Wicked indeed! [>:]

Here is my first attempt at making aluminium blades - all by hand! The photo shows a very rough unfinished blade and the equivalent Xtreme blades. As my aluminium profiles were not quite wide enough, I made them a touch longer. I cut these by hand, filed them, put them together and made sure they had identical sizes. A full hour's work! The weight is identical to within 0.1g and the CG to within 0.5 to 1mm.

Below is the table that summarises the lift caracteristics of the blades I have:

Supplier Weight Lift
Xtreme 5g 208-218 g
Microheli 2.5g 175g
Stock E-sky 3.5g 185g
Aluminium proto 10g 190g

To measure this, I put the heli on a scale, attached with elastics and one pair of blades only. I take the heli to full speed and measure the initial weight and apparent weight at full speed. The difference is the lift.

Does it fly? YES! To test I put the Aluminium blades at the top and Xtreme blades at the bottom. Had I thought of the testing earlier on, I would have started with Alu blades for the bottom rotor - to see how control is exercised.

It is a bit more sluggish than normal - but after a 5 minute flight, both motors were running at their usual temperature. I look forward to testing with 4 aluminium blades.

Caution: If you try this, just be TOTALLY careful that there are no kids, spouses, pets, plants and furniture within a 1 mile radius. Aluminium blades are 10g a piece and if they come flying off, they can do considerable damage. Just being hit by a blade will be dangerous - absolutly NOTHING to do with the plastic blades. Hitting an object with the blades can do a lot of damage to the heli itself.

Next step, while waiting for my motors, frame, etc. is to make the lower blades and try to make them lighter - down to 5 to 6 g.
Have fun and take care!


Hugues

PS.. any mad hatters around to help with blades that wont collide in mid air?