RE: Heli pic's
Had no governor at the time, and had just programmed stunt modes. Didn't realize that on a Nitro Heli that the engine and headspeed would tach up so much when punching negative pitch while up-right (Non-Inverted) I knew what direction the heli was facing when it happened and judging from where the blade landed, and the crash damage sustained, I can conclude that when one of the blades was about 15 degrees past the tail boom, it pulled straight out from the blade grip, ripping the wood straight out of the blade boss. It sent the blade over 100 yards, directly in my direction, and the blade fell from the sky landing at my feet. The other blade, which was still attached to the head, and rotating continued in it's rotation twords the rear of the heli, at which time the extreme unbalance, and high head speed exerted such a great ammount of G-Force, that it literally broke the frame apart into three main sections. The main shaft, it's bearings, and the plastic portion of the frame that retained it came out in one piece, the tail boom and the portion of plastic that retained it was another piece, and the rest of the frame, along with the servo tray came out in another piece. The batteries mounted on the servo tray ripped off it's zip ties and rubber bands, as well as the two way tape. Multiple pieces of the head, linkages and other misc. parts came off / broke, the canopy flew off, and the engine raced at full throttle with no load on it until it burned up the fuel left in the lines. The main fuel tank ruptured, and the entire process took less than 1/10th of a second, all while about 50 feet off the deck. The parts were scattered across a 50 yard radius from the center of the incident in a field with very high grass and weeds. I spent an hour every day for the following week searching and collecting pieces. The only part I didn't find was my secondary receiver for the Spektrum AR7000. It took 4 months to get over it and buy replacement parts. At that time I promptly purchased a Throttle Jockey Pro Governor. I am currently waiting to receive my CF blades, and then I won't have to worry much about 2000 RPMs on the head. The pic of the heli together is right after I rebuilt it. I hadn't even put the blades on it yet. The three main causes were - Head Speed was too high, I didn't glue the blade bosses on, and I had no prior Nitro experience - (Ignorance)
If you look closely at the picture you may see a red circle at the end of the blade. This shows where it pulled the wood straight out.
I'm glad to say that now I'm very well schooled - too bad I had to learn the hard way, but she flies like a dream now - Just did my first loops last sunday.