Up in the air!!!

[automap2002]

Nice 50 degree day, only 4-5mph winds, put on the training gear and headed out to hover, due to the limited space only did a few 2 minute hovers at about 6' up. Was a good day until trying to do a tail in landing and brought the tail down a bit hard, only damage was a broken tail rotor blade. I'll put the replacements on tonight and check out the tail and boom, pick up another set on Monday then do some more "flying" during the week. The weather looks great all week long!!!
Time to crack a beer and enjoy it, I feel very accomplished!!!!

[Familyman67]

congrats on your next step. How did the new and lighter training gear "feel" ?
You are doing it the right way - take one small step after another and after a while some "knots" in your brain will just pop and you make a bigger leap forward.

[Znybar]

What Familyman said. Just do the same thing until you're completely comfortable and only then start new things that are more difficult.

[automap2002]

The newer training gear helped a lot, didn't feel head heavy and pull to the right, gyro worked flawlessly, the new settings you sent me FamilyMan67 was perfect for my skill level.

I have been practicing the landings on the sim, the mind/fingers, thumbs sometimes do not all move as one, hence the broken tail blades and much more practice on the sim, need to remember a bit more throttle just before landing as it is much softer when you do this.

Leveling the swash plate and using the new settings definitely helped!

Much anticipated flying this week!!!! Beautiful weather

[Ghostflyer1]

Make sure to check for vibrations since you whacked the tail blades .... If there is a vibration in the tail, you may want to just replace the tail output shaft

[spackermen]

Awesome! Glad you got a couple of good flights in!

I just got back from Vegas, and I can't wait for the weather to warm up in our neck of the woods now too!

[automap2002]

Ghostflyer1 my tail is belt driven, everything is fine since I put the new tail blades on, no vibrations.

One other question for all of you, I read somewhere that you can put a modified 500-550 what I call a tail rotor guard on a 450 this way it hits first and protects your tail rotor blades, it also helps the heli sit level on the ground.

Any thoughts on this?

[Familyman67]

not sure if the correct term is "Tail rotor guard" I guess it's simply a bigger vertical tail stabilizer.
You can try one from a 500 size (if it fits) or you could try to just enlarge your current one to reach (almost) to the ground.
Just be careful to make it as "round" as possible so it does not hook into the floor during take-off.

[automap2002]

Another good day of hovering in the air in the backyard, I did pull a DUH put one tail blade on the wrong way, figured that one out after the first liftoff, but all in all feel good about my progress

On a side note a good buddy of mine just found out that I was getting into helis and he told me he was into them a few years ago, and he has a Raptor 30 V2, spare parts and the TX and a few other things, he spent about $1600.00 in heli, parts and other miscellaneous equipment. The heli was built by another good buddy who unfortunately passed away in December of last year. As he lifted the Raptor up for the first time it went a bit sideways it clipped and flipped the main rotor blade and it almost hit him in the head. Our other buddy replaced the blade, checked the heli out and the motor was fired up last summer, everything checked out. Going to look at what he has as he told me for $600.00 you can take it all. Guess we will see if it is a deal or not, not sure if I should get into gas powered just yet but it could be a great near future heli!!!

Let me know what your thoughts are??????????????????????

[Znybar]

It sounds like a good deal.

HOWEVER, I would stay away from petrol-powered helis.

Although you get longer flight times than electric, they are:

Much more expensive to run
A lot of maintenance
Very noisy
A pain in the arse

I stopped using petrol engines because I got tired of getting to the field and having to spend 15 minutes tuning up the motor to get it right for the weather.

It's so nice in retrospect to get to the field and not have to think a second about whether the motor will run with an electric.

Maybe if he'll sell it to you minus the motor and you can convert it to electric, otherwise my opinion would be leave it be.

You talked about the 550v2 before, I think that's a much better option (and mine has literally only flow all of two minutes before destroying itself).

[Familyman67]

+1 on Nitro or Gas powered Helis.
In the old days, there has been a reason to fly one of those, since the electrically driven Helis did not exist yet, or (initially) could not compete performance wise.
Today, with modern electrical motors and with the LiPo technology, electrical Helis have passed those Nitro or Gas driven ones in terms of performance. The only advantage that these ones still have is flight times, which is something you can easily compensate for by using several LiPo packs back to back.
On the other side , Nitro or Gas engines have so many disadvantages, that you really don't want to operate one.

[Ghostflyer1]

Most of all I hate the mess involved...