing throttle. Yes, I know, ditch the included remote. I can't speak for the bundled radio as I've got a BNF model, the quality of the controller may be suspect.

I hope the advice helps somewhat, and I do hope I didn't come off as sounding patronising or condescending - I was quite confused about the heli's flight characteristics when I got it, but I'm loving it more and more each day, and at the same time it's given me way more confidence to fly the mcpx.

Simply put, mine is fine

Originally Posted by SquidgyB

I hope spainman doesn't mind me quoting this, but it's absolutely the best description of why the msrx flies the way it does.

I don't mind but actually I have to correct myself:
While it is all in the nature of the beast as I described in the post you quoted, there ARE additional software problems that affect the bad yaw behaviour greatly! Please read this post and the one I quoted from dougiel too:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...postcount=1895

Cheers,
Ruben

Originally Posted by spainman

editing

Hehe, I've just read your post on the other thread, looks like this issue might go deeper than expected...

I'm eagerly looking forward to any further insights into this - I've been compensating for the quirks up to now, it'd be nice to know if its actually an issue with the system rather than it just "being the way it is".

Originally Posted by SquidgyB

Hehe, I've just read your post on the other thread, looks like this issue might go deeper than expected...

I'm eagerly looking forward to any further insights into this - I've been compensating for the quirks up to now, it'd be nice to know if its actually an issue with the system rather than it just "being the way it is".

In my opinion it's an error - whatever reason they might have thought that it would be wise to make it the way it is - a virtual flybar should mimic a physical one. This is not what we have here and it isn't an improvement either.

It's as if a physical flybar would suddenly level with the rotordisk when touching the yaw stick.

Ruben

i tend to agree with the original poster. i thought that the mSRx would be a logical step up from the mcx2. it isn't. Turns out it is a step up from the mSR or SR120. In difficulty, the mSRx is getting close to the difficulty of a mCPx or 450. What upsets me most about this copter is the extreme difficulty and tweaking you need to do to get this to hover. Is the mCPx as difficult to just hover? I seem to be able to fly the mCPx fairly well in the Phoenix simulator.

Originally Posted by neocacher

i tend to agree with the original poster. i thought that the mSRx would be a logical step up from the mcx2. it isn't. Turns out it is a step up from the mSR or SR120. In difficulty, the mSRx is getting close to the difficulty of a mCPx or 450. What upsets me most about this copter is the extreme difficulty and tweaking you need to do to get this to hover. Is the mCPx as difficult to just hover? I seem to be able to fly the mCPx fairly well in the Phoenix simulator.

I don't have much experience of previous heli's to go on, but for me at least, the mcpx is much more difficult to hover - but only because it's so responsive.

I find flying the msrx on 100% rates quite comfortable, but the mcpx is dialled down to 20% rates to get a similar feel.

I've only flown syma style coaxes previously (yes, I dove in the deep end and got an mcpx first - realised my mistake and got an msrx to "learn" with. Less than a week or so later and I'm happily flying several batteries crash free with nice hovering, slow circuits and very little (considering) permanent damage to either heli...)

In actual fact, other than the disconcerting head speed indoors, the mcpx with low rates is easier than the msrx to fly around the living room, imho, simply because it does what I tell it to, rather than scooting off when yawing from a steady hover.

As I said before, I'd been trying to fly "around" the quirks, but if it turns out that the "quirks" are actually design problems, it put the whole heli into a different perspective - i.e. it should fly better.

squidgy,

What tx are you using to fly the msrx and mcpx.

neo

Futaba 8FG, through a Spektrum DM8 module. I tried using expo to begin with for the first few flights, but had better luck with lower rates and less expo, so now I'm mainly just using low rates.

Originally Posted by eflyingman

- On take-off the heli likes to slide to the left - and fast!. (The instructions strongly advise not to give the heli any rudder, aileron or elevator input during take-off! Ignore that and correct for the slide before the thing hits a wall.)

All the helis I've flown do this, it has to do with the forces of the two rotors interacting, it's also the same reason they lean to the right in a stable hover. Even my mSR does this, but to a much lesser extent (since the main shaft is tilted to the right).

The tail rotor pushing left makes the whole heli want to drift left, with the skids flat it will drift left, but once off the ground it'll lean to the right a slight bit and stabilize.

Originally Posted by eflyingman

- During hover and level flight, the heli lists to the right.

See above, all RC helis do this, even much bigger ones.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...27&postcount=2
and
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...07&postcount=3

Originally Posted by eflyingman

- For landing, the manual instructs to establish a hover 18 inches up, and then to reduce throttle, without any rudder, aileron or elevator input! Basically they want you to drop the thing a foot and a half, and call that a landing.

I'd just ditch the manual on this one, and would hardly call this a problem with the heli itself.

Originally Posted by eflyingman

- On an enclosed card, they mention that when you plug the battery in, to put the heli on a flat surface within two seconds so the gyro calibrates. While we were used to this with the mSR, I don't recall having to rush to do this within 2 seconds?? Really?

You don't have much time with the mSR either. If the light is on solid, the gyro has already calibrated itself. If you find the 2 seconds is hard to do, just plug the battery in without putting it in the battery holder with the heli flat on the floor or a table, then after the light goes solid (gyros calibrated) put the battery in the holder.

Originally Posted by eflyingman

- Be very careful when turning otherwise the heli has a tendency to sort of lose control and turn onto its side and zoom off in some direction.

Can't say for sure, but it sounds like its being over controlled?

Originally Posted by eflyingman

- With the included radio, it is extremely difficult to do any rudder control without changing throttle. Yes, I know, ditch the included remote.

Sounds like a problem with the TX, not the heli?

Originally Posted by eflyingman

I won't even begin to tell you how flimsy the skids are. After watching some kids play combat heli with cheap Syma counter-rotating helis, I don't understand why the Blade's can't be made out of more durable material.

I feel that they look flimsy, but the only skid I've broken on a micro blade heli was on my mCPX when it went down HARD from about 40 feet up when I was flying in way too much wind. I put my mSR into MANY solid objects, walls, ground, concrete posts in the parking garage, etc without ever breaking the skids. I find that their flexibility saves them in crashes. If you want really weak landing gear, look at older Walkera helis, those things break just by looking at them.

IMO, I don't see anything that warrants a recall of anything except maybe the documentation?

Fly by wire has a way to go before it becomes transparent. Ask the Airbus demo pilots from the 1988 Paris air show.

I tend to agree with the OP...

I thought the mSRx would be a nice indoor version of the mCPx, without the annoying flybar tendencies of the mSR and it is. But I didn't expect it to bring to the table a new set of idiosyncrasies that I had to compensate for and unlearn later.

I'm not so disappointed that I'm not going to fly it and enjoy it. But I am interested to hear HH's official response to the left yaw anomaly. I suspect they will say "just fly it" like some of the folks here. But I am also convinced that behind closed doors they might admit it's a software bug that mysteriously will be fixed in a V2 very soon.