ok, they are predicting snow in the next couple of days, does anyone fly in the snow? What do I need to do to protect the electronics?

I was looking at the helimax floats for the .30 size heli and wondering if I could mount those to my t-rex, what do you think?

I did not do anything to protect the electronics. I know, this pic does not have falling snow, but even when snow is falling, I have never had a problem.

Now, problems with links that tighten up in the cold, those I have had! [X(]

right on man... that looks cool, I'm hoping for some fluffy snow that I can blow around with the rotor wash...

Theres a video on youtube I saw a while back. Guy has a falcon 3d and a blade cp. Its all snowy outside and he is in the backyard trying to fly. Snow probably 2-3 feet deep and looks more like powder than hard pack.

He crashes both of those helis so much in the video that I felt pretty bad for him, they would just get entirely swallowed up by the snow. The whole time he flies you can see he is fighting the heli, always a 1/4 second behind the correct input. Someone ought to buy him an airhog or something lol.

Personally, I would wrap my electronics up with something as some of them are pretty exposed. Looks like fun though, and I bet it could be almost like an airbag.

that's why I was thinking the floats, it would distribute the weight over a greater area, depending on the snow, I'm thinking it may effect take offs/landings a lot...

http://www.helimax-rc.com/accys/hmxe2000.html

or I could probably make a set out of that round tube stuff that they sell for kids to play with, I have no idea what it's called.. it floats and bends, that may work better, just put it around the existing skids..

I toasted a motor on my Axe CP due to the melting snow, the motor got wet.

Noodles!!!

Those colored toys kids play with in the pool and then smack each other around with. What if you just took something flat and attached it to the skids to disburse the weight. Maybe some of that blue foam the use to make foamies out of, something a bit rigid that is light and can support some weight.

Floats would probably work too, that would tempt me to find a body of water to fly from though. Which, given the way Murphy (and his law) seems to work it would probably be a bad thing.

How did getting the motor wet toast it? I suppose that water in the bearings might not be good, but that would take a lot of snow to wash away the bearing lubricant.

I'm planning on flying this winter, I'm putting a set of plastic, aluminum or carbon fiber skis on my belt cp. We get a ton of snow up here (the sides of my driveway where we shovel the snow to was 10' high last year).

cross section one of those noodles and zip tie it to the skid, that would distribute the weight wouldn't it?


I know about Mr. Murphy, he always seems to be hanging around right close

Not yet but might be in the next day or so

Winter and snow does have some advantages though. When I used to be heavily into RC aircraft we would remove the wheels from our planes and put ski's on them. Found alot more calm days in the winter to summer. Also if you dorked or crashed the deep snow would lessen the impact and sometimes only minor damage was done if any at all. I used to fly my gs powered heli in the winter the cold does affect the batteries for the receivers so same would apply to electric heli's but if you crashed in the soft snow damage would or could be minimal. But also remember plastic does become very brittle there is that risk too. As for landing gear you could get small tube balloons blow them up to the size you want then "duct tape" them to the skids they would look like floats

Yah I'm thinking a cross section of noodles would probably work well. You could probably take and cut a nice flat chunk of it and should do fine. Now I'm wishing I hadn't moved away from the white stuff. I bet you could probably even use noodles to make floats :P I won't be trying it though.

When I lived down your way in St Marys, I never missed the white stuff, in fact I used to call the folks just to laugh at them..

I'll tell you one thing for sure that I know from float flying.

Receivers do NOT like water or moisture or anything of the sort. I had a small drop hit an unprotected receiver and the controls went completely haywire. If you're going to fly when it's actually snowing, i'd consider sticking your RX and ESC in a balloon.

Well, i'd suggest not to fly when it's snowing period, but if you must, the above advice is good..



Also, just curious but are you talking T-rex 450 or T-rex 600? The Helimax .30 floats will be way too big for a T-rex 450.

Also some other cold weather flying problems:

- Links become brittle and can snap (i've had this happen to me).

- Gyro's don't operate too well in cold weather (at least, not as good as they do in warm weather).

- Lithium batteries lose capacity and discharge ability in cold weather. I'd advise keeping your packs warm prior to a flight so that you get full performance from them during.

Just a few things i've picked up living in the great white north here .

When I was living in Alaska back in the late 70's & 80's we use to go "to the field" all the time. Druing the winter we had skis on the helis. Imagine my Cobra with skis? So we lived in tents with Yukon stoves. We could never rely on the fuel trucks to make their rounds on time to refill our 5 gal cans.

So when it appeared they were not going to be around any time soon and we needed fuel, we'd dig a trench out from under the heli and drain out 5 gal of JP4 and be done with it. Aviation units always kept warm.

here's what I ended up with, I went to a couple of places and noodles don't seem to be in right now... I did find a toy sword made out of foam, thanks to the great manufacturing the glue holding the inner shaft snapped and I then had a hollow piece of foam, I cut a slit for the gear struts to go up in and figure I can zip tie it to hold it in place.. shaped a bit with the dremel which sucked.. I think this should work

Just lay out a broken down cardboard box(the large moving kind) on the snow for your heli-pad. That should work.

ch1

it is great flying in the snow. It is colder and the air more dense so you get longer runtimes and more lift. Plus, its just fun blowing snow around!

The foam method works well for anyone interested. I use foam tube over the skids on my EP550 and it makes landing in snow a bit easier, though it'll still sink in the light fluffy variety.


Pool noodles are too thick for smaller helis anyways. If you want good stuff, visit a local home depot or hardware store and just pick up some of the thin foam tube insulation used to go around the copper hot water pipes in your home. Works' great and it's super cheap .

Here's my contribution. Falcon with depron skis.