Originally Posted by bgagnon

Guys, I just got a small tail strike that broke one of the tail holder do you recommend going with the red alu tail holder, the Align tail or others?


This is a repost. Just wanted it in the right sub folder.

Thanks

Originally Posted by a320jockey

Hello all,

I wanted to share my latest experience so you may save yourselves from a big headache. Yesterday while doing my usual hovering practice 30 ft up with my MX something happened, a bang and immediately a strange and sudden change in the blades' noise, like a flapping sound and it went into the ground, not at full speed however a hard hit into the pavement. After disconnecting the batt I went on to check the wreckage: a broken left landing gear, stripped top dome screw and a broken main MX carbon blade, the other one was also damaged. A more detailed inspection showed a missing pitch control linkage in the rotor head, the one which goes from the swash plate to the main blade control lever. Everything else was in place however both blade control arms were apart from their links as well, maybe a consequence of the crash. It seems the missing linkage went off the rotor head in flight causing the corresponding blade to flip, hence the change in noise and later flapping sound -the top dome was found displaced upwards on that blade's side, probably hit by the blade's control arm suddenly going upwards- and control was lost. The rotor did not stop turning because of its rotational moment, which may explain the lower speed during the fall but the heli was no longer controlable.

Later I noticed that the ball link on the swash plate had its sides flat instead of round when compared to the other ones which were visible so it seems like that was the one which failed. I never found the complete linkage. Going back into my maintenance procedures I remember to have been working on these linkages, specifically on the swash plate links in order to adjust blade tracking which is the normal procedure, however I never took a more detailed glance into the ball links' condition. Lesson learned the hard way: always do a regular check of the ball links specially on the rotating segment of the rotor head, a flattened ball link can an will cause trouble, worst if it happens during flight.

The MX seems repairable as far as I can see: replace the landing gear, a new linkage set, new set of main and tail blades, however being so difficult to get spare parts for the MX at a decent price here in Ecuador, I may be declaring my poor MX a total loss and leave it as a spares source if I can get a conveniently priced MX. Anyway I had a really good experience learning to fly this small heli and would have continued to do so if this accident did not happen.

Cheers and happy (and safe) flying to all,

Carlos A. Cordova
QUITO - ECUADOR
(Now-considering-to-build-that-stored-TRex-ha!)