RE: Helipro Blackhawk owners; Past, Present, Future
Well, I guess today's lessen was about the importance of doing a good pre-flight inspection.
I went out to the field with 3 helis today for a few quick flights. Flew the King2 first and after a couple of quick fly-bys I heard a strange noise, but before I could get it back, it just fell outta the sky. Got it back to my truck and found that the motor screws came loose and the motor moved back away from the main gear. Luckily it fell straight down and there was no damage at all.
Put a drop of loctite on the screws and reset gear mesh and took the Blackhawk 450 out for a fly. Spooled it up to about 30 ft. in the air and it started to make a similar noise, then all of a sudden it just fell to the ground too.[:@]
The Hurricane 550 skids on it held up great,lol, there was no damage the the BH either, but both motor mount screws were missing and the motor was falling out.[>:]
I guess I had better take a little more time checking my helis over before I fly them. This has always been one of my bad points. Since I have very little free time, I just throw them in the truck and head to the field without checking them over properly before I fly.
Since I never fly if anybody else is using the field, I guess I just kinda got a little lazy on my pre-flights knowing that nobody will get hurt except me in the event of a failure.
Today's events convinced me to check them over better before flying. Hope others can learn from my mistakes.