I banged up my Raptor 50 a little today...No problem (I thought). To the best of my knowledge I (1) broke a blade (2) put a 1 inch ding in the boom (3)pushed the boom in ~1/4 inch (4) slightly bent one of the flybars ~1/4 inch. On the bench, I balanced and changed the blades, adjusted the boom out to take up the slack in the rotor drive belt, left the small ding alone and took the bend out of the flybar.

When I test hovered in my driveway, it wasn't nearly as smooth as it was before today's accident. To this amateur it seemed like the main rotor wasn't lifting as smoothly and evenly as it used to and that the heli seemed to leap off of the ground vs. the smooth transition that I had been accustomed to. I've fixed all that was obvious to the amateur and am looking for some guidance on how to check and adjust the tracking

If you broke a blade and bent the flybar you probably bent the main shaft and feathering axle which is a common occurence with even the slightest mishap.

Also check the spindle. I find if a part bends, you may as well replace it. Straightening a flybar is fine, but the heli never seems to fly right till you replace it. As stated, the main shaft should be checked to. Doesn't take much to really make it shake.

Gents...thanks for your input. I think I may have overstated the bang. The broken blade was actually a cracked carbon fiber blade that occurred during the incident. The accident didn't actually cause enough stress on the main shaft to even pop a ball link, so my hope is that I did not bend it.

I taped one of the blades today and took a look at the tracking and it was on the money. I hovered the heli today with no problems. Maybe, I was still shaken after having experienced my first crash and that is what caused the instability of the hover.

I plan on a more significant test flight tomorrow at the field. Hopefully all will go well...again thanks for your input

still enuff to bend a feathering spindle, they are like toffee....

Thanks for the advice. I'm not sure how to check the 'Feathering Spindle'...mainly because I don't know what it is. I'll see an experienced heli guy this weekend and have him take a look. If this is something that can't be checked at the field, some input on how to check the status of this part would be appreciated...in the mean time, I'm going to look through the Raptor manual.

Thanks again

When I crashed my shuttle I took off everything that I thought was re-usable and all the shafts and spindles etc looked fine. I couldn't see any bend or anything, but when they are placed on a nice smooth surface you can definitely see the bends in them. Dismantle the head and place the main shaft and spindle on a really shiny surface, if you roll your fingers over them you can feel the bends and also see it. You will probably hear a more of a wobbling sound when it is rolled along rather than a constant tune.

This is just how I check to see things are ok, others may do it differently. I think you can even get tools to check these things. The feathering spindle is the shorter thinner one that goes through the flybar head and connects to the blade grips. I think it's got threaded ends, but I can't remember.

James

edit: Of course it's got threaded ends. Who was I kidding. I never had my heli with me and couldn't think. Otherwise the blades would fly off!

I've never tried it, but I imagine that if you chucked the questionable shaft into a drill it would be fairly obvious whether the rod was true or not once you hit the trigger! My .02$

Feathering spindles are pretty easy to remove/replace. In any crash they're one of the first things to go. After ANY crash, you really absolutely HAVE to check your mast and spindle. A slight bend in either one will give you very bad vibration.

To remove the Rap's spindle:

1) Remove blades.
2) Remove linkages to grips
3) Using a Hex Wrench plus either another Hex wrench of the same size or a pair of pliers to hold the opposite bolt, remove the bolt inside one of the grips. This bolt is the one you see if you look straight into the blade grip. There's a bolt at each end of the spindle.
4) These bolts hold the grips on. So with one bolt off you can now slip the blade grip off.
5) Now, you can just grab the other grip and pull. The spindle + blade should both pull out of the rotor head. The spindle is just held in there by 2 rubber dampers.

Now you can check it for bends. I'm betting you've got a bent one...

-edg-

Just browsing a few heli shops for some parts and I found a tool that will check for bends:



You'd have to crash alot to get your money's worth though!

£56.40 it is. I'm sure other places do it alot cheaper, but I just found this one on the off chance.

James

Gents,

Thanks again for the feedback. I'll try the flat surface roll on the mast and main...praying for the best but preparing for the worst.
(Based on the warnings posted, I ordered both parts to keep on hand).

If nothing else, the time and expense required to get a heli back in the air after a mishap is enough incentive to practice more on the simulator.