FERNDALE AIR FORCE

I got my Gyrotor today. I have not flown it much yet, but I thought I would post some pic's. I have found that the novice mode needs a great deal of space, and patience. It seems to cut both the power and the response time. Tim

Nitrocharged

yowser! what a nice looking heli! It suprised me.

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

So far the heli has underperformed. The one time I got some air under the rotors and flew, it was great. But it feels like a low battery. So what I'm doing is letting it sit on charge for 18 hours. I'm trying to do te same thing with this battery that I have done successfuly with the X-twin/aeroace. Let the battery slow charge. Right now I would a problem with recommending this aircraft. But it is so close to being great, that I'll assume I need to work on the battery. Tim

Nitrocharged

Cycling the battery a few times will definitely help!

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

Nitro, I'm glad you agree, GTX gets annoyed when I mention this trick. Tim

micro_builder

My Feedback: (1)

hey Tim,
thanks for the photos. could you do me a favor and get a close up shot of the tail assembly? (i.e. tail prop/gyro).

that 3 blade prop has got me drooling!

nick

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

Micro here some tail pic's. Still won't climb, but it is awesome as far as control goes. Far easier to direct than the picco z.

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

ok, those didn't work at all. I'll reshoot them. Meanwhile here is a couple of other pics. Tim

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

Oops, Take 2

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

Micro, here are tail pic's, that should show the tail assembly. Tim

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

and here are a couple of general pic's. One shows the weight in the top rotor, is this what is acting as the gyroscope? Also, all the weight seems to be in the rotors. Tim

I just launched after the second charge cycle and got to 5' in 10 seconds. It doesn't climb as fast as the picco z, but it does now appear to climb. Out to the street I go. Tim

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

It won't fly outdoors.! But looking at the airframe, everything is canted(that means off-center) to the right. do I take it apart and "fix it" or return it hoping for a better airplane? When the thing is flying it's awesome, you push the stick left it goes left, you push the stick right it goes right. And it wants to fly forward all the time. Last flight for the heli tonight is with the nose weight. Maybe thats what is missing.

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

Micro, do I cut it apart, or not? It is like have a rare critter and deciding whether or not not to kill it and autopsy it to find out whats inside.

ChaChing

Thanks for all the info. It sounds like the GyRotor is a little dissapointing, I was disheartened by your expereinces, my GyRotor arrives tomorrow so I will see if I have the same problems. I'm not going to give it the 18hr charge you gave it, maybe just an hour or so - after my initial play after unpacking. I assume that an hour should be enough for the field charger?

Thanks again, I've been following your posts with anticipation (a lot of function 5s) on this new thread. I'll keep you posted.

micro_builder

My Feedback: (1)

thanks for the pics

the weights on the rotors are to give the main rotor a little more stability. it takes more power to overcome the gyroscopic forces of the weights at the end, which would help keep the entire heli more stable. the gyro looks interesting. i assume the tail motor is geared to that flywheel and the flywheel is weighted? that would basically create a simple mechanical gyroscope that would act against the left and right rotation of the tail (like trying to turn a spinning bike tire).

i noticed the same right side lean on the PicooZ, i think its built into the frame so that the heli is leaning away from the way the heli wants to tip when it first lifts off and is in ground effect. they did some serious thinking on these little helis! did the heli not fly outside because it would lose the signal, or was it something else? if it kept losing signal, its probably interferance from the sun. are you using your own charger to charge it?

i cant wait to get one of these

nick

ChaChing

The Gyrotor is radio controlled, unlike the PicooZ Ir control, so I assume the sun would have no effect on the transimission/reception. Like you I'm curious why it doesn't fly outdoors, I'm sure Tim will fill us in.

Richard

bowbender

My Feedback: (4)

Like the PiccoZ I'm sure wind/air currents outdoors will affect the Gyrotor. I'm also watching to see how people like the Gyrotor. I've had a lot of fun with the PiccoZ and the prospects of a slightly larger heli with some gyro affect to stabilize the rotational forces seems appealing. These are indeed well-built "toys"!

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

I can't get sustained lift. It won't climb more than 8" up. Tim

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

Hi everyone, I just got off the phone with Hobbytron. They say that returns are rare on this product. They are issueing(sp?) a call tag, and will replace the heli. Less than 10 minutes on the phone. Less than one minute on hold. The young man I spoke to was knowledgeable on the subject. If this were ebay I would give them excellent marks. And they have the helis in stock!

For those of you that have a gyrotor, or will be receiving one shortly, I have to max the throttle to lift off. And then I am generally flying in ground effect. I'm going to believe that I got a bad one. There aare too many posts on RC groups for me to believe this heli is a dud. Bad luck for them that I'm willing to post about it so fast. Tim

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

OK, here is my question, Should I keep this gyrotor and try to fix it, or should I send it back? I can see where the cf rods are burning a new spin area in the styro. To me, it is obvious that the plane was not built properly. I have a replacement on the way. Should I try to fix this one, and have 2 or should I return it and end up buying a second one. I'll abide by the judgement of this forum, but once I recieve the second airframe all votes will be final. I have to say I'm leaning towards returning it. Tim

Seek and Destroy

I would keep the broken one for parts, or maybe for a project(whivh might be hard if it is not working well). But, I would say keep it for parts.

ChaChing

I don't know if it's good or bad news, but I think Tim was unlucky and got a dud. I received mine yesterday
and after some charges and practice, it flies pretty well. I was sent an orange channel B model, if that
info might be useful. I noticed that in the photos of Tim's blue Gyrotor the two halves of the foam were not meeting tightly in the centre, on mine there is barely a seam - if he hasn't opened it up, maybe this could be a clue, maybe something inside interfering.

I gave mine a brief charge after unpacking (10-20 mins) and besides the trim being a bit off it was fine, it was
very quick to from take-off to 5 feet, I would estimate about 4 seconds. After 7 charges it gets to that
height in a second or so. I have flown it outside in a very very light wind, the wind obviously has a large
effect (or is it affect) on such a small craft but it is controllable and it soared up. On one occasion it rose to about 20-30 feet at which time the wind gushed up unexpectadly so I had to hit the emergency stop (a great feature) - it fell to earth on to cobblestones suffering barely a scratch from its ordeal! I tried to add the nose weight (suplied), hoping it would counteract the wind but it was too much extra weight, after discharging the batteries of about 30% of their charge, so it would not take-off ( I will try this again with a fresh charge when the weather permits).

I found the "normal" control setting very difficult for indoor-use (14"x14" room) but the "responsive" setting is great, on this setting I've made some pretty smooth landings. My only major gripe is that you have to re-trim it for every flight, as the battery drains. A prolonged flight requires you to counteract this by manually steering the heli in the opposite direction to the rotation. I tried slightly twisting the tail rotor, this was very effective but shortlived and obviously had made no difference on the the effect of draining batteries, but it did give me more play as far as the trim setting on the RC was concerned.
It's just finished charging, so I will go for a fly.

Richard

FERNDALE AIR FORCE

That is good to hear. I also think that something is binding. The main shaft is rubbing a little on the air frame. Chaching, does the main rotor aor the tail rotor start first? On the picco z the main rotor then the tail rotor. I wonder if a small wing on the tail would help the trim. I added extra wing to the picco z and it liked it. Tim

ChaChing

On mine the tail rotor always starts first, it takes a little while for the main rotor to kick-in.

Richard

ChaChing

Thanks for the tip about the tail wing, it's great two ways: gives you better flight control and leaves you a lot of extra play when it comes to negating clockwise bias on the Tx's trim control too. I have mine at 45% off the perpendicular (to the ground), have you found a better way?

Regarding removing the throttle spring, I opened up the Tx - removing the 4 screws (there are none hidden in the batery bay). However, the housing, where the antennas screws-in-to place appears to be glued, it is the only point the two halves, of the Tx, will not seperate. This allows you to nearly open it, but does not give enough room to easily disconect the spring. At this stage I'm not ready to slighlty damage the Tx, as I'm not sure if it will break the housing for the antenna when the brute force method is used to seperate the Tx's shell. Any ideas?

Richard