I did some more flying with the littlebird and have some pics, though they are not all the greatest. The flight was pretty hairy and I didn’t give the camera man that many good opportunities. I will get them scanned in tomorrow, some are worthwhile.
My flight today was far less satisfying than yesterday. Today was probably 15 degrees warmer and the Vmax6 barely had enough juice to lift the whole rig in the air. When I was attempting forward flight for the camera, I was at 100% throttle the entire time for about 4 minutes. It was rather interesting, and very challenging, to attempt to control the attitude of the heli with neither collective nor variable head speed. By using more or less control throw on the cyclic I was, to some extent, able to achieve some sort of control over the whole scary procedure. Then of course the engine was slowly overheating and losing power, making each additional second the camera man wanted drag on forever. I will never fly like this again… ug.
At this point I am faced with an undeniable fact. The engine does not have enough power to comfortably fly as much weight as I would like to with the body and my various extra mods (at least on a hot day). I will try another flight in the next couple of days without the weapon planks and see if that satisfies me, but I already know the answer to that. At this point I am considering the Vmax7 for $90 or perhaps an electric setup for a whole pile more.
I am eagerly reading the various electric threads curious about the lowest cost brushless setups and how they perform. I see no point in going brushed at all, so that isn’t even an option. I am also now faced with the much more time consuming and delicate chore of cleaning my md500/littlebird fuselage. Electric seems so appealing, why can’t it be cheaper
If any of you guys have access to a decent scale, I would love to know how much your rig weighs all up, ready to fly. I will take mine in to work tomorrow and see how obese I have managed to make everything.
Any advice or recommendations on either Vmax7 or electric are welcome. Of course there are a whole pile of threads on the two already
Thanks in advance,
Spiro
ps: The fuselage looked fabulous in flight. Thanks again Darth!