Jeff Michael,

10-4 and out.

Dave / Choppersrule

Jim,

Looking forward to the video, with the LOOP enclosed. Good Luck and I'll keep my fingers crossed for ya.

Dave / Choppersrule

HI All, just checking in. No time to view the vids... I'll have to try to get some time tomorrow. Great pictures though, Kyle you dog[8D]

I bought the last of the "Chatty Kathy" dolls out, I have a few 1/3 scale projects going on and couldn't think of a better pilot. One last one to cuddle with at night

You-tube did the high quality option all on it's own. I wish it was an option because I would have loved to have the Extra 300 airial video HQ but it's not. Kinda weird.

I spoke too soon on water in the basement. Not a big deal though and I'm certainly Blessed that I ended up with just one night of running the shop vac and moving everything in the basement around. I know many in the country have it so much worse than I do and I pray for quick resolve. No losses, I'm like Vic... I keep everything important up high and out of danger

Have a great day tomorrow and God Bless Y'all,

Jay

Jeff~there was a guy at are field up north that lost a 1/4 scale warbird he had built from scratch and coundn't figure out what had happened and went searching the area and found a young kid flying a parkflyer down the street on his channel ask the kid if he would join the club and he said no so he ended up changing his channel to prevent it from happening again,i've been flying for 10 years on 72mz channel 47 futaba and never once lost a plane to interference.but then again those cheap parkflyer radios might be the problem i would change over to your spectrum like you said you was going to do.i have a cheap parkflyer from arttech and it gliched everytime i tried to fly it. never did fly it keep breaking it.mike

Jeff......... some of my videos are also optioned to watch in high quality. I use a different program with all the bells and whistles (nero ultra edition with all the decoders and plugins) so some of my vids are actually supposed to be DVD quality. I upload all of mine now as DVD's and youtube compresses them on thier site. Most of my vids average about 200MB's and take forever to upload.
Spent a little time working on a new scratch built foamy that blk822 made for me. I threw some paint on it bu am very unimpressed with the way it turned out. I will be covering it with some form of mono kote and strengthen it a bit as well as "purtify" it. It is a low wing profile and should be wicked crazy on 3d stunts and whatnot. I will try to get some pics tonite as well as some video if I get a chance to maiden it this week.
Jeff, I also saw your comments on the Gorilla Glue / Elmers mix. I cannot take credit for that as I was told of that mixture by a guy in the plane forums (patnchris). But I will stand behind the expansion part. I rebuilt the nose of the Corsair and actually had to cut a large portion of it away because of expansion.

On a heli note, I have only been hovering the TREX out front of the house and have not "flown any of the Blade CP's in quite some time. I still have enough parts to choke a horse so have been trying to decide what shall become of the "mini fleet". Winter will present some time to fiddle with them as well as a few of the new planes I will have in the "storage hanger". The plan is to "downsize to just 4 helis............ Swift 16, Trex 450 XL CDE, HBK2 and the "blinged" Blade CP. The rest will become parts and be stored away. Of course the gift CP from Rick will remain as is and be a "working display model".


__________________________________________________ ___________________________________


Of all the things I ever lost....................................... I miss my mind the most!

See video attached below. I would watch in High Quality. I hate the way compression happens as the video is much clearer before I upload it. After recording this I needed a fresh pair of shorts (much like Vic after his F16 maiden!) Still working on the helmet cam and position but make sure to watch between 1:35 and 1:50 for sure!

Jim

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzzXigQXhjs

LMFAO....Jim, that was COOL!!! You got some MEAN headspeed on that thing, I'll tell you. YEAH...work on the camera, it needs it.

Arrow, great to see the F4-U tearing up the skies.

Jeff, it seems like the Typhoon went down in the same spot, am I correct or way off. It looks like you have a bad spot for interference, just guessing. I'm wondering about that in a spot that I fly at. I fly in another place and no glitching.

Jim, Congrats on the loop! I think I peed a little the first loop I did

God Bless Y'all,

Jay

Thanks guys for the tips on the high quality videos... My last one was with Windows Movie Maker. I think I'll go back to what I was using, and that is the same as what Arrow is using... Mine is Nero 8 Ultra Edition HD. I did see before, that it took up quite a bit of Mb's to make a movie clip so I never tried. Maybe I'll try it next time... I see it offers Blu-Ray also, but that does me really no good...Lol.. If anyone wants it, just go to 'Limewire'. Its a file sharing program... Same place I download all my music. All free..! I never pay for programs, I just use various file-sharing programs. Gotta save the extra cash for other things, like RC stuff...

Jim ~

Man that was killer ! I love the sound of the blades ripping in the air... The Blade 400 has good power to weight ratio, and is about 200 grams lighter than my Trex... I still can't believe you can fly with all those thousand's of gnats swarming all over your face...!...Crazy...

Jay ~

Good eye..... As it did glitch in the EXACT same spot to a tee... I'll be picking up a Ar6100 RX here by friday to bind to the DX-7. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out on how to program a plane into it ! The heli's are a pane for me as it is, and I know its still not programmed right for the Trex, but it flies so I just left it from last years setting...LOl... The Trex isn't even set-up for 3-D.... Until then, I won't fly it at that spot ! I hope everything is going o.k. for ya since the storm damage hit ya.... That's a bummer & sorry to hear that. Is that why you hang the planes from the ceiling ?!

Take care guys, been busy..........


~ Jeff

Thanks guys, that was the biggest "rush" I've had in RC Flying since soloing with my plank trainer. I flew half a battery before landing to get myself comfortable. I let the ESC & motor cool down then switched batteries and just decided I was ready to try it. I felt it best to get a lot of altitude and a lot of forward speed as I had NO idea how much altitude I would need. Turns out it wasn't that much. I probably covered just 15 feet with that loop. I was shaking the whole time I was setting up for it. I just kept saying "start out straight and level". I think I was too slow on going back to positive pitch as I exited the loop lower then where I entered it. I'll surely be trying it again next time out

In regards to the head speed, I'd like to have a discussion about that. I'm going to type it up in Word then paste it here as I think it might be long but I have some questions and wanted your feedback. Will get to that soon.

Yes Jeff, the B400 does have a great power to weight ratio. I LOVE the sound these stock blades make. I had a set of Align 315's on it and they are a bit shorter and not as thick as the E-flites. It gave the heli a real high pitched squeal about it that I didn't like. For now I will stick with stock. I can see a set of CF's for it soon enough though.

Jim

Jim

LOL......hey Jim Jim, got any gum gum?

Scott,

Sorry, I haven't responded quicker. We've had a lot of wind damage to our property, Sunday, and we are just now getting things back together. Big headaches for sure.[]

On initial inspection, it's not that big a deal.. Just make sure that all, screws, bolts and nuts are tight. Most important for you, since this is your first belt helicopter, is make sure the belt tension isn't to loose or too tight. Check the main blade tension and tail blade tension.
If the tail blades are too tight, it will cause some erratic flying. Tail bobs or tail waggling. Most should be in the owners manual. If you have any other specific questions. Please e-mail, me and I'll get back to you... Just been really busy.

Best of luck to ya,

Dave / Choppersrule

Jim / Wnuk,

Great video, and congrats on the loop..

Dave
====================

Guys,

For those that Pee in your pants or ***** yourself.... COWBOY UP!


Tid Bits:
Doing well after the bad storm with trees and stuff down, major headache and major bucks. YIKES! Stuff happens, all the time.
Gotta lay low on helicopter purchasing for awhile.. Geeez, I hope I don't crash,,, I'm really gonna have to go slow now..
I'm lovin' the VAPOR now, it doesn't break...[sm=shades_smile.gif][sm=thumbup.gif]

I love Cheese Balls...

Dave / Choppersrule

LMAO Vic, I didn't notice that until now!

OK this is a bit long but tell me your opinions

Head speed:

I’ve been wanting to put this out there to you guys for a bit but haven’t taken the time to type it up till now. Out of the box my B400 flew just fine. I could hover, do FF and basically say that unless I was interested in 3D flying I never would have adjusted anything on it. Being we all love to set our heli’s up the best we can, you know I started into it. The first thing I noticed out of the box was that at half throttle stick it was VERY light on the skids and lifted off at about 55% throttle. Once I put a pitch gauge on it I discovered why. At ½ throttle stick I had 3 degrees positive pitch!

Now everything we read tells us that a proper setup heli will have 0 degrees pitch at ½ throttle stick position. In order for me to achieve that, I needed to raise the swashplate quite a bit to get it in the ballpark. I then lengthened the blade grip push rods to get it exact. So now it takes about 70 to 72% throttle to get the heli to lift off the ground (because of less blade pitch at ½ throttle stick). Thus it has more head speed before getting airborne. So now when I switch to idle up mode there is very little noticeable change in head speed. (I have idle up throttle curve set to 100-92.5-85-92.5-100) So I see about a 10-12% increase in head speed when I hit the idle up switch.

From what I know, the throttle curve is independent of the actual stick position since you can program it any way you would like. Conventional wisdom tells us that a proper throttle curve in normal mode is 0-25-50-75-100 and pitch should range from negative 3 to about 10 degrees. In idle up, pitch should be negative 10 to positive 10 but throttle should be 100-2.5-85-92.5-100 to have more head speed for doing more aggressive maneuvers.

So what am I getting at? Well if flying in normal mode and at 75% stick position I get liftoff (because of the pitch of the blades not because of the head speed) should I then reprogram the throttle curve to have less head speed? In other words, is all that head speed needed just for hovering & some FF? Now I understand that for really aggressive 3D, the higher the head speed the better (not really sure why but I accept that to be true). So in normal flight mode, should the throttle curve really be linear?

Hope this makes sense.

Jim

Jeff

I discovered that WMM DOES have a "save as high quality feature". Instead of just clicking through the save menus, there is an option that says "show more choices". Click that, then in the next window check "other settings". Then in the drop down menu is the option to save as High Quality and a bunch of others too. I want to explore these more.

Dave I think you brought me luck crossing your fingers! I hope you get your storm damage straightened up son and glad that no one was hurt.

Jim

"LMAO Vic, I didn't notice that until now! "

Sorry Jim.....just struck me as FUNNY as he!!, and the kids have played that movie to DEATH (LMAO).

Vic, I was going to say that you must have the Grandkids over a lot and watch that night in a museum movie w/ Ben Stiller. I took my kid to see it in the theater and we've rented it several times since! Great movie and you cracked me up

Jim and Jeff, I only use WMM and some upload with the "watch in HQ" feature and some don't. I'd love to know how to have that everytime. Please let me know what you find.

Jim Jim, I love head speed! I can't say that enough. Some like slower head speeds for hovering and the mushy, less responsiveness and normal. I don't. I like to have touchy control the whole time but just slightly more at Idle 1 or 2. I set my throttle curve so that I'm at least at 80-85% throttle when the heli lifts off of the ground at half stick in normal. When I hit Idle Up it goes to 90-95% throttle and I set my pitch curve to compensate for the head speed increase so that it doesn't jump up or down. I spent 2 days and 8 batteries of up and down flights programing. I started with the normal mode and the heli lifting off at half stick and 80-85% throttle. I adjusted my Idle Up from there. I say 80-85 because I don't remember exactly where my setting are. I had never done this before, ( the T-Rex is set-up per Finless and I never change a thing) but I found these steps to be quick in finding the sweet spot for the switch transition and end results. You do have less run times with the higher head speeds but it's worth the penalty for me.

BTW Guys... I stole the Rx out of the T-Rex today[X(][:@] I have an offer to fly gas planes on Saturday, ( weather permitting ) and I really want to fly my Edge 540T w/ Saito 82a. I haven't flown it in a year. I will also be hopefully maidening a Pitts S-2C w/ Thunder Tiger 46. We'll see...

God Bless!

Jay

LOL...Jay, perminate resident of an 8yo girl, 7yo girl, and a 4yo boy...grand kids (LMAO). I thought I was DONE raising KIDS.....I was wrong.

Vic, isn't it great that movie makers kept us adults in mind when making kid movies? I don't know how many movies we've watched that I wanted to see just as bad

God Bless Ya

Jay

It's ran on DVD at least 10 times....I haven't seen it once, only heard and saw bits and pieces as I'm moving about....I guess I should watch it (LMAO).

Dave ~

VAPOR ALERT !



LOL... Snuck some flights in with my 'Flying Leaf'...

Jim ~

Yeah, I'd sure like to help ya with some inputs for your head-speed, but unfortunately that's my weak area... I don't even have the Trex set-up mid-stick 0 pitch... I have it set-up more like scale I suppose you'd call it... But as a performance buff, and flying it seems in windy conditions, I'am set-up I guess what you would call a linear curve, but really not understanding what "linear" means anyway... But low stick, is a few degrees negative and my throttle curves are high, in return to squeeze as much head speed as I can with the SA motor... If that makes sense...Lol.. In all god to honest truth, its my major down-fall for understanding the set-up with the curves and proper set-up of the swash at mid stick 0 degrees pitch like it should be... I know a lot about the heli's, but for some reason just can't grasp the understanding of this part of my heli.. (Don't tell nobody...Lol..)

It flies great, and for now it works.... When I want to progress into 3-D, I then will have to try and do much more research and watching the Finless videos again, and should be o.k. then I hope... First I need to just get down FF, and then I'll go from there.... The downfall, is I'll have to get used to the heli, being then set-up different from what I was used to..

I'am not even sure, if I'll go the 3-D route... I enjoy these things so much just flying upright, and hopefully just going scale with them all to the extreme some day. Blame Vic for this I suppose, and my lacking in retardation of not grasping the concepts of the set-up of the pitch and curves...

Alright, gotta go...Been busy cleaning up the pit around here... Gotta start slowly getting ready for a return drive home here soon in the next month or so. Still need to get one more heli, before I go... I'am thinking a Trex 450 SE V2, so my parts will be all the same with my Trex 450 SA, or seriously looking at the Trex 500.... But then all new parts, and having to deal with a new bigger type of battery... Most likely in my stage, it will be the V2 as I'am familiar with it, and set-up for it..

Take care,

~ Jeff

Jim,

Head speed:

Your write up and description is execellent.

Imho, it's all relative to your flying style. Some like high head speeds others don't. Scalers will run a little lower head speed for effect, 3d guys love the high head speed, because of cyclic and rudder control. Keep that in mind, higher head speeds will give you much more tail authority, than lower head speeds. A rule of thumb would be to run 80 to 85% at mid stick, in idle up mode. The brushless motors are design to be most efficient at 80%, along with the ESC working in tandem.. Running lower head speed and higher pitch, will put strain on the motor and ESC and will have a tendency to run hotter. Same with running at 100%, motor going full bore and pulling every amp it can through the ESC, more heat. Actually, watching your videos, you should be flying in idle up all the time.. Use normal mode for the garage, on windy days.

In normal mode, I believe you would want it to be a linear curve. Example would be the gas peddle on your car, it's linear. A non linear gas peddle could be dangerous. Crusing at 30 MPH, then very light pressure on the peddle and all of a sudden your doing 100mph.. Not good.

As Jay(Mr.H) mentioned, he spent 2 days and 8 battery packs of trial and error before he found his sweet spot, again for his flying style. There's really no hard set rules, in settting the throttle or pitch curves. What you read in different articles is a great starting place, and are general guide lines. Just be flexible.. Another example, your swashplate doesn't HAVE TO BE LEVEL.

On some military and commercial helicopters, the main shaft isn't 90 degrees to the main frame, it's 89 degrees.

You've got the logic down very well, now you just have to apply it with a lot of trial and error until you find YOUR sweet spot.

Happy tweeking,

Dave

Da Vinci helicopter:

Jeff,

Thanks for posting the picture of the Vapor(Flying Leaf), it looks so peaceful in that shot. Like "No Worries Mate".

I think you are having so much fun right now, your not really sure where you're going. I did exactly the same thing a couple years ago. There's nothing wrong with having fun with this hobby, go for it all. Eventually, you'll find your path and find the right combination of plank and heli. May take years....[sm=wink_smile.gif]
=======================

A linear devise, in this case, your TX and Heli, has an output that is proportional to the input in
normal mode. As you move the throttle stick slowly forward, the motor speeds up slowly, in
proportion to your input.. Just like your Vapor.

A non linear devise, would be an example of idle up mode.. Stick all the way down, 100%
throttle, mid stick 85. Stick all the way up, 100%. All programmed in the TX for both linear and non-linear.

Dave / Choppersrule

Great explination Dave.

As you noticed, in my first 2 videos I was only running in Normal Mode. For the loop I was in Idle Up. I'm going to continue running in Idle Up from here on out as I do notice a difference in tail authority because of head speed. I'm going to leave T & P curves where I have them now (stock) and as I progress aerobatically will begin to adjust as necessary. Next will be a roll and I think I will need more cyclic response (and maybe more throw) to keep the roll axial instead of oval shaped.

Jay- I like higher head speed too, you and I seem to be of the same mindset when it comes to T & P curves. I'm going to progress slowly and as always I write down everything I do so if I don't lke the result I can always go back without guessing.

Jeff-Everytime I see that Vapor I can help but think of the old "stick & tissues" planes. I can't believe how durable that thing is!

I can never learn enough about this hobby & I think it's great to have a super bunch of guys to bounce things off of!

Jim Jim (just for you, Vic)

Dave ~

Thanks for the description if 'Linear'... I had it wrong I believe... Yes I still have lots to learn with setting up the TX with the Trex... I have done some experimenting with it, and just found somewhere in which I think was o.k.... But could be wrong... I just do a lot of toying with it, and experimenting in different conditions like the wind or whatever...

Here is what I have been flying the Trex with for the last 5 months or so, which is below.... If you ask me what the pitch gauge says, I'll tell you blushing, that I wouldn't know... I have an Align pitch gauge I bought a year ago, and put it up to the blades once...LMAO.. I set my pitch by eye, getting also the tracking good, with low stick making the blades slightly negative. Now, I may have to re-think this part of my set-up as I think it could be wrong, or that I'am running maybe a lower head speed than I thought I was... I like the higher speeds for flying, as I feel like I have better control on my Trex which weighs 860 grams. I'am currently working on lowering the weight as it seems still heavy. There is of course, no mid-stick 0 pitch set-up on my Trex, nor either of my CPP's... But I do only fly in idle 2 for better control of the tail, and flying outside... Maybe that's why I liked the idle 2, is because it was the appropriate head-speed, but everything below that was to low and set wrong !

Throttle curve for normal mode is set like this (Don't laugh if its wrong...LMAO..!)

point 1 = 65.5 %

point 2 = 80.0 %

point 3 = 90.0 %

point 4 = 100.0 %



Curves for idle 1 (St-1)


point 1 = 70.0 %

point 2 = 86.0 %

point 3 = 92.0 %

point 4 = 100.0 %


Curvse for idle 2 (st-2)


point 1 = 77.0 %

point 2 = 88.0 %

point 3 = 93.0 %

point 4 = 100.0 %



Now the pitch curves are set to this... And remember, no mid-stick 0 degrees of pitch...

Normal mode:


point 1 = 15.0 %

point 2 = 25.0 %

point 3 = 55.0 %

point 4 = 100.0 %


Pitch for idle 1:


point 1 = 15.0 %

point 2 = 25.0 %

point 3 = 55.0 %

point 4 = 100.0 %


Pitch curves for idle 2:

point 1 = 15.0 %

point 2 = 25.0 %

point 3 = 55.0 %

point 4 = 100.0 %


I can't currently remember where the heli gets light on the skids in relation to the stick position, but I know its past the halfway mark, and think it may be at 65 % in which it gets light for take-off... Its currently disassembled, as I'am making it lighter... I've lost 24 grams so far, and still await the arrival of another Microheli head for it... I think I may be starting to understand this whole mess a little better, and can't wait to try harder in figuring it out... Finless lays this out very simple, but now I need to strap myself down not get so impatient, and watch the videos again, only now because I'am down the road of forward flight, and feel its now important to have the heli set-up the right way because if something were to go wrong flying about the way I have been, and my reaction would be to save the ship in my experiences with the simulator, I may not get the 'action-reaction' that I wanted....!

Vapor time....! Gotta go ! Doing a flight in honor of Vic...Lol..[8D]


Take care,

~ Jeff