Panteradise 2014. Please post flying reports here

[Dr. M]

I knew I had to fly today . The smile on my face totally made for a number 10 on the P meter.

Last year I didn't get to fly until Jan 2, and it turned out to be a lean year for flying. This year I decided I'd start right, charged up 2 sets of packs, and ran to the field with the P6. Flew a couple nice flights including some flat out WOT speed runs, big air, 3D... Nice and relaxing, I didn't really push it, since I totally had to bring her back in 1 piece. Mission accomplished :

[7127]

Well I had my first crash today, with minor damage. Just being new I lost orientation and dumb thumbed it . I wasn't able to hit throttle hold and came out with just broken main blades and skidd. I had wood blades on and I think they saved my heli my snapping off without digging in. Pantera's are definitely built tuff and earned my respect today. I'll be ordering another set of wood blades until my skills get better.

[Jermo]

gratz!! I'm glad to hear damage was minor.

[flyingquisinart]

No flying for me today. Bitter cold with snow all day.

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[flyingquisinart]

OK, lame Panteradise post, but at least I flew a tiny bit today. Weather has been terrible. I "flew" in an empty school parking lot to get the tracking straight. Last time, weeks ago, I spent almost 2 hours fighting with it, then, found I had a bent short link at one of the blade grips, which I fixed then, but never tested it. Half expecting a battle today, I filled up the tank 100%, and went out. Started it up, hovered it a minute while the motor warmed up, landed, one turn on the link did it. It was too wet to go where I could actually fly, so I wasted a tank of 30% dinking around doing tiny circles which are very hard actually, especially against a busy background, and with the more aggressive PRO Modeler blades. They are less forgiving and less sluggish than my old (crashed) Mavvriks.

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[Dr. M]

This morning I heard on the news there's a burn ban in effect across the area because of an inversion layer. This might not mean much to others, but in my neck of the woods this time of year, it means dry relatively warm weather; a much needed break from the usual constant rain... Needless to say, I jumped on the opportunity to work from home and take an extended lunch break at the field along with the P6 and three sets of packs. Partly sunny skies, 49F, zero wind - perfect flying conditions by any measure.

I took this opportunity to practice some speed flying technique in anticipation of the completion of my new Goblin Speed build. This means angle of entrance into the speed run, various end turns including 270° procedure turns, and Split-S turns. I was not really gunning the P6, mostly practicing the maneuvers, but boy can she haul a$$, particularly when you push it on exit from a split-S. I was quite impressed by how fast the P6 can move, since this is really the first time I broke from my regular type of flying a mix of slow 3D and big air maneuvers and really let her stretch her legs.

In other news, this flying session also marked a milestone in my RC heli flying career: 600 flights on helis 450 and up, a total of over 55hrs of stick time (this obviously does not include the mCPX or coax toys). It might not seem like much to some, but considering how little free time I've had these past 3 years, I think it a major accomplishment.

[Dr. M]

The new Goblin Speed joined the P6 at the field today for a short flying session.


Great weather, lots of fun
I was very nervous because of the GS maiden, so I couldn't really get into the groove with the P6, but I'll take all the airtime I can get.

[Medic33]

All these Panteras out flying makes me not like Old Man Winter.... -15°C here - little too cold for me, the batteries - and the helicopter. Tried to take her out flying the other day (was only -9° ).... Got to the front door, the helicopter turned around and waddled back into the hangar herself....

[Medic33]

Well, it's finally warmed up above -10°, but of course, that means snow... because we haven't had ANY of that this year - and today we get another 4-6". Yippee.

Not much of a flight (visibility being around 100' for most of the flight), but it was Auddy's first of the year, so that was something. 10:30, hovering, some slow forward - and still 30% remaining in her 3300mah batteries.

I love electric. I hate snow.

ed

[Dr. M]

Wow, over 10 min on an electric. Quite impressive!

[Medic33]

I fly scale, not 3D, so I keep the headspeed down around 1600, and running 12S keeps the amps down.

[Dr. M]

I'm gonna have to try that one day.

[Mark Dean]

I was very nervous because of the GS maiden, so I couldn't really get into the groove with the P6, but I'll take all the airtime I can get.

Great flying. I like the head speed and smooth reverse flight. I think I saw a Sasquatch at time 5:05 in your lower left!



Mark

[Dr. M]

Originally Posted by festeredmasses

Great flying. I like the head speed and smooth reverse flight. I think I saw a Sasquatch at time 5:05 in your lower left!



Mark

Thanks. Lol Sasquatch.

HS is about 1800 in Normal and 2000 IU. Reverse flight is still a work in progress for me, particularly inverted, but the P6 is my favorite trainer for it, because is smooth and predictable.

[Medic33]

A number of folks have pm'd me wondering about my set-up to get the 10.5 min flight time on electric... Here it is:

12S - 2x (Thor 3300mAh 6S) or (Hyperion G3 3300mAh 6S) in series
Stage II clutched
Scorpion HK4035 - 400Kv
CC HV80 Ice2 in set rpm mode
NR - governed at 1600 rpm
Edge 620mm FBL symetrical
Stock Audacity plastic tail blades
Skookum 720 FBL (scale setup) driving 3x Align DS615, 1x Outrage BL9088 on 6.0v

Only change from box stock is CF tailboom & old Align Trex 600 skid legs (after I had the ball link pop off the head when she was still flybarred).

I previously had Spin Blades - asymetric 625's (I think...) on her - with somewhat lower amp draws because they were asymetric.

I give credit to A: Running a much lower headspeed than most (as I don't give a d**n about 3D... and B: The Thor batteries, which only have about 5-6 cycles on them, so are just about at their perfect level. The clutch most certainly helps, because it doesn't require the large amp draws you see to get the whole rotor system in motion.

I was just looking for it (couldn't find it, sorry), but somewhere out there on the interweeb is a post by Jan Henseleit (who knows a thing or two about electric helis...) who tested his TDR's with varying head speeds. His conclusion: High head speeds are totally un-neccessary (even for the 3d'ers) in the age of hyper-fast digital servos and extremely advanced FBL systems. The insane head speeds were previously required to achieve control inputs with slower servos and the inertia of a flybar to overcome. He tested 1000 / 1200 / 1400 / 1600 / 1800 / 2000 / and 2200 headspeeds on a TDR with a Vbar system. Roll / pitch rates only decreased below 1000, but the amp difference between 1000 and 2200 was over 50%. Moving the blades faster only increased parasitic drag. He did mention he would want to re-gear the tail to hold yaw rates up.

Just a thought.

[Dr. M]

Yeah, Jan Hanseleit has his famous diatribe about 1800rpm being all you'd ever need on a 700 heli. It's on his website somewhere... I think even he would agree a 600 might need a bit more HS for hard 3D.

However, for sport flying the P6, you can probably go even lower and extend your flight times significantly. I, myself, confess my collective management isn't good enough to pull off 3D moves below 1700RPM on the P6, and really rather prefer flying at 1900, which gives me about 6.25min on Gens Ace 2600 12s.

[z_man_95]

Here is the maiden of the two stage electric with the 4 blade:

[ame]http://youtu.be/rlKXikDY9DU[/ame]

I was into my second flight with my electric 4 blade and decided to put on the canopy:

[ame]http://youtu.be/thseidwOG84[/ame]

I knew the star washers tend to come off of the pin holding the washout link and washout arm together, but I didn't take proper precautions to secure them and one of them came out in mid air. The loose blade flapped and caused the heli to wobble bad.
I had to set her down hard from about 10' up. Unfortunately the camera man stopped recording to zoom the camera to get better video and it happened right when he stopped recording.
Only damage was the cf landing gear. I even found the link from the washout arm to the main blade that had popped off mid air.
I have some stock landing gear that I'll use for now, and a few pins from the stock head to get it back in the air soon.

Since my electric was out of commission, I setup the nitro. I don't have video for this though.
I got the engine running great, and was hovering to just get a feel for it. After about a minute or two, once the muffler warmed up, and I was about 10' in the air, the engine note change and seemed like it was bogging down. So I landed and shut her down.
I went over to see what was up, and found that upon reaching operating temp, the tygon tubing I was testing out melted off of the muffler nipple. I didn't notice the max 165°F temp printed on the tubing. Whoopsy!
So I guess I'll put silicon tubing back on from the muffler to the fuel tank.
All in all I had fun.
Can't wait to get them both dialed in.

[alistair watt]

Love the sound from the helicopter. My Pantera is still flying round Scotland for the last five years.
Al watt

[eness76]

well, my first visit to Panteradise for 2014 was going pretty well. Burned one tank getting reaquainted with the beast. Despite fairly high winds all was going well. About half-way into my second flight I did a flip right out in front and the OS coughed while it was inverted, but immediately caught back on. It has never done that before, and as I banked it around I thought I better land it, so as I'm coming back over the strip about 30-40' up it dies. I was proud of myself that I didn't panic and I had planned out in my head what I needed to do. I pulled out the collective and let it come down pretty briskly and at about 5' I started feeding it back in, beautiful flare and it set down right on her skids. Here is where I made my mistake, I should have immediately yanked all the collective out and used that couple degrees of neg to hold it down while the rest of the energy bled out of the disk, but I was too busy patting myself on the back, and just a quick beat after it touched down a gust of wind tipped her up just enough for a blade to touch down. Luckily the ground was very soft and the blades weren't very wound up and it threw a mud clod and came to rest. Blades are undamaged, I haven't pulled the head apart yet to check the feathering shaft but preliminarily it looks OK. The only thing (at first look) that appears to have happened is it broke the ball off of the blade grip on the side that touched down. I'm running the RNFBL setup. It didn't take long to figure out the cause of the dead-stick, I immediately noticed the header tank was empty while the main tank was half full. The clunk came off the main tank draw line and it just sucked the header tank dry and ran out of gas. I thought I had that zip tied, but must not have. I have the spares and shoudl have it back in the air in no time! Moral of the story, don't start patting yourself on the back until the blades are spun down! haha

[flyingquisinart]

Originally Posted by eness76

well, my first visit to Panteradise for 2014 was going pretty well. Burned one tank getting reaquainted with the beast. Despite fairly high winds all was going well. About half-way into my second flight I did a flip right out in front and the OS coughed while it was inverted, but immediately caught back on. It has never done that before, and as I banked it around I thought I better land it, so as I'm coming back over the strip about 30-40' up it dies. I was proud of myself that I didn't panic and I had planned out in my head what I needed to do. I pulled out the collective and let it come down pretty briskly and at about 5' I started feeding it back in, beautiful flare and it set down right on her skids. Here is where I made my mistake, I should have immediately yanked all the collective out and used that couple degrees of neg to hold it down while the rest of the energy bled out of the disk, but I was too busy patting myself on the back, and just a quick beat after it touched down a gust of wind tipped her up just enough for a blade to touch down. Luckily the ground was very soft and the blades weren't very wound up and it threw a mud clod and came to rest. Blades are undamaged, I haven't pulled the head apart yet to check the feathering shaft but preliminarily it looks OK. The only thing (at first look) that appears to have happened is it broke the ball off of the blade grip on the side that touched down. I'm running the RNFBL setup. It didn't take long to figure out the cause of the dead-stick, I immediately noticed the header tank was empty while the main tank was half full. The clunk came off the main tank draw line and it just sucked the header tank dry and ran out of gas. I thought I had that zip tied, but must not have. I have the spares and shoudl have it back in the air in no time! Moral of the story, don't start patting yourself on the back until the blades are spun down! haha

Either way, nice save!