The slop there is a buffer, yes. But also, the blade grips will push outward anyways when the rotors spin up, because of the centripital forces. When something rotates at high speed, forces push outwards from the center, so the blade grips would push away from each other. That negates any slop between the grips. With the rotors turning upwards of 3,000 rpm, I wouldn't worry about that. The slop there is also so the grips can rotate and adjust pitch without any problems.

Anyways, an update....THE HELI IS FINISHED! The original was christened Jasper by a friend of mine, so now this is Jasper II. The replacement 2-in-1 has not had any problems, due in part to the nice blue heatsink stuck onto its side. Because the heatsink hit the canopy, I cut a *neat*(-ish) square(-ish) hole that allows the heatsink to protrude a bit and also allows air to flow over it easily. After a good 10 minute flight of adjustments and such, the unit and heatsink were just warm to the touch, much better than the burning hot of the previous unit. I've been making more adjustments with the transmitter as well. Originally, the tail rotor was spinning way too fast and was over-countering the main rotor, spinning the heli to the right. After a lot of rudder subtrim and some Revolution Mixing (ratio between main rotor and tail rotor speed), the heli is performing better than ever. I adjusted the pitch and throttle curves from the simple stock Blade configuration so that in normal mode (haven't flown Idle Up yet), the throttle moves up quickly to about half throttle, where it slowly increases for much of the center of the stick up to about 80%, where it then covers the remaining 25% of throttle. In this spot of gradual throttle increase, the pitch changes in a linear fashion, so it will be easier (hopefuly) to hover. Basically, the end result is that while I hold the stick around the center to about 75% up on the stick, the head speed changes little while the pitch changes a lot so I can get the most stable hover. However, I'm thinking that I approached it the wrong way: the head speed should change in a linear fashion and the pitch should stay relatively constant, but we'll see. The TX also has two rocker switches that I've used a bit which adjust the throttle speed and the blade pitch in hover, so I can make adjustments to the throttle/pitch curve to get hovering down pat. Because I didn't want to deal with wind, I flew the heli in the garage for the time being and set it all up. I haven't tried the new throttle and pitch curves yet, during the test flight they were as close as possible to the curves that the stock Blade uses (check the manual where it shows those curves).

All in all, this has been quite a fun experience. I'm not experiencing ANY sign of interference AT ALL, no matter how far I am, how close I am, how much the antenna is extended/collapsed, NOTHING. Tomorrow morning I'll go to a park and fly without any worries of wind or interference so I can work the kinks out and get better at nose-in hovers. In a week or so I want to get flying in Idle Up mode down pat so I can do rolls and loops, and then eventually I'll try inverted flight. But first thing's first: gotta get everything set up right. I'll try the training gear first off tomorrow morning and then check it without them.

Expect a rundown of the heli soon after I get the TX set up as good as possible, so I can show the curves and all the settings used so that if anybody else wants to move up to a high-end radio system to get the most out of their heli, they can do it with few headaches. I'm sure a lot of you are thinking I'm crazy for going out and spending close to $300 on a new radio system, 2-in-1 and gyro, but I think that it is a worthy investment. It will be so much easier to transition from the Blade to a bigger heli, because I'll already get the the radio system worked out (and I'll already have a radio, so that's $200 I don't need to have) and I'll get a headstart on the feel of the heli. If any of you are really looking to getting a bigger heli, it would be a good idea I think to upgrade your current heli's radio system and mess with that before you plop down $700+ on a bigger heli right off the bat. Plus, you already have a head-start.

And for those of you who already have a bigger heli and have a Blade...what are you waiting for? All you need is a micro receiver, a 2-in-1 and a gyro and you can get better performance with the radio system you already know and trust! In the end I think it's really gonna save me in spare parts due to interference and radio glitching will be one less thing I'll have to really worry about when I try intense flight and basic aerobatics. You really don't want a glitch when you're inverted.