an update.....

I had a killer hover going, ran out of battery, went up again... then my co-worker yelled through the door, broke my concentration and I slammed the sucker into the ground! (where's that icon that I need?)

broke a blade holder, it'll have to go home to get repaired oh well, it flew 100% better with some quality time setting it up..

I tore down and reassembled my chopper and now I don't remember how long the tail boom is supposed to extend out. The specs say that the Axe is 23 inches (584mm) in length - is this the length from nose of the canopy to the end of the tail motor? If so, I can figure out how far out it needs to go. Thanks for the help!

I just received a new one from Hobby Services and it measures at 11.25 inches. My other one measures at 11 and 1/8 inches but it had been crashed before by the previous owner. Hope this helps.

Edit: Btw, that is only for the actual boom, Not including the tail motor mount.

Thanks, Rotor13B. That helps a lot - I owe ya a beer! [sm=thumbs_up.gif] That's top of my list once I get home. I wonder how much it would affect yaw if it's off by even 1/4 of an inch. How off can it be before it negatively affects operation and flight? Can anyone comment on this?

Holy s/;!!, I just hovered a whole TP 1320 w/o training gear for the first time. Can do partial left and rights too!! This bird just keeps making me feel better and better every time I take to the air. Can't say that i'll be throwing the gear away yet, but right now it feels better w/o it! The hs-55's help alot too.

last night the weather was crappy, so I finished the electronics on Heli #1 and put #2 back together... here's pics..

My axe cp finally arrived yesterday, I made the mistake of buying it from an ebay seller, screen name: hiprohobbies don't buy from that person, they don't respond to your ebay messages nor does the phone number on the box ie. ups label, has anybody pick it up, you can't even leave a message.

My radio doesn't power up, the receiver, only 3 channels work so I'm using my futaba 4yf with y cable connected to the aileron's to get it to fly, I'm going to try and hook up a plane receiver into it to see if there is any difference as well. I broke the front section of the right landing gear since I was taxying it on that and it slipped down into it, so not exactly indestructable.

Looking at this compared to the blade cp, there really is no comparison, but I feel I may end up tossing all of it's electronics and retrofitting with t-rex stuff at this point, then again, I may just toss it to the waste can and get a t-rex all together. This is indeed, a very, very simple model, there just isn't anything to it and for those mechanically challenged, this is a good one to have around. For the price though, I do think it's too expensive, this should retail for 120-130.00 max, and they should take the claim off that it's factory tested, it's clearly not.

Well my saga continues with the AXE. [:@]

I was just out in front of my house hovering and after about 5 minutes the heli will just drop out of the sky. It has done this to me 3 times with 3 different batteries that all still have at least 11.8 volts left in them. Also when I use my ElectriFly 910mha battery it will arm and spin-up than just quits and the ESC LED goes out. If I disconnect the battery and reconnect, the ESC will rearm and the motors will spin-up again and just quit. This battery is just fine in my Blade. I called Hobby Services but there wasn't anyone there to help me. The person I talked to said that only one person there knows the heli's.

At this point I am so furstrated that I am ready to throw this thing against the wall as hard as I can. This is the 3rd AXE that I have had and all of them are bad. I am really thinking that the AXE is a real piece of JUNK! You guys that aren't having any problems must of gotten the cream of the crop when it comes to this heli.

[:@][:@][:@][:@][:@][:@][:@][:@][:@][:@][:@]

Time to join the thread.

My Axe CP is sitting in a UPS truck and out for delivery...

I'm sorry for you. Don't expect too much and you won't be dissapointed.

Well, I just talked to Hobby Services and they are going to send me a new 3 in 1 board. I guess I am happy about that. At least they take care of their customers, it is just getting old receiving bad product. I just want my AXE to be a good heli. My Blade is rock solid on the electronics it is just a bit sensitive for me right now. I keep breaking main blades. Also the AXE is better in the wind because it is a bit heavier. I will keep flying the Blade while waiting for the new 3 in 1 board.

Well, it happened. Not that it was a crash, but more like a ground crew error. While moving the heli back to the center of my hover circle the collective stick hit my leg and the heli spun up and out of my hand. It landed on the ground and trashed the blades. The only other damage I could find was to the front control linkage. I straightened it out and without blades and clamped to the work bench ran up the main shaft to see if it was still straight and check the fly bar paddles. Everything looks good.

My only concern is that the main blade grippers don’t look to have the correct pitch. I don’t have a spare set of blades or a pitch gauge to check them. Once I get the new blades today, I’ll have to run it up and check the tracking, but it just doesn’t look right.

Anyone else have a similar issue after a crash?

Sorry haven't been on for a couple days because I neglected to clicknotify me, and was to lazy to find thread. I have a lipo, its an esky, got it and the charger for $30 plus $5 for shipping. I still run the stock batteries though. They weren't the cause of my last crash, it was stupidity. I'm going to test my axe agian when it gets a little warmer in the next few days to see if it still does it.

I know good Tower is with customer service, within the last two years I have probably spent $2,000 on there websites, plasti-models, tower, and model-ships. I hve only had a problem with them sending me the wrong parts, and they sent me new ones out the next day. They also took back a heli I had for two month, for full refund.

So if I do have a problem with my heli I know they will be coupritive.

Thought I would pass this along.
I purchased a set of the plastic blades for my axe.
It seems to have been a good investment.
I have definately noticed an increase in stability and control, they gave me a nice edge that I needed.
Also added the blade cp/cp pro flybar paddles. That was also a noticable improvement.
The plastic rotor blades come in black, white and yellow. I chose yellow because it was
easier to see the disc plus they really look pretty good.
These are sold by tower hobbies and are for the axe cp. They fit great and were balanced close enough to fly.
I would suggest anyone that wants a far more durable blade and
not wanting to do the inverted thing at this time to try these out.

Also if anyone has settings for the DX7/AR7000 for the axe cp and would like to share I would sure be grateful.

Once you go LIPO you will never want to use your stock batteries again.

I second that. The Heli seams better balanced as well.

I'm going to buy a set of those. $2 cheaper and seems like plaxtic will survive some little miss haps better than the wood ones.

Thanks Faststar.

If you go to the JCS hobbies page, they are cheaper by a little and have symetrical plastic ones for the Blade that will probably work as well. I'll probably be ordering both of these soon. Great find. Thanks.

You just have to remember, Anytime you reinforce on area the next weak link down the chain is what breaks. The only set of blades that i've broken were from running it up in the house and it drifted into a endtable and chewed up the tips pretty good.

I second Rotor13B's logic. It's the main reason I won't go to CNC blade grips even if I upgraded to a CNC head. The blade grips act like a "fuse" or shear pin. It's funny if I hit something soft like a cardboard box as opposed to say a tree or the ground the box does more damage. I flew into the ground and broke a grip, flew into a tree and broke two grips (don't ask it's a heli eating tree), I flew into a box didn't break the grips, but managed to bend the feathering spindle and mainshaft. Go figure.

The "heli eating tree" thing just made me laugh. I have a "heli eating lawnmower" in my garage. Maybe we should get them together. LOL

I picked up the plastic blades on my blade cp, it did the heli in, in more ways then I could have imagined. I'm sticking with the wooden ones, I'd rather they be the week link since they are cheap, and actually I can make a new set from scratch in house, the rest of the heli, well, is rather proprietary so am stuck with what's pinned to the LHS's shelves.

Yeah maybe they'll take each other out.

I'm sorry to hear about the recent mishaps, 'ground crew error', and bad electronics!

All this stuff is no fun for sure. I've been frustrated more than a few times too - you just gotta break away - do something else fun or take a walk and blow off that steam. I hope nobody throws an Axe at a wall!

About the 'ground crew error' - this was disturbing because it can happen even to an expert pilot with a perfect heli. Totally preventable. REMEMBER - more models are damaged in handling and transport than crashing!!! USE that Throttle Hold Switch as a 'Safety' - its saved me from a couple of accidental 'stick bumpings'.

You might think this weird, but every time I pop the canopy, I imagine that I am de-fusing a BOMB. I don't want it to blow up by incorrect radio input or other mistake on my part. Very CAREFUL and THOUGHTFUL. Think every move out a moment ahead of time. Move slowly, calculatingly. No sudden moves!

Flight Report!

This morning was dead calm and I did pretty good. Kept her flying in bounds and smoothly, without needing wild flares to stay put. Did some decent turns but kept her tail-in the whole time. I can't do nose-in yet, at all!

I tweaked the DX6's Normal Throttle Curve down by 2% and the Normal Pitch Curve up by 2%. Improvement! Landings and liftoffs very smooth now! No more training gear needed. All landings picture perfect. The keys to not needing training gear anymore are: a smooth hover, confidence, and patience when planning out the touch-down. You really got to 'fly it in' down to the last 1 inch of altitude. HELLA FUN!! I always get a rush watching a nice landing!

Pretty stable all around, especially at maintaining a steady altitude. Could still be better though. Need more practice, more tweaking...