HBFP goes left and won't stop

[Wingman26]

My HBFP wants to pull hard left and backwards everytime it lifts off, now I'm not talking about a left drift that can be countered with right stick, it even goes left when the right stick is fully to the right! I tried it again yesterday afternoon, and instead of cutting the throttle immediately, I left it and it went in a full circle around me while I held full right stick. Although it seems to balance OK with the battery fully forward in the battery mount I'm going to try putting the battery under the 4in1 and see if that will cure the flying backwards problem, at least when the parts I need come in!

I'm doing fairly well in hover in Real Flight, but haven't been able to get this thing out of its hard left drift.

I had carefully adjusted the paddles so they were horizontal, in line with the paddle control frame.

Also...is there some way to repair the H shaped retainer for the links? These things keep breaking and you can't buy them by themself, only part of the paddle control frame which isn't broken.



Also, any substitutions for these control rods? These things come off and get lost, and they can't be bought by themselves either.

[Mike66]

It sounds like your swash is not level or you might possibly have a servo switch reversed on the transmitter. Disconnect the motors from the 4-in-1 and test the servo movement.

Move the throttle stick up and watch the servos. They should not move until you move the cyclic stick. Then move the cyclic stick around to make sure the servos are moving in the correct direction and the correct distance.

If the servos are functioning properly and the trim controls on the transmitter are centered, then your swash is not level. You can level it by removing the ball link between the servo and the swash and turning the link in or out until the swash is level. Unfortunately, I do not think anyone makes a swash leveling tool for the HBFP, so you will have to eyeball it.

I do not think you can buy the parts you listed separately.

[Wingman26]

When I give it right cyclic the swash plate tilts to the right, so I think it's going the right direction.. I can't track it all the way around since there is a broken H bracket and one of the links is missing.

Here's a photo, one line indicates level, that line follows the mounting pins for the canopy, the tilted line follows the swash plate, the servo is dead center neutral.

[dwesnor]

It looks like your swash broke. The top piece should be connected to the bottom.

[dwesnor]

Here is a pick of what the swash is supposed to look like.



The swash split would also explain the links coming off. I think you can just press the parts back together.

Consider yourself lucky. A CP heli would have charged of in random directions as soon as it spun up and you wouldn't have been able to control anything except the motor speed.

[bryman021]

I noticed your swash has come apart. My swashplates were doing the same thing. Everytime I would fly I would lose control and crash, and the swash was apart like the one in your photo above. I thought the swash coming apart was from the crash, but it was actually what was causing me to lose control. I even put on a brand new swashplate and the same thing happened, the swash was working itself apart in flight. So, I ended up putting a little CA on the bearing that the inner swash is pressed into. Be very careful you don't want to bond the bearings together. But this has cured the problem. I immediately noticed smoother controls with this!!!

[Wingman26]

I'll take it apart and look at it, see if I can figure out whats going on, luckily I do have a brand new swash plate for a spare on hand!

It's tough to figure out a lot of these things, the heli comes with a pretty crappy instruction booklet, and there's a parts breakdown, but to show the parts they are all separated, so there's no photos showing what it should look like when its assembled, with everything in its proper place.

Seems like you never have the presence of mind to take photos of the working parts while its brand new!

[Wingman26]

I found the swash plate had come apart, it wasn't broken just separated, so I put it back together, time will tell if it will stay put. Parts came in from HeliDirect today so I can put it back together, now I just have to wait for the weather to cooperate so I can test it.

Thanks for all the help!

[Dirtmagnet400]

yep... swashplate for sure! this happened to me about 2 weeks ago. My heli kept going to the right and back, although quite minor, i could not correct it. i looked closer at the head assembly and saw the same thing you have going on. Swash separation. I CA'ed mine and haven't had a problem yet. It's been about 30 packs or more! I've been flying 3 or more packs a day. Just be careful with the CA!!!!

[Darkkaos]

I've also had to CA my Swashplate because it came apart. That was about a year ago and it's still in good shape

[Sqwidge]

i have the same problem although my swash appears in good shape

[Triton]

Wingman26, I too got tired of losing those dog bones. What I did was take a small piece of copper wire and remove a single small strand of copper, then I wrapped it around the dog bone on one side and then the same to the other dog bone. It's not real tight between them so that everything moves freely but it works and I quit losing them when they pop off.

[Wingman26]

I'll have to try that!