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it was just a matter of time before i got a proper collective pitch heli, just waited for a good deal to come along.

it's a twister cp v2, came with some decent extras too. upgraded skids and fins, spare set of wood blades (comes stock with fancy cf ones, i decided i'd rather smash the wood ones first ), spare tail blades.

here's a stock one:


and here's mine




i haven't had much time to play with it yet but it's definately something i have to learn properly, just throttling up you quickly realise it can do some serious damage to itself and anything near it!
THIS IS NOT A TOY!!!!!!

gotta do something about that poofy lookin' canopy too

Nice lookin heli

very nice... I was lookin hard at the blade cp pro at the lhs the other day...

Just can't being myself to do it... I do jam on the flight sim after racing though. I'm pretty good on the sim, but I'd shit if it were real, and mine...






silla

Awesome.

How did the maiden voyage go?


Payaso, once you pull the trigger, there's no looking back.
Do it!!!!

Clint wrote:How did the maiden voyage go?

have a fucken guess

i started out following the "radd's school of flight" method:

http://www.dream-models.com/eco/flying-index.html

but got impatient and tried a bit of a hop without training gear and dived. dinged the wooden paddles and i think the mainshaft is bent (head wobbles a lot)!

haven't had a chance to look at it since, just moved house so it could be worse than i know.

first thing is to repair it then make some training gear and stick to the lessons this time!! (asif!)

i tell ya, a proper collective pitch heli is a whole new ballgame compared to my counter rotating heli.
it's very intimidating watching it wind up, the head speed it much faster than a fixed pitch heli for a start. it'll get to around 60% before the blades start changing pitch

i'd have to wear a nappy if i tried out a proper big nitro heli

betty.k wrote:

Clint wrote:How did the maiden voyage go?

have a fucken guess

i started out following the "radd's school of flight" method:

ah shit!

You know, Radd is an ass, he made that tutorial knowing that it
physically[and mentally?] cannot be followed. I read thru it about 10
times, put tons of sim time in, and yet i skipped out after a few flights
too. outcome, similar.

If it's not too bad, you can probably bend the mainshaft back into shape.
The metal is pretty soft.

make a blade balancer, you're going to need it now. take a few small
peices of wood, and glue them into a horseshoe shape. stand it up and
screw in some eye hooks. take the entire CP Head assembly w/blades
and rest the flybar on the hooks. the heavier side will tip. add tape to
lighter blade to balance.

will do, thanks for the tip

also gotta get a pitch guage. that'll come with the first shipment of replacement parts, shouldn't be too long now

so clint, you reckon i'd be better off learning with the carbon blades?
i figured the wooden ones would be less responsive and therefore easier to learn with.

some quick thoughts...

Put the CF blades in a locked safe. seriously, dont touch them for a couple months. One boom strike and the CF blades will cut the entire tail section off.

Get a set of flat bottom blades, not symetrical blades. Flat bottoms have
more lift and require less headspead to get off the ground. you cant do acrobatics with flats, but they are better for training. i'm still using flats
as well. i attempted a piro once and nearly wasted my undies.

make sure you have flybar weights installed all the way out towards the paddles. 2 should be near the head, 2 should be near the paddles. This will slow down the responsiveness. once you can keep the heli in the air
consistently, start moving them inwards..it'll give you the ability to hold a nice tight hover. dont expect to keep it in a decent hover with the weigts
out near the paddles, but the heli will be less prone to tip.

tracking:hold the heli by the boom and spin up the blades(not fast..just a decent rpm..or secure it to the ground with some bricks) and watch to see if the blades are spinning on the same horizon. if one is tracking lower/higher than the other, choose 1 blade and give the
linkage one half twist to add/remove pitch. adding pitch will increase the tracking height, lowering pitch will drop the tracking height. Whenever i need to adjust for tracking i do the opposite of what i did last time it was
needed. raised it two weeks ago, now installed a new set of blades, match them by lowering it this time..and vice versa.

when you get the ping pong ball training wheels, put the battery on the center "X". the lower the center of gravity the less prone the heli is to tip.
but make sure the heli is still evenly balanced front to back.


here's a pic of the balancer..no need to buy a fancy 30$ one.

Betty I am willing to bet that little ding bent the hell out of your main shaft as well as the spindle. I barely nicked my blades, just barely tapped the ground and bent my main shaft and spindle all to hell. You might as well save yourself a headache and replace them both along with the flybar. When you have the flybar off use the time to place a second set of weights next to the flybar paddles, this will make the heli even less prone to tip. It should help tons. If you find that your still having trouble take the bell hiller off.

i figured i better get some training gear but the prices are outrageous so i just made my own.

i just used ping pong balls, bamboo skewers, zip ties, a square of lexan, heat shrink and super glue.

i already had the little skid clips but if i didn't have them i would have used zip ties or rubber bands.





whether you make it or buy it i recommend installing trainers on your heli if you're a beginner, makes learning a lot less nerve racking!

betty.k wrote:i figured i better get some training gear but the prices are outrageous so i just made my own.

i just used ping pong balls, bamboo skewers, zip ties, a square of lexan, heat shrink and super glue.

Right on! I love it!

betty.k wrote:whether you make it or buy it i recommend installing trainers on your heli if you're a beginner, makes learning a lot less nerve racking!

Yes it does! I started, first day I lifted off the ground about 3-4 inches, that's it! If you learn to keep it steady within ground effect, you'll be a more stable flyer when you actually fly it. Nose in is also a good thing to practice within ground effect. If you screw up, drop the throttle!

figured i'd personalise the canopy a bit, gave it a lick of red to help with visibility.
also got some new blades. i bought a set of wooden flat bottoms but they made the heli a little too unpredictable, using the cyclic would make it jump up for some reason. then i did some accidental gardening with them and they'll need a spot of glue before i use them again!

i also got some symetrical plastic blades. they're nearly twice the weight of wooden paddles but seem to be more beginner friendly so i'm using them for now.



i made a blade balancer by hacking the sides off a plastic chocolate box.

definately a must have tool




so it's rightaboudnow that i'd like to share my learning journey.

rc heli's are pretty much like a 2-3yo child. they need constant supervision and direction. you turn your back for one second, even blink at the wrong time and bam! instant fucking disaster!

once i installed training gear i could begin proper practice. winding it up then shutting it down at first to learn the throttle feel and practice killing it quickly in the event of a crash.
i then moved on to getting it light on the skids and trying to keep it straight and in one place.
bit by bit i'd get it lighter and try a few hops as my confidence grew.

up until then it was a very frustrating experience but that's part of the deal. you can't tell if it's trimmed right until you get it in the air and you can't get it in the air easily unless it's trimmed right!

but you get through that and once you start to understand the in flight behavior it gets a lot easier.

so far i've clocked up about 2 hours and i can do a pretty decent hover for as long as i want in my little 15ft x 15ft backyard training area. i've even managed a couple of decent right hand piroettes, going left is a different story all together!

see that's the thing with a heli, you need to give it input every step of the way. say you wanna sway left, you need to give it left input to tilt the heli left. it then moves left and you need to give it right input to arrest the left movement. then you gotta tilt it back to the left to stop it swaying back to the right!

but i'm totally loving it, no turning back now!

You made up my mind, I was thinking of selling my plane and getting a heli, I was talking about it at the field this weekend, phill was pushing me to buy his heli, not sure what it is, I'm just going to get something for under $130, accessories included to play with, where did you order from. Also thanks alot jack ass, just what I need something else to blow money on. atleast my hobby shop loves me!

So betty, are you running the stock remote? If so, when do you plan to get a puter radio? They kick ass fo-rizzle! EVERYTHING is adjustable from the damn things. Basically set your heli up to where it's "about" where it should be and the TX trims up the slop.

Say you want to change anything with the mixing of throttle and pitch, it's as easy as flipping a switch, pushing a button, or turning a knob!

I got my Eclipse 7 for I think $250, but they've come down in price quite a bit. I've heard a LOT of good things about the Futaba 9C, and I hear they aren't too bad on price now also.

i'm using the stock tx. no plans for a new one yet but if i stick with it i'm sure i'll upgrade eventually, probably when i upgrade helis.

maybe i'll grab 2 or 3 futaba 14mz's

but seriously, the spektrum dx7 looks up to the job but i'm not that confident about 2.4ghz. it seems everything wireless now is going 2.4 and i'd worry about crowding or glitches.
plus, as everyone upgrades to 2.4 that means there will be plenty of second hand fm stuff for me to buy

so i guess i'd get a futaba tx of some sort, no idea what one as i haven't researched the subject yet.