First Flight! & How To Fix All The Common Issues

I charged up the battery, bought some cells for the transmitter, then got ready to rumble in a big open space (the office at work ;-) )

Lesson 1: Transmitter on first!

I plugged in the battery pack and wham! Lesson 1 -- turn the transmitter on first, before the heli. Otherwise the blades will spin up and draw blood :-( My fault!

Ok, setup, powered on, ready to fly! Give it some throttle... and the top blades stop spinning! Argh! What's wrong with it?!

Lesson 2: Top Blades Stop Spinning

I was having the "top rotors don't spin" issue, until i read and understood that its not a problem at all. When the top rotors don't spin up, or they stop, it's normally because the #38 is still sitting on the ground and the gyro is getting a bit confused. Fix: shut off the throttle, wait for the blades to stop, then give it some welly the next time! Don't be a wimp! The top rotors will come back on as expected and they wont cut out in flight.

Lesson 3: Tighten the blades, don't spin the rotors just out of the box

Next problem was that when the top blades shut off, they flop into the path of the blades below. Ouch! The blades looked pretty nasty all chopped up like that after hitting each other (top and bottoms).

Fix: The blades have to be firm (not overtight either!) in the grips, not floppy as they are out of the box. Screwdriver and pliers, and i was all set.

Lesson 4: The First Real (i.e. not my fault) Problem

This was the hardest and the first *real* problem (the first 2 were just my lack of knowledge. The heli *really* wanted to spin counter-clockwise with any throttle at all. On top of that, the rear was lifting sooner than the front. That meant instant crash -- the rear lifts, the heli is left to balance on the front wheel, coupled with the powerful counter clockwise spin (you may experience clockwise, it's the same root cause!). Ouch. I have a new found love of grass btw.

I'll stop for a second just to say this is my first heli, i was feeling properly out of my depth at this point. Thanks to a post by Xrayted on RC Groups, i learned enough to tackle the issue.

Fix: there's 3 adjuster screws underneath -- extent, which i believe controls how far the servos turn (not needed for this issue); sensitivity, this is the gyro control, this is the thing causing the heli to spin; mix, this is the %age power for the front rotors vs. the rear, this is what's causing the rear to lift before the front.

The Mix Screw: Make the Front End lift Slightly Before the Rear

Twiddle with the mix screw first, it's the easiest to set properly. Set your yaw trim control to max in the opposite direction of your spin -- it wont be enough to stop the spin, but it will slow it enough to give you a chance to hop the heli up slightly to see if the front lifts first or the rear. I have it set so the front lifts a split second before the rear due to the tricycle under-carriage, for max stability. This has the downside that the heli will float backwards ever so slightly in hover (trim can handle it) so i might have to re-think.

These screws are very sensitive, you will be tweaking by no more than 1/30th of a turn!! Also, as many folks have posted, when you go past maximum, you're instantly back at minimum. Frustrating for me! But i got the hang eventually.

The Sensitivity (Gyro) Screw: Man this is hard work!

The sweet spot for sensitivity screw is a lot more elusive! But eventually i got it to the stage where i could control the spin by setting the trim controls. Stop at this point, you wont get any better!

Recentre The Controls, Stop Using Trim

Now turn off the heli. Turn off the remote. Centre each trim control (except throttle, which you should set to minimum). Turn on the controller, turn on the heli. Tada! No need to use trim! It's re-centred the controlls on the reboot, now you may just have the tiniest sensitivity screw tweaks to make to ensure no trim is needed at all. Reboot both units afterwards!

No Test Flight Just Yet...

All this took a while to research (remember i'm brand new to this) and some time to implement. Next post is the maiden flight!