After being run in my engine now needs to be fine tuned.

I've been doing some reading on the forum and seen that the best way to do it is to first adjust the main needle whilst the throttle is fully open, and secondly to adjust the idle needle for the ideal idling and hovering capability. So far so good.

Now this sounds great in theory but my problem is that my helicopter is going to fly away when I jam the throttle fully open - I'm not experienced enough to execute this manoeuvre (sp??). Anyway, I have been thinking and I have come up with some suggestions. Any input/advice/ideas would be appreciated:

1. Keep the heli on the ground by securing metal/concrete weights to the landing skids so that it cannot take off even at full power.

2. Set the throttle hold on the radio to 100%. Then, by using the collective, maintain a slight negative/zero pitch and flick the throttle hold switch - the engine will then open fully without effecting take off. (Problem: blades will produce less drag due to shallow angle of attack, and headspeed will be excessive.)

3. Set the ATV on the collective pitch (Ch 6) to 0%. The throttle will then open whilst the collective stays put. (Headspeed problem.)

4. Lie down next to the heli, disconnect the throttle link and manually open the throttle and listen to the motor. Leave collective pitch at slight negative/zero. (There is a bit of a danger factor here, as well as grass/dust in your face.)

Clearly I'm not keen to remove the blades because then the engine is not under load and will overspeed - also I'm thinking that its best to tune the engine under realistic load conditions otherwise the revving/power characteristics might change once the blades have been attached.

Any experiences/advice would be appreciated.

Rawlie

I've just been tuning my engine a bit. What are you running? I would definitely rule out 'number 4' !


The best way to tune an engine would be to do the hover>full throttle>lean or rich to suit. But if you are uncomfortable with taking it up higher then I don't think you will really need to fine tune your engine, just keep it at factory setting, then once you are able to fly circuits etc then you will benifit more when the engine has been fine tuned. Whilst hovering, you will seldom notice any difference with the mixture settings off the factory ones, as long as you don't richen/lean it too much.

Number one is reasonable, I would get a large plank through the skids and peg it to the ground either side and chuck some large bricks on. But you are limited to what you would achieve as you really need to fine tune it to it's normal flying conditions.

Sitck with the basic settings, if it's boggy in the hover then lean the main screw a bit at a time ( 2 clicks at a time), or if it's screaming and after a minute or two it starts to die down, then you're too lean so just richen it. From there you could just fiddle with your idle mixture a tiny bit and then fly, you will only need fine tuning to make sure your headspeed doesn't die off in the middle of a piro-flippin loop

James

Check out Ray's Manual,
They strap it to a 6' ladder so you don't chop off any body parts.
It is also out of ground efect. and the blades are above your head. don't get hit with the tail rotor.Good Luck

Don't even think about it

Leave it alone or get some experienced help.

It always amazes me that people would be willing to get even close to a heli that has the blades moving at head speed. This is just plain out a bad idea, and you are asking for an accident. Stay away from the heli if it is spinning, plain and simple.

The group here is right, if you are just hovering around, keep the engine rich and leave it there. Performance means nothing to you now anyhow.

I personally use a combination to get my engines tuned, I use a hand held temp gauge after flying around, I also use headloaders initially so I can watch what the heli is doing before I lift it off. I never touch my heli with the engine above idle, just a bad idea. I start by rough tuning with the headloaders, spin it up, see how it sounds, shut it down to idle and adjust. Repeat as needed.

Then I put blades on, fly it and wring it out a bit, land, idle, check temp, adjust repeat as needed.

Patience means you get to keep fingers and limbs attached.

As for the ladder trick, well its not the first stupid thing I have seen in that manual but it is probably the most dangerous.

THIS IS A 911 CALL WAITING TO HAPPEN IF I EVER SAW ONE. :stupid: :stupid: :stupid:

Yip, the reason why this thread was posted in the first place was because there is a better and a worse way of doing things. Clearly the heli's are not as convenient to finetune as the planes, because with planes you can open the throttle fully and listen to the engine.

b0gh0s i like your idea about the heliloaders, that is the type of advice I was actually after. Also Spurry's plank idea.

Happy tuning boys!

Rawlie

PS: Are there any female heli pilots out there or is this a real sausage party?

Have an experienced heli guy set the mixture.It will be close enough from then on for you to learn to hover.PLEASE DO NOT LAY UNDER THE BLADES!Respect and fear these things,they have a tremendous amount of energy stored in them when they are spooled up.

guy at our club, goes+ lays don under the blades while they are spinning. his head is only bout 1-2 inches below the blades.prety scary but he doesnt seem to mind... maybe smelt 1 bit of nitro too much

I would generally agree that spinning heli blades are to be respected. However, when I was trying desperately , many years ago to adjust, run and fly my Competitor, I lashed it firmly to a bench that set the blades whirling at about eye level. This allowed me to check for tracking. Also, when adjusting the needles, I'd just crouch down on my knees and the blades spun at least six inches above my head. I was quite comfortable and felt safe. Of course, extreme care was always exercised. Don't get mad, I had exceptional problems with flame outs and throttle response. I later found out that the O-rings on the OS, two needle throttle, were undersized and leaked air intermittently.

Now, lying on your stomach, with the heli loose and the blades an inch above your head,,, well.

I'm contemplating the Century Hawk. I'm hoping the engine will be easier to tune. OS or TT?

Why not just tune it on the bench with a prop?

OK, after reading all the advice (thanks to all by the way) I followed the traditional method of keeping a safe distance and opening the power full throttle to set main needle and idle needle by listening to engine at idle. Good results were achieved. I decided to abandon all fear of opening the throttle fully and it actually wasn't that bad.

1705493, I'm running a Century Hawk with a MDS 38 which, contrary to everything I have ever heard about MDS, has not given me any hassles at all. It starts fairly easily, seems quite powerful to me and never cut out etc.

Okay, I have the Century Hawk with an O.S. engine with less than 20 flights. When I first start to fly the heli everything seems to be fine but after a while the engine seems to loose power and I have to increase the throttle to keep it hovering and then eventually i cuts completely off.

sounds like it is overheating b/c the mixture is to lean. try opening the high end needle valve 1/2 a turn and see if that helps.