Just a timely reminder of how dangerous these things are...

[Luke Warmwater]

I know this is nothing new, but sometimes the fact that something has happened can spur is all on to renew our "safety procedures".

Tonight, I was going to do a first flight test of a minor repair / re-build after I put one of my 450s into the deck. Nothing major; new feathering shaft, rebuilt servo and a new main gear.

Anyway, I started to spin her up in the gym, as she got about an inch of the floor, there was a loud bang and the blades shot off. One hit the far wall of the gym, the other hit the closer wall, missing my flying buddy's head by less than a foot (he was crouched over his heli)

In fact, the blade holders shot off, as one of the bolts on the feathering shaft came undone. On close inspection, the bolt was a very poor fit into the feathering shaft. When done up tight on the feathering shaft alone, it bit hard, and looked fine but with the bearings and washers in, it could be pulled out with pliers....no amount of threadlock was ever going to solve that!

So, at the risk of stating the obvious, don't just threadlock your bolts, but check their fit as well. This one did up tight and was threadlocked...but a poor fit meant it was always dangerous.

- As a side note, I no longer have the original packaging as it came from my spares box. I have a sneeky suspicion that it wasn't genuine Align and whilst it wouldn't have been a cheap Chinese "no name" offering, I can't remember where it was from, otherwise it would be going back along with some carefully selected words.

[dayshaddow]

Had a similar issue with a cheap feathering shaft. Thread locked and seemingly tight.a few weeks later and picked up my 450 by the blade grip and the just fell off under the weight of my helicopter

[Luke Warmwater]

I went through my back orders and I'm fairly sure they were Flasher. Not a top name, but supposedly not potentially dangerous.

Anyway, I decided to fork out an extra couple of quid and put genuine Align in there. Looking back, I can't believe that I was really pinching the pennies so much that I couldn't afford just a little more for peace of mind!

[jperkosk]

Little off the topic, but it made me nostalgically think of the warning on Esky site about counterfeit Esky parts stressing the benefits of using genuine Esky replacement parts

[Tomstoy2]

Had me a close call the other day, too.
Got done flying and went to recharge only to discover one of.my batterys voltages had dropped dangerously low!
Seems I got lucky in the air.
it was one of the Nano batterys. Time to replace them, I guess.

[Luke Warmwater]

Put my big Blackhawk in the ground at the end of the summer through exactly the same thing Tom.....luckily no dmage to the fuselage, but all the usual stripped and bent bits inside.....any idea where I can find a replacement 4 bladed 500 swash? Me neither. New head ordered!