July 25, 2011

I hadn't been happy with the power I was getting out of my first Swift 16. It barely seemed to have enough power to fly safely for whatever reason. I upgraded the motor to a Century Lightning 600+ with a Phoenix ICE 100 ESC and an Ultimate BEC. This is the same motor that I have in my second Swift. After one short test flight everything seems ready to go. The power felt identical to the other model so it should be more fun to fly than it had been. When the weather cools a bit I will take it out and fly it some more.

I recently had my first crash with one of my 450 class helicopters. Just as I was starting to get comfortable with loops and flips I had a mishap. I lost power coming inverted during a loop. I was caught a bit off guard and didn't realize what was happening at first. By the time I had the model upright again I realized there was very little to no power available. I pushed the collective full up and it kept dropping (from about 80 feet). I moved the collective to neutral and gave full up again before crashing down in a grassy field on the landing gear. Upon initial inspection the damage appeared to be minimal. I did find the motor and probably the ESC to be very hot. I suspect the ESC shut down the motor due to high temperature. There wasn't a complete failure as both seemed to work OK after cooling down.

My HK 450 aluminum out frame plates were very bent. The inner plates looked OK. I took them off and hammered and bent them as flat as I could get them and put the frame back together. I also replaced the older Align 420LF motor with a Turnigy Typhoon 2215H. Most importantly (I think) is that I changed the PWM mode on the Phoenix 35 ESC from Outrunner to 12KHz. I think this will allow the motor and ESC to run much cooler. When all was said and done I only had to replace the two plastic landing gear struts and the flybar. Everything else looks fine after a test flight. Even the wooden rotor blades didn't really have a nick on them. After one test flight in 95 degree temps I was very pleased with the motor and ESC temperature. This helicopter is also ready to get back in the air. I will be working towards developing my inverted hovering skills next.

July 11, 2011

• Not a whole lot going on since the last update in May. Here is an update on some of the topics discussed back then.
• The SD slope soaring trip was 'OK' but nothing great to write about.
• The Radian Pro turned out to be a model I don't care much for.
• The Fun Cub still looks fun. I purchased one and all the gear needed to build it but I don't feel like building it. Don't know when I will start working on it.
• I haven't done any thermal duration soaring at all.
• I completed some more work on the Hush-E and finishing it shouldn't be too difficult. I moved past a part of the build that I was hung up on. I do plan to finish it before the summer is over.

Most of the flying from the past month has been with my 450 sized helicopters. I still want to get comfortable with loops, flips, and inverted hovering before the year ends. After making progress with loops and starting to do flips I had my first crash. I was performing a loop and lost power halfway through. I righted the HK450 and then saw it fall from the sky from about 80 feet high. It landed on it mains and sustained a surprisingly small amount of damage. After going over everything and repairing it I found I needed to replace a flybar and the two landing gear struts and that was all. The lower frame plates were deformed quite a bit but I was able to bend them back into shape without having to replace them. I had it back in the air a few days later.