Hello to all.

I just have one question.

What is the easiest way to get this thing inverted???


I have no problem with forward flight, i can fly it fine. I have good upgrades: CF blades, 3cell TP lipo, Venom modified 370 motor w/ 9 tooth pinion. flies great, but it just doesn't seem to want to get inverted.

Any advice would be appreciated.

The blade grips have a linkage that is connected to it from the flybar part. Pop that off and when you shorten the linkage it lowers the pitch angle. The longer you extend it, the greater the pitch angle. I would have to provide a photo later, right now I'm at my fiance's house. She lives pretty far from my house. I'll post a photo tomorrow morning. But this method of shortening and lengthening the linkage attached to the blade grips also are used to adjust the blade tracking. While observing the rotors rotating and one blade seems to be lifting higher than the other, you can make adjustments to one blade angle to achive a proper blade tracking. It's also stated in the manual I think on how to adjust the blade tracking.

cruzmissile, I had set up the proportional controller beforehand, and can get the yaw somewhat under control, what I find is that once I get any air at all the heli decides to grab some serious speed sideways regardless of the trims and in compensating for that I get sucked into a side-to-side swinging out of which the only escape is a sideways unplanned maneouvre into the terrain (aka crash).
The balance seems good staticly, if I hang it by the main shaft it seems to be pretty much level, the only thing I haven't messed with is the yaw gain. I've read the thing can get a bit twitchy with the gain set to high, but it's not spinning out of control, I can keep the yaw under control no problem.
I'm just getting the impression from all these posts that the Blade should be fairly easy to get to a controlled hover, and I can't even get a foot of air before I'm swinging wildy side to side or fore-aft.

grosporina

My question to you then, is the swashplate level? If not this can be the cause. I too had the same side to side action and I leveled the swashplate. Seems when I got it out of the box the swashplate was tilted to the right side a little causing the heli to veer right.

The position of the battery can play a roll on the heli moving forward or aft without any input. The swashplate for the fore and aft movement was also leveled and if I notice the heli moving forward I just move the battery back a bit.

I do have the cyclic trimed to go right a bit to counter the gyroscopic movement. Like I said it took several hours and messing with it to fly the way I want it to. I'll have to record a video of me flying to show how stable it can be once it is properly trimmed.

Let's not forget those two blades that are rotating. If they are not balanced as well they can cause some serious problems. I noticed that when I nick my couch the blade tracking would be off and the rotor shaft would vibrate causing the whole heli to vibrate bad on mid-low throttle. I would also observe this wild vibration coming from the tail motor. It would bounce really fast off the floor. Once the blade tracking was adjusted once again it stop vibrating wildly and the stability was once again as normal as can be.

grosporina

I also need to mention when taking off, the heli will and always will, due to gyroscopic effect, want to roll to the left. If the heli was a counter-rotating blade, the heli will veer right. You will always have to counteract this tendency by applying right cyclic. Once it is about 1 ft off the ground you can decrease the amount of right cyclic to attain a somewhat upward lift off and into hover mode.

Well, the swashplate is level, but I'll have to recheck the tracking and balance of the blades. A couple of the early dumps on the grass may have thrown things a bit out of whack. I hadn't considered that it could have such a strong impact on the handling while the blades still seemed serviceable.
I'll get a few more practice sessions in tomorrow. Thanks for the advice.

Here is a photo of the linkage that you will have to adjust to get the blade tracking and blade angles adjusted.

Thanks Cruz! I just got home from my shift at the firehouse and will try it. I should also be recieving my Huey scale body today! I'll let you know if it works

WOW that Huey looks really nice. Are you going to retrofit it to the blade CP or onto another heli?

I saw this link to a Basic Helicopter Handbook. It explains how and why heli's work the way they do and other intersting facts.
[link=http://www.geocities.com/flyingmouse1/Table_of_contents.html]Basic Heli Handbook[/link]

[:@] this is madenning. The blade tracking was a little off, so I fixed that, and it's balanced left/right and fore/aft, but requires so much right stick to stay steady that without the training gear on the right skid stays "glued" to the garage florr and the helicopter pivots over on it until the blades smack the floor. Trim won't do any good, since that's the same as giving it right cyclic stick.
I know why it needs right stick, but so much that I'm sideways? This isn't new, I think I'm just picking up on some of the sources of my frustration.
Seriously, I can't beleive that this thing could be at all stable in a hover, you really got this thing flying around indoors in a day?

If the swash is truly level, the CG is not way off and your ail. servo reversing switch is set correctly.....are your paddles aligned perfectly?

Greetings DarkWombat:

Thanks for the input. As it turns out, evidently the main rotor blade holders were sticking, because I took everything apart, lubricated with graphite, and reassembled it and now it is very stable again. With that done, I replaced both the main rotor, the swash plate and the rotor blades. She looks as good as new and flies extremely well again. I was beginning to lose hope.

Now that the rotors are new (aerodynamically clean with no dings) and balanced, it is very stable. I don't think I'll be taking it outside because I can learn everything I need for basic flying while in the safe confines of four walls and a roof ;-)

Actually, I'm considering sellling my Blade and moving up to a bigger chopper. What would be a good step-up?

The paddles are not quite perfectly aligned. After a dump a couple of days ago there's a very slight bend to one end of the flybar. As for the paddles themselves, it seems they should be level with the rotor hub, is that right?
I've held off replacing the flybar because I haven't looked into how the paddles should be oriented when reinstalled(level with each other, or pitched slightly to give a bit of lift).

well make sure they're aligned if it's only 1mm off that won't make much of a difference but any more and the shaking will grow quite a bit. also make sure the paddles both have the same amount of pitch prefferably 0-2 degrees.

Good point, I didn't think about the paddles at all... slipped my mind. Yes, they too have to be level. also I had to disassemble mine because I had my first real major crash with it. I took it outside and piled it into the asphalt. (Trying to fly in 15mph wind does not work well with this little thing). The only damage was a cracked canopy and a bent main rotor shaft which I fixed today. Make sure the lenght of both flybars are the same as well. wouldn't want one to be longer than the other.

I am going to retro it to the Blade. I have made all the cuts and am going to paint it on Sunday at the firehouse. Here are a couple pics of it taped together to gets the measurements for the cuts on top for the servos linkages. I put some window screen on the top two windows to allow some air to cool the motors. Hope it works

did someone mention that adding a second o ring on both sides of the spindle increased responsiveness? I put them on but when I tighten the end cap screws it squishes them and binds the grips. I can't really see how they can help when they are just out there floating on the spindle. Or am I supposed to countersink the rotor hub some more?
I tried to do a search but could't find what I am looking for.
I got the guts to try to execute a loop. I got all the forward speed I could up high and pulled back on the cyclic, but it seems to rotate too slowly or something because it only made it to about straight up when it lost airspeed and came screaming down. Saved it though. But I"m not trying it again until I feel it is more capable.
So I am looking for more responsiveness, more agility.
Here is some thing else I find strange; when bench testing the heli in idle up mode motor seems to put out a lot more power(rpms) in full negative throttle than in full positive, trim doesn't make a lot of difference. Anyone have this same thing

Thanks for the advice all. I've repaired the flybar and will adjust the paddles for a slight pitch up. Still just as unmanageable, but I'll keep fighting with it maybe something will click and I will get the hang of it someday. That's or I'll finally dump it so bad it's unrecoverable.

I tried to download a video of my flying on putfile.com but it said the video was invalid or something like that. my camera has video capabilities and I have to save it as a qucktime video file but putfile can't read it. I think it's crazy. I tried to convert the file to play in window's media player but it won't convert either. Makes me mad...

O.K. here goes.

I've been debating on whether or not to get an electric heli for about a year now. I've definately narrowed it down to a Blade. However, for about the last 6 months everytime I decide to take the plunge, I go onto this forum and start thinking that I may need a degree from M.I.T. to fly it. I've been driving gas/electric trucks on and off for the last 10 years or so. I'm not comparing the two, just letting yall know i'm not a total RC retard. My question is, can someone with good level of mechanics and understanding figure this out fairly quickly? If you go on any forum you'll see fanatics of all kinds making their sport seem too technical for most people, when in reality it can be done by almost anyone. Another thing i'm finding out is that most people are "tinkering" with their helis a lot. Now, don't get me wrong, i'm a "tinkerer" from way back. But is it necessary to keep it flying?

Responses from "regular dudes" greatly appreciated.

Once again, any one with tips on getting this thing inverted? i've only seen two videos of these things inverted, and one is from eflite. any advice would be appreciated.

Hi,

I'm pretty new to Helicopters (hovered a few many years ago) and I bought a Blade CP from a co-worker who "got bored" with it... That said I got a nice set of stuff with it (for a great price), but I am not sure if all the pro stuff he added to the heli will help or hinder me. He is a 3D crazy heli guy, and I am still wearing the training balls...

He added:
a Li-Po battery (3 cell, not sure about capacity, but I think 1100 the sticker has velcro on it)
8T pinion motor
heat sinks
carbon fiber main rotor blades.

I added the training ping-pongs.

I trimmed it out in my living room today and its holding straight pretty well now, and I was able to hover it for a bit (I am pretty new, not completely new)... It seemed quite twitchy and while I could hold it for a bit, I end up feeling like I am over-controlling it and I set it down. Still Kudos to the designers its really pretty cool.

My questions for the more experienced...

1. Should I switch back to the flat bottom Balsa blades?
2. Should I switch to the aerobatic Balsa blades?
3. Should I switch back to the standard battery?
4. If I use the standard battery, should I go back to the 9T or will the 8T be good enough?
5. I bought a LiPo charger with the ping pongs, how long would the pack take to charge typically with the charge set to 500mA?
6. Any tips for flying this thing? Is hovering in your living room harder than just forward flight?
7. Any way to change the transmitter stick control rate for small motions near center? I'm guessing not...

Cinder1995-
I say yes, someone with good level of mechanics and understanding can figure this out fairly quickly. I bought the blade for it's simplicity because I just don't have the time right now to set up a heli but wanted to try flying them and I trust Horizon Hobby to make it relatively painless. I knew very little about heli's but now after three weeks I know a bit more and am still extremely happy with the little Blade CP. If you can fly a heli on a sim then you can fly the Blade right out of the box. BTW- I think it's easier to fly than the sim heli's. For those reasons I think it's the perfect training aid for new heli pilots.

As for tinkering to keep it flying I'd say yes, you need to repair the dings and re-balance blades, straighten or replace main shafts, etc. You will be able to tear it apart blind folded after a few weeks but that's the beauty of this thing is that you can! It's that simple. I've crashed it from 30' up into grass with only a broken landing skid and a bent main shaft which is not hard to straighten. I am now at four flights in a row with no crash or blade dings (which is good because I splurged on carbon blades) so all I do now is re-charge the battery. To get it to hover hands off you will need to tweak it a bit but it's worth it. I would have liked to see a little more for the rank beginner in the manual but you can certainly find everything here!

cinder1995 :

I guess that I am a "regular dude". I raced R/C cars about ten years ago. I (3 weeks ago) got the blade. I love it. I can now hover (after about 2 weeks) for a full battery life with the tail in and move from side to side, front to back, and in circles with the tail towards me. I feel really comfortable doing this. I am now working on nose in hovering. The learning curve starts all over again. I feel that I am doing really well with it having absolutely no flying experience with anything. I can't do 3D, and don't expect to for long while. I personally think that flying this is a lot like playing golf. I don't think of anything else while I am flying. This is my stress relief. You will have as much fun as the rest of us.

Sir Fliesalot is right. I can tear it down and put it back together in less the 30 min. I have had the same sym blades on for a week now. The five sets prior don't look so good. Bend the main shaft, a drill press works really well on getting it straight a again.

Good Luck

Thanks Sir Fliesalot & ljrt ,

That's pretty much what I wanted to hear. I wanted to be able to buy it & fly it without having to sink hundreds of dollars into it right off the bat. Or have to be a fighter pilot to fly it. Also, I read a lot about the "sim". Is that something I can try prior to buying it or do I need the paddles that come with it to practice with? And where do I get it for this particular heli?

Thanks again