Lift,

Yes, I can get a little "Century" biased at times. That is probably because I was so surprised as to how good a machine they are, specially considering the prices.:-))

Just to quote from the article by Bob Creasy in the June 2002 issue of MHW. This is after he had set the "9 degrees" on the bench and then came back after readjusting at the field after flight testing.

"On returning home, I checked the pitch settings, as I was concerned that I had misread the pitch guage, having had to increase the pitch settings after I arrived at the field. I had quite a shock as the static guage indicated that the pitch range in the normal mode was now zero to 11 degrees, some 2 degrees more positive pitch then I expected.............Well after a bit of investigation, I found that both blades drooped a bit more then expected for a single, rigid feathering spindle head. I fitted the pitch guage again and found that by lifting the blade holder up, I could induce a 2 degree pitch change. I then removed the feathering spindle from the head and found the feathering spindle bearings were not a tight fit in the blade cuffs, allowing the blade holders to to move up and down which resulted in the pitch change"

I have had heli's in the past with softer then normal blade grips. Consequently, when pushed hard, the bearing seats inside them would stretch so that the bearings fit too loosely in their seats. (this would happen after about 150 flights (on a thirty that would be about 8 gallons of fuel).

Note: 8 gallons of fuel can take some flyers 4 years to burn on a thirty, others one year, and others, like myself, 2 months.

This would cause random flutter when cycling the pitches through zero pitch. So I am wondering If this "play in the Cuffs" will eventualy lead to the same problem.

This is why I have the concern for the Venture pitch anomoly.

I will just start to monitor the JR lists a couple of months from now, after the fleet has had some relevant "airframe time" logged and see if they start to report similar problems. Hopefully they won't. (The Ergo suffered some initial "flutter" issues also)

But I will wait before investing any cash on one. I have an aversion to paying a manufacturer to be one of their "beta" testers. So I generally wait for a model to be out a full season, then I will research it to see if any "issues" have developed before purchasing it. This policy has saved me a lot of grief in the past (been flying since the early 80's). It even kept me from the initial Hawk offerings from Century. My first was the HIII which I have been veryy satisfied with. This policy also saved me from all the issues some of my flying peers have had to deal with on their Raptors.