matty_p80

Hey there people!

i'm very excited as i'm in process of swapping my T-Rex 600N for a Logo 500se with my friend in Germany! he's got a sponsorship from Gaui but needed a "fly-in" play thing and i'm cool with going electric as i still have three other nitros (the "antique" Moskitos), plus the Logo is FBL and i have a nice new AR7200BX waiting to be fitted!!!

at the moment the only 'heli' i have flying is the mQx as Budgie (B400) still is missing a main gear and it seems there is a U.K. shortage!! the Moskito's all need attention to some degree, from Rx's and servos to overhauling the motor/carb! damn this work thing, it really gets in the way!

on the work front, i have secured a permanent position with Serco Ltd. at RNAS Yeovilton working on my old squadron (845 NAS) which might be starting in two weeks time or at the beginning of April, depending on an interview with another prospective fitter! if the management like him and he wants the job, he will start in my place until the current contract i'm working on finishes! this means i'm making more money with some security when this contract finishes!! win-win!!!!

i have also been pinged as a reserve for the Underwater Escape Training Unit as a safety diver for when the aircrew do their "dunker" training! i will be a standby rating if a gap needs filling, i.e. when people are taking holiday(vacation) or doing training away from site!!! this also means when a permanent position comes up i will be more likely to get it!!!

all in all, everything is grand and i hope everyone else is having as good a start to the new year as me!

one of my resolutions this year is trying to be more communicative to everyone i know, so if i haven't posted at least once a week on here please give me a large poke!!!

p,l,c+mh

Matty out

dooleyje

Hey everyone, I am still busy at the store, I have sold my beloved 500, my 600. I am building my fleet up to more modern airframes, I still have my nitros though and my smaller helis. HEY HEY the new MCPX with all brushless systems is in the store and selling like hot cakes. It is some what bigger than the V1/V2 airframes. It uses a 2 cell lipo like the one in the Beaxt biplane. I have not had a chance to test one yet. I will let you know. I finally had a chance to wring out my new 250DFC and my 450DFC... Wow nice nice nice. I also have a 300x that I fly... it is a little bullet and with carbon blades will keep up with the best of them and will take all you can give it. A note, do buy the frame brace set for the 300x. 10bucks and well worth it. The new Blade500x has finally been released and will be in the store in a couple of days,, Tuesday latest.


Later folks,

Jim

scasari

HEy everyone!! Im back in Paris now after going home for the holidays. I manged to pick up a Nano cpx back in Houston and so far I reallyI like it! They came out with the new Mcpx a few days after I bought the Nano...but i really like the size of the nano. Back in Paris its REALLY cold and theres been a lot of snow here! Its not very ideal to fly right now )= Hope everyones doing well and flying everyday to its fullest! - Sean

matty_p80

Yo yo! peeps!

this is to everyone but probably more to Andy and Jimbo:

am i correct that there is a T-Rex 250 N coming soon?

wow! that will be awesome!!!

got my Logo through yesterday and it looks luvurly! my friend sent some Sx's for the cyclic but they are Bluebird digital ones and feel very ratchety on my Sx tester and the last thing i want to do is put sub-grade Sx's on an expensive heli, especially when using a FBL system! so, i'm probably going to get Align ones (seeing as they are made by Savox!!!)!

also got some gears through for Budgie! it turns out the Twister 400 is basically the same heli and the gears fit!!

so my weekend is mapped out, haven't a clue what the women are doing but i'll be in the garage!!

hope everyone is good

p,l,c+mh

Matty

BarracudaHockey

My Feedback: (11)

A 250n? I hadn't heard about one but that would be trippy.

I wonder if I'd be allowed to fly it in the house......

dooleyje

250n Nope Ii have not heard that yet. Gaui has the 4x nitro. I think it will use a 32-37 motor. The Trex250 has no room as it is. The 250 is way too big for my house. I have the Nano for that.

Matty, please don't cheap your FBL servos use Savox/. Align You have a great heli so put great stuff in it. FBL likes super fast digital servos for the best rewards. Thew beastx can use analog, you just have to tell it the specs.

Later,

Jim

dooleyje

Hello everyone. Wow, I have not had a decent flying day since December. Seem like all my days off are bad weather days.

There is a new Blade MCPX out and it is all brushless. It is a larger helicopter than the V1 or V2 MCPX and it is a very very nice and powerful machine. Hands down a better machine than the original offering. Horizon Hobbies is starting to listen to the customers.

Take care,

Jim

matty_p80

hey there matey peeps!

last weekend was a treat! i had just gathered everything for the Logo 500SE (Scorpion HKII 4020 - 1100kV motor, Gaui GUEC 610 - 100A esc, Align DS610 X 3 for cyclic, DS620 for the tail, 3300 or 4500 6S LiPo and of course the AR7200BX FBL unit!!) and had put everything together but got stuck at the FBL unit programming, so decided to go to my flying club only to find, when i got there, that the competition (Grassroots 3D) that was rained off at the end of December was being held!!! i managed to catch the final flights of the top five scorers of the Saturday in the snow - yes snow and was hugely impressed (and very green as the winner was no taller than 4 1/2 ft and about 10 yrs old!!![:'(] ) !!!

the guy that had organised the event is quite a knowledgeable person on the AR7200BX and had mine set up in less than 5 mins when i finally got his attention on the Sunday Fly-in!! had a couple of test hovers and it is beautiful!! i wasn't about to embarrass myself with all the experience and talent there so hopefully will have a couple of flights this weekend but will have to trim the motor shaft length to fit the larger battery packs in!!

not hearing much from anyone else so assume everyone is in great health and whooping it up in the air!! understand everyone has lives but seems it's tailed off lots on here, would like to hear how people are getting on!!??

p,lc+mh

Matty

dooleyje

Hey Hey. Yep that Logo will feel super nice with the 7200BX. I have to admit that I have not flown anything I own for 2 months. I am working on a few planks. I am an old pattern flyer and got my hands on a couple of vintage kits.

I had a couple of Trex500 repairs to look into today the customer could not understand what the problem were. One a FBL would flip over while spooling up. FBL unit not programmed correctly. The other is a standard head that was acting funny. I found it had a servo with stripped gears. Folks, please preflight your machines! Stop flying them when something does not see right. One, 75 bucks, for not following directions of the FBL unit and the other one was over $200 for a 5 dollar set of servo gears. Don't add up does it? Oh by the way that does not include my labor.

Later,

Jim

matty_p80

Hey guys!

just a quickie to say hi and check in!

got a beautiful day here, very sunny with a good wind so am heading out to go fly the logo500 at least and maybe get budgie up too (B400)

yesterday had another attack on the newer Schluter Moskitos in my herd, getting the servos in! i have all the parts so should have 3 classic nitros flying very soon!!

as usual, big matty hugs to all and hope everyone is well!?

Matty

Mack66

Hey everybody! No I am not dead. Still here. I don't know where the time goes. Been busy doing lots of things unrelated to flying, but have done some flying too. Weather has been particularly tough in Houston, especially with the winds. Still, we seem to have plowed on to start something new. Greg has abandoned Hirobo in favor of Outrage and flybarless. He's now flying two Outrage Velocity N2 50's plus just recently built a 90 as well. I've been happily flying my Hirobo SDX 50 with Sceadu as backup, but recently decided to "upgrade" to a flybarless. Thought about buying the Outrage head for my Hirobo, since I already acquired a Skookum 720 used from a friend. In the end I concluded the same as Greg to put the rest of the Outrage below the head and get a kit. Just have rounded up all the parts for it. Decided to go with the new Thunder Tiger RL-56H with matching pipe. We'll see how that goes....

Glad to see some of the old pilots still participating in here. Time has gotten away from me with lots of other things going on around here. It doesn't help that I'm using an iPad more and more, and it doesn't seem to do well with this site. Still, that's just an excuse, since I can easily go to my office and get on with this computer.

I'll try to do a better job in the future. Hope everyone is happy and well!

Regards,

Mack

dooleyje

Hey Matty and Mack,

I have been busy at the store and in hosting a weekly clinic on helicopters and such. Flying,,, Ha Weather has found it's way only on my days off. Great conditions when I have to work. Mack The Outrage head is a nice piece and I use it on my 600 and JR Vibe. I still have the Evo. All my smaller helis have changed to newr versions. My repair bench is busy as usual but is slacking a bit due to the clinics. I simply do not have the time to fix all the request. Hey fix your own heli and that is the course I have taken at the store. I set the customer up in the back of the store and get them started. If they have questions or in need of help come get me up front. The customers seem to enjoy it and they learn a lot.

Take care everyone,

Jim

BarracudaHockey

My Feedback: (11)

Playing with my Go-Pro at the AMA District -V Heli Fest in Statesboro this weekend.

Mack66

Hey! Started assembling my Outrage Velocity N2. Nice kit. Lots of CNC. I'm just fixin' to install the engine. So far I've run into two flaws in their design. First, the notches and rubber dampers that support the fuel tank are way too tight. I knew about that one from Greg, who has built two of them. The tight fit transmits too much vibration to the tank causing excessive foaming. The fix is to deepen the notches in the side frames to give sufficient "wiggle room", provided you haven't already CA's the dampers to the frame. The fix then is to get out your dremel sanding drum and cut down the damper itself. Both work.

Second, the clutch hub id's are undersized. The engine shaft is .250" and .475" od. The hub id's were .246" and .473" id. It took me quite a while to hone them out to fit, and when done I felt like it was a botch job, but because the larger diameter has a compressible feature with two cap screws and a slot in the hub, I managed to get the thing properly mounted.

I'm not anticipating any further problems. Greg had the same issues with his. For the larger diameter, you can take a piece of dowling, cut a slot in it and slip a piece of emery cloth or fine grit sandpaper in it and hone it out. For the smaller diameter I wrapped sandpaper around a small drill bit and clamped it in place with a clothespin! LOL. In the end I took a 1/4" porcelain bit and ran it through. The sandpaper method was too uneven and I ended up with a smaller diameter midway. This would not be a problem if I had a machine shop or proper tools capable of honing these small diameters.

Flew the SDX last Sunday. Finally. This after a deluge on Saturday. The plank pilots stayed home because of too much water on the field, but the braver heli pilots splashed out to the flight line in 1/2 inch deep water in places. No heli was injured in this process. Air was pretty calm with the odd gust from time to time to keep us cool on that 80F day!

Soon we'll be flying daily I hope. Winds continue to be excessive most days, but April is over and it's time for SUMMER!

Mack

scasari

Sounds like fun Norm! Tell me how the maiden go's with the outrage! We STILL havent gotten to flying our nitros here in Paris due to the bad weather and we have no idea where to begin to find a field but im ready to get back into it. I also cannot wait for summer...we'll be back in texas for awhile and we can come out to the field for some fun! Hope everyones doing well, Sean

matty_p80

hey Sean!

wherever i have been i've just done a determined Google search on the RC clubs/ airfields in the area and it has worked very well for me! you can also try the club search on here (RCU) which is how i got in contact with my friend in Spain when i was there the year before last!!

i'm currently waiting on a response from the HobbyKing warranty dept. as one of the 6S 4500mAh Nano-tech LiPo's i very recently got from them has had the #1 cell drop out and not hold any charge! very annoying, although they're not the most expensive batteries, it's a lot of money (£65) to go wrong after only a few charges!!!

been whooping it up with the Logo 500 and strapped my small cheapie camera to the skids which you can see on my YT channel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32Zmxl6jQXg

been close to tears this week as it has been absolutely glorious weather but i've been stuck inside a smelly hangar, instead of flying my buns off!!! "they" say the weather is going to be good this weekend so here's hoping

hope everyone is well and flying lots (including our two lost souls)

p,l,c+mh

Matty

dooleyje

Hey everyone. Rain has hampered our flying and here at the lake we suffered flooding. We have had to kill several snakes including Copperheads and water vipers that are very dangerous. Docks have all floated away. I am heading out for the Joe Nall fly-in later and if you have not gone then you need to make plans. Largest I have seen with 6 flight fields/lines. I will post some pictures later. Last Thursday I had a rare afternoon off and took advantage of the time to fly a little. I sure love the long afternoons that allow time after work to beat up on some batteries.

Matty, I have had three 6 cell (turnegy) that arrived with a dead cell or went out after one or two flights. I do not use big battries anymore. I rather use 2 batteries to make up 6/8/ cells and then if I lose a cell it is only on a 30 dollar battery. Of course for a 700 you may have to bite the bullet. Never received any answer from them. I have had great luck out of Zippys from them.

Mack, Wow I think I would have gone back on Outrage and let them know about the problem and ask for the fix. You should not have to modify.

Later folks

Jim

Mack66

The Velocity N2 is done except for mounting the muffler...and...the used Skookum SK720, which turned out to be DOA.

I went through the whole setup process, only to find that it would not initialize. After swapping emails with Skookum in Vancouver, they said send it in, so I did. Soooo, just wait. Besides, we've had the house full of painters painting anything we forgot to cover, so that kept us busy for seven days.

Still waiting for the unit to be delivered to Skookum, and then it occurred to me that I should go ahead and buy a brand new SK540 and install it, while I work with the nice Canadian boys to determine if the SK720 has to be put down or not...

By the way, on further inspection I noticed that there were cracks in the case so it was definitely abused. No doubt the accelerometers have been damaged. Caveat emptor.

Anyway by early next week I'll be going through the setup process again, which is actually pretty fun.

JD AND Cuda, look out. We're sending rain your way...

Mack

dooleyje

Mack, sorry about the doa unit. I am sure Skookum can repair it. The new 540 is a super nice unit and a little easier to use in some ways.

I gave the 3gx a retry since it fits between the rails of my tiny Trex250. With the new software I have to say, makes the unit a contender. Feels like flying a Beastx and the drifting and tail wave is gone. I just happened to have a couple of 3Gx units in the shop and I am glade I pulled one out of the drawer. The 3.1 software works super.

I had a chance to fly last Friday and spent 8 hours at the field. I flew every battery I had. My Trex250 has a problem of melting the front tail gear drive for the torque tube. They last about 2 flights before it starts spinning on the shaft. Luckily It was high enough to hit TH and it landed in a tall clump of hay grass like a shot bird. Bent the tail boom a little. While I was waiting on parts for it, I think I found the problem and a solution to the melted gear. The front box where the gear is mounted is rubbing on the gear and there is a metal bar the holds the box halve together. The bar is so close to the gear that I could not insert a piece of paper. So,, I trimmed the box and sanded the bar to make clearence for the gear assembly. The gear is white and had smears of black plastic on it. That led me to believe I may have found the problem.

I hope everyone is well and are putting in some flying time.

Jim

matty_p80

hey guys!

glad to see peeps are out flying!!

i have been really lucky recently on several counts!!!

firstly "summer", or our equivalent, has kind of arrived and we've had some really splendid weekends where i've been flying the blades off my two main helis ( logo 500se and budgie[b400] )! i have got the courage up to flip the Logo and have done some pretty nice loops with it which, combined with high altitude 420° stall turns, have had some praise sent my way from some of the other pilots at the field!! my next objective is to do barrel rolls then stationary rolls!!

my luck (more to tell!!!!!) was interrupted by my JR EnERgY LiPro 8 charger went up in a puff of smoke the other evening so i'm waiting until i have the funds to get the Revolektrix Cellpro 10S, which is running at about £100 at the moment!!

my further luck: how happy was i when, last saturday, i woke up and thought i'd check my phone for messages to find an e-mail from a familiar name who is the editor of "Radio Control RotorWorld" here in the U.K.!! in it he announced the fact that i had won (finally) a competition from April's magazine and my prize is the Dualsky Hornet 460 quadcopter!!!!! it's about £250 worth here and comes with everything except the battery and Rx (even has LED's on the legs for a bit of night flying!!)! it's coming from Area51 which the female pilot Raquel Bellot is sponsored by/owns (?) which is cool!!!

here is a link to it: [link=http://www.area51-distribution.com/quadcopters/dualsky-quadcopter]Area51 - Dualsky Hornet 460[/link]

also went to the "ZONE" competition at the Fleet Air Arm museum at the airstation where i work on the Bank Holiday weekend at the end of May! it is a competition devised by two local lads who are the sons of the owner of "Hobby Hangar" hobby store in Yeovil and who are quite accomplished pilots themselves! i only managed to go on the Sunday but the flying was awesome and the pilots were really pulling the stops out and making full use of the hardstanding area behind the museum! one of my raffle ticket numbers was the last to be pulled out and i won a t-shirt!!! i look at it as my cup being half full as i spent £10 on tickets but the shirts were being sold for £15, so effectively i'm £5 up!!! the top prize on the table, on both days, was the 300X heli which my mate Tim won on the Monday as he went for the second day too!!! i had my DX6i knocking around so i sold that to him for a song so he had all he required to get in the air! typically, though, against advice from me he couldn't wait until the following weekend so he tried hovering it straight away and crashed it! he managed to get some new blades before the weekend but we found he'd chewed the main gear, bent the main and feather shafts and stripped the gears in one of the servos, so he didn't even get to spool it up!!

well peeps, the clouds are parting and i'm crossing everything for the weather to be good tomorrow!!

hope everyone gets out flying and rips the skies for tissue paper!!! hee hee hee!


p,l,c+mh

Matty

dooleyje

Hello boys and girls, Good morning from Rc Wingers electric fly-in. We are camping this week end and enjoying a fine weekend of flying. This is a rare weekend off for me. We flew till dark and had some nite flying. On Nov 16 we will host a heli fly-in so if anyone can shake loose come on to the Mooresville NC area and join us.

Tech notr: Folks are complaining that the frong torque tube mushroom gears are slipping on the shaft of the 250DFC. Happened twice for me. I found that box is rubbing on the gears and the fix is to file clearance so it rotates freely. So far it is working for me.

Gotta go and put the canopy up. Hot and in the 90's

Jim

Mack66

Well, well, a happy camper! If a plane crashes in the dark, how will you know?



Mack

dooleyje

Mack,, as they say there is an app for that!!!

Mack66

OK it has been a while, so thought I best let y'all know that I have completed my latest project. My brand new Outrage Velocity N2 FBL is buzzing around! I added it to my models in my profile if you want to see a picture of it (they all look alike). My friend Greg has been fooling around with Outrage for about a year now, so thought I'd take the plunge and build one for myself. Greg is running the TT RL-53H in his, so I thought I'd step out there and buy an RL-56H. So far it does feel like it has just a tiny bit more power, but then the Velocity weighs about a pound less than the Hirobo SDX I've been flying plus being flybarless, maybe a bit more efficient. But I'm such an amateur, how would I know. Anyway I like it. It will be a sad day when my Sceadu and SDX go to new owners. I've got them up for sale now at the club.

I went with Skookum's 540 and so far I like it very much. A number of our pilots are using either the 540 or 720 and have been pretty happy with their performance. Greg bought the LCD field terminal so I get to borrow it instead of having to cart my laptop out to the field and expose it to 100F weather. Once the thing is set up though, you don't really need anything. Since Greg is a highly experienced pilot, he of course likes to "tweak" his setting for higher performance, which I do not need...yet.

Greg has two identical 50's and two identical Outrage 90's. His 90's kept crashing and we were starting to blame anything and everything. I pointed out to him that the only difference I could see was that he was running lipos in his 90's and NiMH batteries in his 50's. Turns out after a patient discussion with one of HeliDirect's technicians that the compenent likely to blame was the Align regulator he was using. Theory is that the regulator would fail under high current draw, causing the Skookum unit to reboot in-flight! Apparently he had purchased the type that also includes a glow-starter function. HeliDirect says that's the one that's been the worst. Recommendation was to go to high voltage servos and exclude the regulator, since the rest of the components are designed for up to 10V. I'll report back on this as things progress...

Hope everyone is doing well. It's pretty hot down here in (The Great State of) Texas, but come on down anyhoo.

Mack

scasari

Sounds Like fun Norm! We'll be coming soon! We are very excited to see y'all. Here in Paris we have found our club and we are sending in the paperwork to join now, I cant wait to start flying the Nitros again! -Sean