Originally Posted by ChopperJack

Me too! I guess it is called exciting but it feels scary. I spent a lot of time messing with the blades and ran out of battery. Of course I only have one battery.

I torqued the blades down at first where they wouldn't move = violent wobble. Then I loosened them slightly so they could find their centers and that worked good. It took a long time but I finally got the rpm up to about 1200 or so just guessing. Tracking was dead on and the heli was solid as a rock but not enough pitch to get it off the ground. I got everything adjusted tonight so I can make another attempt tomorrow after I charge the battery. I'm into that storage charge thing you know.

a lipo at full charge for 24 hours is really not going to degrade it enough to be even noticeable. Charge that thing and get it off the ground! Good luck. Jim

Just remember Jack because of the added torque and mass of the extra blades of the 5-blade head it will want to drift to the left 3x more then a 2-blade head. If your trying it inside in close places just be aware of this.

Good luck , Cap

Thanks cap. I'm going really really slow with this one. When I do lift it off, it's only going to be for a few seconds to see where it wants to go and how it wants to fly. I'll be doing a lot of that until I build my confidense and get better at flying it.

I'm going to give it another try later today hoping the wind will die down and I can fly it in the parking lot outside.

Oce you are comfortable with flying it you will be surprised how much wind you can fly in compared to your smaller helis.

With not using a FBL unit you might want to reduce the swash travel say something around 40 and increase your Expo say to +60 - +80 if using your Walkera or Spektrum radios.
Both of these will help to kinda slow things down a bit if your not running a FBL unit.

Good luck Cap

10-4 on the D/R and expo adjustment. I made a slight adjustment but I can see I need to get closer to your numbers. The tail gyro needs some additional encouragement too.

I'm using a DX 6i transmitter to a AR6210 receiver and a Align GP780 gyro. The servos are massive, titanium gear, water proof boat servos with heavy duty torque operating through stainless steel turnbuckles for servo links.

I got it off the ground today! As soon as it cleared the ground, it wanted to go left which wasn't too surprising. I wasn't up to doing the counter measure tango with it so the flight lasted about one second but it was enough to see that I need to make more adjustments. When I get it adjusted, this bird is going to be really fun to fly. I can see I'm going to need some ginormous training gear to get me started without a major disaster. If someone tells you this hobby can be dangerous and could be potentially deadly - believe them!

Roger that , I go out to all the events at the AMA HQ here in Muncie, In. and there have been many times the 3D pilots have put one in the dirt and pieces and parts flew off it and landed or hit hundereds of feet away. When the helis go in they do 2-3 times the damage to theirselves and surrounding area then a plane does.

Originally Posted by ChopperJack

10-4 on the D/R and expo adjustment. I made a slight adjustment but I can see I need to get closer to your numbers. The tail gyro needs some additional encouragement too.

I'm using a DX 6i transmitter to a AR6210 receiver and a Align GP780 gyro. The servos are massive, titanium gear, water proof boat servos with heavy duty torque operating through stainless steel turnbuckles for servo links.

I got it off the ground today! As soon as it cleared the ground, it wanted to go left which wasn't too surprising. I wasn't up to doing the counter measure tango with it so the flight lasted about one second but it was enough to see that I need to make more adjustments. When I get it adjusted, this bird is going to be really fun to fly. I can see I'm going to need some ginormous training gear to get me started without a major disaster. If someone tells you this hobby can be dangerous and could be potentially deadly - believe them!

Wow, I'm sat here feeling excited as well.

I really need to get my act together now and start a similar project.

Just one comment, where's the video? I need to see that vast head lift that baby off the ground.

Kev

Originally Posted by bionicbone

Wow, I'm sat here feeling excited as well.

I really need to get my act together now and start a similar project.

Just one comment, where's the video? I need to see that vast head lift that baby off the ground.

Kev

I took my camera yesterday and had my wife standing by to take video (and call 911 if something went hay wire - lol). I decided when I get the 600 tuned up and I'm more confident about lifting it off the ground, I'll make another video. I made a video a while back of me spooling it up with the big heavy plastic flat bottomed blades. It wasn't much, just the heli sitting there running at about 1000 rpm doing nothing from all angles.

Originally Posted by cap231ex

Just remember Jack because of the added torque and mass of the extra blades of the 5-blade head it will want to drift to the left 3x more then a 2-blade head. If your trying it inside in close places just be aware of this.

Good luck , Cap

This was dead on advice! The first thing the heli wanted to do the instant it cleared terra firma was lurch to the left. I had to immediately shut it down because, like you pointed out, I didn't have that much lurching space!

Here is a video to get you by until I get up to speed. My blades are white CF and look a lot like these blades. Imagine this being me (less the music) except this guy knows what he is doing - I don't! Notice that wobble just after he starts up. That is the blades finding their centers. My heli does the center wobble thing much longer and I'm not real good at spooling it up quickly to get it past that in a hurry - also still working on blade grip tightness. Some blades are too tight and need to be whittled down so to speak.

Trex 600 ESP Multiblade Head with 600mm FRP (6 min 32 sec)

Originally Posted by ChopperJack

This was dead on advice! The first thing the heli wanted to do the instant it cleared terra firma was lurch to the left. I had to immediately shut it down because, like you pointed out, I didn't have that much lurching space!

Many years ago I was right where you are today trying to get my first big multi-blade project off the ground. Anything I can do to help out a fellow modeler I'm glad to help.

I can say with 100% certaintee that trying to do this with no E-stabilization ,you have a long and hard road ahead of you. I can and has been done before , it is just much more difficult and takes very steady hands on the sticks and a more then perfect setup on both the airframe and the head.

Make you some training gear out of broomsticks , take it slow , and pratice on the sim as much as you can to help ready yourself for the experience.

Good luck Cap

Originally Posted by cap231ex

Many years ago I was right where you are today trying to get my first big multi-blade project off the ground. Anything I can do to help out a fellow modeler I'm glad to help.

I can say with 100% certainty that trying to do this with no E-stabilization ,you have a long and hard road ahead of you. I can and has been done before , it is just much more difficult and takes very steady hands on the sticks and a more then perfect setup on both the airframe and the head.

Make you some training gear out of broomsticks , take it slow , and practice on the sim as much as you can to help ready yourself for the experience.

Good luck Cap

Thanks for the support! I suppose I am not known for doing things the easy way sometimes. I'm sort of anxious to see where the road leads. If it seems to lead to never never land, I may have to drop back and punt.

In one of the videos I watched, they used what looked like twirling batons for training. They didn't look long enough. I'm definitely going to need training gear.

I have a 600 sized five blade MD500 set up on my Phoenix sim I use to practice with. Unfortunately, I don't practice enough.

That's good that you have one on your sim.
Can you go in and edit things and setting on it in your sim?
I have the RealFlight 5.5 version and you can change and add anything you like is your Phoenix sim that way too?

If so go in and turn the gains on the roll and pitch gyros down to 0 and practice with it like that and it will simulate yours.
Oh and always add 6-7mph of wind and turbulence, this makes it more like real life conditions.

If anyone wants to shorten the tail boom on their Heli 3" I have a belt and boom that will do the job.

I think someone in the thread had to do this to fit a scale fuselage.

Why would you shorten it 3" ?

I made mine longer, went from a 600 to a 700 tailboom.
I'm working on turning a 500 into a 550 now to fit in a 30 size (or 550 size) AS-350 fuselage.