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05-10-2010, 08:52 AM | #1 (permalink) |
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When Stratus meets ground...
Well, my beloved Stratus met the ground on Saturday. She went in pretty hard; I was about 100' up, coming in to land at the end of my 3rd flight. It suddenly started rolling to the left. About all I could do was hit throttle hold to get the headspeed down and hopefully minimize the carnage.
The thud it made was sickening! Minus the blades being trashed (main and tail), about the only other damage was one landing skid and strut, main shaft, feathering shaft, swash ball links, CF boom (ouch!), and the crown gear. The canopy paint is kind of chipped up in places as well. However, I was amazed at how well this machine took that kind of a hit. In all honesty, I really figured I'd see a lot more damage that it has. This is one tough machine....It's hard to be sad when you can beat up on a machine like this, and walk away with ~250 bucks of damage. Over half of which is in blades. Gotta love MinAir quality. It turns out that the servo horn controlling the left side of the swash popped off of the servo output shaft. I checked the other swash servo horns, and the bolt securing them to their respective servos were also backing out; I could easily turn them with my fingers. Yet another item to put on the pre-flight list. Lesson learned. The pics aren't great quality, but it does give you an idea of what it looks like.
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J.B. Jones |
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05-29-2010, 09:31 PM | #2 (permalink) |
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Join Date: Apr 2004
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Yep, those dam metal servo output shafts are a killer.
Happened to me many moons ago with a standard X-Cell (highly upgraded). It was the tail servo.....high speed low pass and suddenly a crazy spinning heli with very limited space I was flying in. Zero chance of recovery and repair costs were, shall we say, rather high Good to see that the older Stratus can take a hit....mine is the same version (not a BW).
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Alfred Radios: JR DSX9, Mikado VControl Helies: 2xTRex450, TT30, TT50SE, RJX50, X-Cell60, Fury Expert, Stratus, Kasama ECO (under construction), Goblin 770 |
05-31-2010, 08:50 AM | #3 (permalink) |
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When Stratus meets ground...
Yeah, Alfred, it can surely take a hit. Believe it or not, the repair bill was less than $160. That's not including main blades, I've got an extra set of old V's that I'll use. Still, not what I expected from a Stratus crash.
I'm quite pleased. -Joey
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J.B. Jones |
10-11-2010, 04:43 PM | #4 (permalink) |
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5 months!?!
Well, it only took me 5 months to get the Stratus back in the air. Just too much stuff going on to get around to it, I guess. It's nice to have it back in one piece, though! I've been dying to go flying, but all I can do is hover close-in for the time being. Hopefully in a few more months I can have some eye surgery, and get back to real flying. I shouldn't complain..at least I can see enough to hover! Just glad to have her back in operational mode again.
-Joey
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J.B. Jones |
10-12-2010, 08:35 AM | #5 (permalink) |
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Yep, That Stratus looks real good in operation.
I'm tickled for ya. This thread has a happy ending
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12-25-2010, 11:46 PM | #6 (permalink) |
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Join Date: Oct 2010
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I had a very similar thing happen recently when a cyclic servo decided to give up the ghost and let the smoke out!!! I was really surprised how well the Stratus took the hit and if it wasn't for having to replace the Hattori Pipe my repair would have been fairly easy on the pocket!!
Good to see you have it "Turning & Burning" again and good luck with it. Regards, Lance |
12-30-2010, 09:07 AM | #7 (permalink) | ||
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Quote:
Quote:
Thanks for the kind words, Lance. May luck be with you as well. -Joey
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J.B. Jones |
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12-30-2010, 11:46 AM | #8 (permalink) |
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Join Date: Apr 2007
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Ive seen the newer G5 blades in action back in September at a funfly. Very smooth quiet blades!
Looking at my avatar you can see how a Fury55 takes a hit.. Dumb thumbs tail straight into the ground... the boom was bent all the way to the side! I can say as well that MA machines can take a hard hit |
04-12-2011, 10:21 AM | #9 (permalink) |
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Did it AGAIN
Almost 11 months later...buried the Stratus again. Popped a link in the head
It fell about 300' ...blades stopped. Like before, this poor machine hit a TON. I was surprised, again..my Mavrikk blades may have survived..as well as most everything else. My nice pink canopy took some serious damage. The girlfriend is pretty upset about that. Another replacement of the usual shafts, skid struts, and I think she'll be good to go. Hard to tell right now..I haven't had the guts to take her apart just yet. Such is life for one tough machine. It simply can't be killed! -Joey
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J.B. Jones |
04-12-2011, 08:04 PM | #10 (permalink) |
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sorry Joey : (
Proud it wasn't any worse. Your muddy field conditions may of saved you a few dollars. Shoot...That Stratus will be flying again in no time at all. It would be nice to fly with those blades again, wouldn't it? Keep us updated.
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