TakeshiSkunk

Well I got a Blade 400 for Christmas, I'd been wanting to get into helicopters for a while now. I have a few years of experience with fixed wing, mostly flying a Typhoon 2 3D with a DX6i. Didn't have any trouble learning to fly planes at all, and the challenge of flying helicopters has really attracted me to them. Not that there flying a plane isn't fun, but I tend to enjoy learning difficult things.

I've spent a fair amount of time with helicopters on RealFlight G4/4.5, and for the last couple months I've been spending a lot of time with a model of the Blade 400 I found (all the comments I read on it were very positive as to its accuracy). I leaned towards the B400 as a first kit after talking with some of the guys at the LHS and letting them watch me fly a bit on their RealFlight setup in the store. I'm not exactly swimming in cash so the price was right, and it seemed like a model that would be able to grow with me as I become more familiar with it.

I have noticed that it is noticeably more difficult to fly than a lot of the bigger helicopters in the sim, as I expected. I can do a pretty good job of keeping it in front of me and holding a relatively stable hover, still have some trouble with some things in forward flight but generally if I stay focused and don't get ahead of myself I can keep it in one piece. It just registered with me how squirrely the thing can be after messing with one of the .30 size helicopters for a bit yesterday, which was comparatively effortless to keep in a tight hover.

Basically I'm wondering what I need to watch out for when I'm flying the real deal, what's going to be noticeably different and what could throw me off the most. I've got materials for building my training gear but I'm a bit paranoid about busting her up, I don't want to do something stupid right off the bat. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on flying with the simulator but I really don't want to be overconfident and get ahead of myself.

Going to try to get in touch with one of the heli pilots at the LHS and see if he can help me set it up, trim it out and test fly it for me and maybe walk me through a flight or two. Regardless I would like to hear what some of you guys have to say, advice to offer, etc.

Robertwav1

Hello and congrats on your 400. I've only been flying a few years now but found that I can do things on the sim that I can't do in real time. Ya gotta like working on heli's as much as you do flying them. Radds school of flight I hear is the way to go when learning. I was too impatient and took the agressive approach which I paid for but it was still fun. Mix the sim with real flying for me works. I've never flown planes but will hope to do so in the future. Good luck and enjoy the learning process.

Sasquatchin

While the sim is great (Ihave G4.5/G5) but there is nothing like actual stick time. Ican do all sorts of maneuvers on RF that Iwould not try in RL yet, lol

TakeshiSkunk

Yeah, I can hover planes down onto the deck, or dip the tail in the water on some of the areas, and I'd never try to bring my plane that low in a hover irl haha.

The two things that I feel limit me the most in actual flight as opposed to with time on RF are the fact that I have to worry about actually cracking up the model (which puts on a lot of pressure real quick :P) and that the models in RF are usually perfectly balanced for whatever I'm doing with them.

Is it mostly going to be an issue of "holy crap this is real, I can't let this thing crash" making it harder to fly calm and concentrate, or am I going to notice a lot of differences with the handling and tendencies of the heli?

Edit: I just remembered a couple things I forgot to ask about. My main rotor blades seem to be to be at about the appropriate tension coming from the hub, with a little force they move back and forth but they won't move without force applied. My tail rotor blades, however, are very loose, and will flop around if the model is moved around much. I realize that centrifugal force is going to keep the blades out when it's flying, and they need to be able to swivel around so every bladestrike isn't completely catastrophic, but is it OK for them to be this loose? While I'm on the subject, I hate to ask about it but how should I expect the heli to hold up to bladestrikes/crashes. I just want to know what to expect.

Also, I've seen people mention switching the gyro between heading hold and some other mode, but didn't see anything about setting this up in the manual. If someone could clear this up for me I'd appreciate it.

Mack66

You might find this link to training useful: http://www.rchelicopterfun.com/how-t...licopters.html

Also I highly encourage you to get help from an experienced heli pilot for setup and initial checkout. It will make your first flight less treacherous and more enjoyable. There are lots of things you can learn just from talking while doing with someone who has been through this.

I went from a CX2 to a 50 nitro (Sceadu EVO) and boy what a difference size makes. Much more controllable than the smaller ones. Sure am glad I skipped the 450 - sized T-Rex/clones that I originally was going to go with. I find the simulator similar enough to the real thing to adequately prepare me for what is going to happen it's just the confidence issue and dealing with real wind/turbulence that I find quite different. Also the risks are much greater with the real thing so you tend to hold back in the wrong places!

Main thing is to get it in the air and follow some sort of training program (like RADD's or see link above).

Welcome to the clan!

Mack

TakeshiSkunk

OK new question after reading through a good portion of RADDs guide.

He is always referring to flying off of a hard surface, and I have noticed in a great deal of videos I watch people are taking off and landing on hard surfaces.

I can put it on the floor in the hangar or out back on the pavement for spinning up and maneuvering about light on the skids, but I don't really feel like I have a comfortable amount of room around me for my first few liftoffs and hovers with the blade out back (and I'm not stupid enough to try and fly it inside the hangar).

My flying field is just on the other side of the airport, and is a nice big flat grass field (with one or two golf flags in it since I guess some people use it as a driving range once in a while)

Will it be OK to practice in the grass, or do I need to be worried about skids/training gear getting tangled up in grass. Is soft ground actually worse for blade strikes due to digging in/etc?

Real2You

Ihave training gear with about 2" diameter balls and Ihave no problem moving around light on the skids on grass/dirt. I think learning on the grass is easier if you have a few hard landings. Not sure with the B400 but with the Raptor 50 Ican land pretty hard without anything happening at all. Maybe I am getting lucky....but if you feel you are going to land kinda hard while learning to hover...make sure you try and hit ground as flat as possible. The training gear is a "heli saver" when learning.

Mack66

The guys at our club say grass/turf is definitely easier on your aircraft in hard landings. Only issue will be that you can't really skid around in the grass very well, especially with a B400. But you don't need to do that anyway. Get off the ground, do your thing, then land by gently setting it down while minimizing lateral movement. Once you get good at landing the training gear becomes a bit superfluous.

Any training maneuvers requiring you to only slide around on the training gear is best done on hard surfaces though.

Training gear saved me a number of times while learning, and there's nothing macho about taking the gear off prematurely.

Mack

TakeshiSkunk

Alright cool. I don't think I'm going to be smashing the poor thing down on landings, I've been practicing landing as softly as possible in RF, after I started to get a feel for autorotation it began to seem as though it was actually easier to set it down softly like that. I'll wait a bit before trying autorotation in actual flight though.

All that said I'm definitely going to keep the training gear on for a while, until I'm very confident with forward flight and my landing ability in the wind. I'd hate to come in a little sideways and tip over x.x

matty_p80

hey Takeshi

welcome to the heli side (dark, light, your choice!!??)

as for the damage to expect from a blade strike (i have a B400 too, v. nice!!!), generally the blades will need replacing, the feather shaft is a definite, most cases the main shaft also, depending on how you land the boom will go quite easily and quite often the servo gears (make sure you get the correct replacement gears, as i have purchased ds75H labelled gears before to find they are for the s75's)

if you keep it as a plastic head it will absorb a lot of the energy, thereby reducing the amount of damage to more vital and expensive parts!

although the charger is very proficient, i have found that the 2x E-Flite LiPo's i have aren't happy bunnies but the E-Sky and Flight Power packs charge just fine on it! maybe i was just my normal lucky self and managed to get 2x duff packs but you might want to consider getting a couple maybe a few more LiPo's for it and maybe a more advanced charger if you do not possess the same already from your plank flying

i have been slowly adding ally parts to the head but i think i will stick with the plastic blade grips for the above reason!!

my guru, Mr. Jim Dooley, told me that it is inebitable you will crash so you have to get over the fear of crashing hump (i'm almost over the top of said hump hee hee) he also said that everytime you crash and re-build, you have yourself a new heli!!!

you obviously have a good head start with your plank experience and the copious use of the sim (i can't afford RF sim but have a £20 cheapy but it does the same job (almost) )

i have made a heli pad out of a big piece of cardboard (painted with a nice big 'H' on it) which i can put down wherever i fly for a flat take off/ landing surface. the 450 size skids really like to get under any sort of grass and i've done a set of blades and various head components in where i've gone to take off, only for the heli to be hauled over onto it's side (absolutely my fault as i was impatient and was trying to fly it out rather than shutting down and moving it by hand- lesson learned the hard way as usual!![] )

crikey! didn't realise how much i'd been rabbiting on!!??

hope some, if not all of this helps and please feel free to come join my friends and i on the "heli stuff and fellowship" thread in the beginners section here!!

enjoy and fly safe

Matty )}}}}}}]@>

TakeshiSkunk

Thankyou very much for the information, very informative

I've been using an E-Flite 1800 with the Typhoon, and got a Venom Power 2100 with the heli. I should pick up another battery or two when I can afford it...I had purchased an additional E-Flite 1800 but it was dead out of the package...meant to call them up about a replacement but somehow forgot, maybe it's not too late :/

I've been studying the heli quite a bit and have to admit that I'm a bit intimidated by the mechanics of it from a repair standpoint, but I suppose once I take it apart and rebuild a few times it won't be a huge deal.

I'm assuming it's probably a good idea to log every flight I make to keep track of routine maintenance and such. The manual mentioned a few places to keep an eye on, like the belt and the main bearing. What kind of maintenance times have you been experiencing? What needs done after X number of flights?

matty_p80

because i've crashed it a few times i haven't really encountered any 'routine' maintenance you should give it a check before each flight, as you get to know it better you will notice if anything is really out of place or wrong!!

concentrate on the high stress areas i.e. the feather shaft, the main shaft, main and tail blade grips, bearings, tail drive belt, etc.! i give the moving, sliding, turning bits a drop of oil about every 3-4 flights with a modellers needle tube applicator (couple of bucks from your LHS but very handy)

oh, forgot to mention in the last post, the tightness of your blade grips; main blades: they should be tight enough that when in the straight out position and flicked lightly on the leading edge, the blade should swing easily but not all the way back so as to hit the grip (clear as mud? you'll see it when you try it); tail blades: should move easily but not so that they flop about when you move the heli by hand, otherwise they will be smacking the blade grips when powering up/down!!!

other than wanting one because they are soooooo cool, i got me a mSR which enables me to do some orientation practise in RL ( ) and it is wickedly quick and bouncy (has hit pavement, door, butterfly mobile, wall, TV with no damage). it's really stable and allows a little bit of leeway when praticing nose in stuff (just ordered a couple of 150mAh single cells for it to extend the flying time a little)

i'm rabbiting again!

keep the questions coming, it's the only way to learn!!

Matty )}}}}}]@>

TakeshiSkunk

With the blade grip tension issues addressed I don't have a ton of questions left I figure I can just ask for oil/applicator at the LHS and they'll hook me up...though I might have the right stuff lying around. What sort of oil should be used?

One last question for now, I was going to install my Rx today but wanted to ask about suggestions for routing the wires first. They're all bundled together, can I just slide them out a bit so that they reach without being loose near the main gears, or am I supposed to undo that completely, plug them in, and then secure them together to the frame or something?

matty_p80

anylight oil should do but some applicators come filled already!

put your Rx where it needs to be then route the cables through the frame from the servos,etc.! a little tip: instead of using up small cable ties by the bagful while you decide where everything should be routed, either use spare battery hook and loop fasteners or do the cable ties up the wrong way round (feed the end through the opposite side of the square bit you would normally) and this way the cable tie will come undone again!!

good hunting

Matty )}}}}}]@>

TakeshiSkunk

OK so I've been wiring everything up today.

I bound the Tx to the Rx, got the solid light on the Rx no problem. However, when I tried to test the controls as per the manual I started running into trouble. None of the servos initialized themselves, the gyro wouldn't initialize, and nothing would respond to Tx input at all. I thought it was odd that the ESC didn't make any noises or anything when I plugged in the battery, but figured it might be because I'd disconnected the leads to the motor.

PLEASE tell me I just did something stupid wrong and I don't have a bad ESC out of the box. When I bought my Typhoon 2 I had to deal with Horizon for like 3 months before I had a half decent fuselage and working servos :/

EDIT: It was stupidity after all. Had the servo leads into the receiver backwards.

matty_p80

also matey, it's the motor arming which makes the little bleepy noises, so if that's disconnected you won't hear anything (been there, done a DOH!)!

M )}}}}}]@>

TakeshiSkunk

Alright I got everything wired up and doing what it's supposed to, but I'm having some issues with the throttle now.

I was running it up to just 40% or so on the floor just to test the motor and see how it sounded and all that. It was working fine at first, but the gyro wasn't doing anything. I disconnected the battery, checked all the connectors on the receiver (should i do something more to secure them than just plug them in? This is my first experience with an endpin style Rx) reconnected it and made sure the gyro initialized (I could swear it did the first time, but oh well). This time the motor started as soon as I disengaged the throttle hold, even though I was certain the stick was at 0. I tried trimming it back a couple notches and it stopped intially, but started turning on and off suddenly as I adjusted the rudder, I think it was triggering towards the rightmost position, again with the throttle at 0 on the Tx. I ended up just bringing the trim all the way down on the throttle, and that stopped it from triggering unexpectedly, but made the throttle VERY sensitive.

What should I do about all this? I used the exact settings for the Tx that were listed in the manual that came with the helicopter.


Also, I was checking the pitch of the main blades as suggested in the manual. I had the collective dead in the center and I THINK I was measuring 3 degrees on both blades, I'm not completely sure how to use the pitch gauge though. Manual said it should be as close to 0 as possible, I didn't want to try and adjust anything yet though.

tdmoss61

one thing you could check is the hold value in the throttle curve settings. make sure that it is set to (-0.0). now when you disingage the thr hold, it should'nt spool up at all. that is with the trim set at half or below slightly and the throttle @ 0.......................td




trex 450, trex 500, trex 600, srb quark................

TakeshiSkunk

Hold is set a -0.0%, just double checked. I'm a little confused about when Throttle Hold is on or off. Obviously I can tell when the heli is powered, but when I try to turn on the Tx, it seems to only load up if T-Hold is OFF, which seems backwards to me. When I go to the t-curve menu with the hold switch where it was when I powered up, and then toggle it to the other position, it moves the arrow down to Hold as if I had just engaged it. Just confused about the notation I guess.

Either way, still having weird throttle issues x.x

matty_p80

Takeshi

i believe the throttle hold is designed that way so that you have to positively turn on the TH (switch towards you) after turning the Tx on before doing anything else with the heli (caught me out on an occasion especially as just after i got mine there was a recall warning for certain DX6i's and i started to panic i had a duff Tx!!)

important thing to remember when checking your pitch settings is 1) ALWAYS unplug the motor to prevent unwanted spin up & 2) always start from the idle up setting where 0 degrees will be at mid stick (in norm. mode 3 deg. at mid stick is pretty spot on!!) and then do your full range pos./neg. pitch range in idle up before going back to norm. mode

Matty )}}}}]@>

TakeshiSkunk

Hm, so some pitch at half stick in normal flight mode is correct. I was thinking about that idle up issue as I was checking it but the manual didn't say anything about it, if anything is really out of line I'm sure the guy at the LHS will catch it. Called up the shop and it looks like the first chance I'll have will be Saturday after next.

So that just leaves the weird throttle trim/sensitivity issues. After I started encountering the weird throttle issues it was getting surprisingly light at like, quarter stick. So at the moment I'm a little apprehensive to even do anything with it on the ground.

tdmoss61

it sounds like maybe something is backwards. the normal position for the thr hold switch is back (0 pos). in this position thr hold is not engaged. flipping it toward you in (1 pos) engages the thr hold and sets it at the value (-0.0) that you have prog in the tx. make sure and check that the throttle channel is not reversed in the setup list. also, just to make sure, check all connections to the rx. esc to thr, elev to elev, left and right servos to aux and aile, and for the gyro, the signal wire to the gear channel and the other to the rudder channel................td..




trex 450, trex 500, trex 600, stinger 90..................you only live once..............!!!

matty_p80

i actually have nearly 5 deg. at centre stick in normal mode but that is just preference!!!

M )}}}}}]@>

46u

My Feedback: (3)

Did not read the whole thread but I recommend this e-book for any beginner for 400 size helicopters. WELL WORTH the $12.95!!!!!!!!!! Gives you settings to tame it down for beginners and MUCH more.
http://www.rchelicopterfun.com/rc-helicopter-tips.html

Peco

Its been a month since your post so I would assume your off the ground by now but if not or for anyone else reffering to this thread in future ...

Once the transmitter has been set up by the LHS take a note of all the stick positions and settings (in case anything happens or you accidentally change something in there) My first few flights were done with HH off (switch  was the wrong way but I ddint realise untill it was pointed out to me)

Find some time on where you can be completely on your own. The added pressure you have to perform when someone else is there watching is really effects your concentration when your starting out and can quickly lead to a smash when you know you can perform better.

My first few batteries were spent on getting the heli light on the skids, feeling the sensitivity of the throttle and building confidence. It was very much like you said above "holy crap this is real, I can't let this thing crash"

You will get to a stage where you just need to "pop it up" of the ground and get used the sensiivity of the the controls.


With this heli and probably any other heli of this size or smaller, the one thing you will notice is how easily affected it is by the wind. I learned in a semi enclosed area and I would see the heli bob up and down without my changing the throttle and then a second or two later, I would feel the breeze hit me (which has just passed by the heli)


Anyway I gotta go, best of luck, let us know how you get on.