I'm sure by now you all have read my first impressions on the RCH Heli. And to say that I was less than impressed with what we ended up with is an understatement. If you are an RCH Supporter, you know what I have went through on this heli. For those that have not read my First Impressions thread, CLICK HERE.
This article is all about what I think of this helicopter now, and what I have done to get it to where it is now.
After getting it, and getting all of the parts to get it in the air, it was a struggle with every bolt that I had to turn. From not being able to get the head off the engine (which was severely damaged) to the tail having a lot of slop in it as well as the head, to the muffler being caved in. There was nothing that was "right" on this heli. But trying to look past it, I kept trying to put it in the air.
Over the 18 weeks that it took to get this heli build started to when I was finally able to get it in the air, as stated above, was a complete nightmare. So much so, we gave this helicopter a name... Murphy. Why Murphy? It stands for Murphy's Law. If it can go wrong, it WILL go wrong, and it HAS gone wrong. So much so, I was fed up with it and decided to just part it out and order a brand new kit. Yes, it was that bad.
Unfortunately this didn't set well with some of the members that had put money in on this build. So to try and keep a little bit of peace in the forums, I decided to just rebuild the whole helicopter. Yes, the entire thing. We had saved up some cash in paypal, as well as some of the money from a few of the parts that were sold on ebay during the part out, so why not, lets just get a new helicopter out of this.
With that in mind, I started the hunt on the best items that I could put on this thing. I had already sold the head, so needed a head. No better option than the DFC head, so I ordered it. That took care of the slop in the head. Now the tail, it had a lot of slop as well. Ordered the newest tail with the new linkage, and it's SOLID now. Form there, it was things like a new tail boom to get the faded one off, new torque tube shaft, new fuel lines and so on.
so with all of those new shiny parts on this helicopter, it was time to take it out and give it it's first test hover. This didn't go so well. The vibrations that thing thing puts off made that little 3GX VERY unstable! So much so, it wanted to tip over on the ground. Now I know why there are marks taken out of the tips of the blades. Ugh, okay, it's time for a new gyro. But what one, the AR7200BX or the Ikon...
While looking, a member here on the forum posted an AR7200BX up for sale for a killer deal. Yes, it had the sides ground down so that it would fit in the frame of a 450, but I verified that he took out the electronics when he did the grinding, which he did, so I knew the electronics were in good working order. And as you all know, the case means crap when it comes to performance, it's all in teh electronics!
Got the gyro mounted, an hour later I had it programmed with the factory stock settings, and it was time to take it out once again and see if it would fly. Started the engine, and yes, I was a bit timid at first, but this thing never tipped once, it was just solid right up to the point where it lifted off into the air. Granted, this was and is my first nitro heli. so it was not tuned correctly and the head speed was way too low. But it was in the air!
In the back of my mind this whole time was the fact that the engine in this thing was trash. I'm talking horrible scaring on the block walls where the sleeve goes into, rusted crank, pieces of large metal coming out of the front bearing, just horrible. Not an engine that you would want to rely on.
At this time, Gaba, our moderator, decided to do a big block conversion on his Vibe 50. Yup, he was wanting to put a 90 sized engine in a 600 size heli, awesome lol. As luck would have it, he was running the exact same engine that I was running, the OS 55HZ-H engine. So we struck a deal on it, and he shipped it to me.
At the time, I didn't have the money for the engine. So this engine was on loan to me as well as a governor and extra mufflers. With this in mind, I didn't want to lean it out too much and burn it up, so I tried to stay right at 190ºF. When you are running 15% nitro in a heli, 190ºF makes NO power at all. You have to run it at about 220ºF to 230ºF just to get your head speed up where you need it. I just didn't feel right about this, I didn't want to destroy an engine that I didn't own, so there was only one thing to do to solve this issue.
I pulled Gaba's engine out of the heli and I stuck the old engine back in it, and I leaned her out. Unfortunately during the swap, I broke one of the needle stoppers (makes a click as you turn it) so my mid range needle has no way of holding the adjustment. But, I didn't care, I wanted this thing to fly.
Put the heli up in the air, and at about 210ºF, the head speed was right about where I would call it good for sport flying. Something around 1900, maybe a little lower, but still good for the kind of flying that I do. And I have kept that needle setting, and it's still flying.
Great
Now it's time to add the Governor that Gaba sent me with the engine. The governor, for those that don't know, helps to hold the head speed under hard collective and cyclic changes. Without it, it will bog like crazy! Well, there was no way that I could mount the included sensor, so I decided to just run the sensor that I had on the heli that was plugged into the 3GX and run it into the multigov. This was a bad idea. At the time, I didn't know they were NOT compatible with each other. But they are not. I burnt my sensor up in a hurry, almost frying everything else on the helicopter.
Well crap, now I have no sensor to see what my head speed is on my DX8, and the multigov is not even reading the magnets that is in the heli anyway, so no gov for me. Ah well, time for more flying.
The more I fly this thing, the more stable it becomes. Around this time, I decided to move out of my house, and this heli was one of the first things that went with me. I mean everything went with me, but this was one of the first, have to protect the investment lol. After a month of not flying anything, I fired this thing up, and off we went. Even though I have a larger field now, it was still very small for a heli of this size. I would turn, then it seemed like I had to turn again very quickly to keep from running into something. Ugh.
So that brings me up to last weekend (Labor Day Weekend). With the purchase of two BRAND NEW CARS (yes, only 5 miles on each of them), insurance and so on, I had to find a solution on where I can fly this beast. Through a decision that never should have happened, I had quit a club quite a while back. It was close, it was pretty open (kinda lol) and best of all, it was cheap. I mean REALLY cheap, $3 a month paid in full for a year for a total of $36. CHEAP!!!
With a recent donation, I was able to actually renew my AMA membership that I had to let go due to my work schedule. When you work graveyards, you can't fly at all anyway. But, they sent me an email and offered some things that I couldn't turn down, so I renewed my AMA. Wonderful, now I can crash into crap and be covered lmao.
Okay, but what am I going to do about a larger place to fly. Well, there is a place called Baxter Field, but out there, you MUST have a spotter when you fly, it's REQUIRED. I'm sorry, I'm not going to wait on someone just to go flying. I don't fly well in front of people anyway, so that field was out. The next closest field was about 45 miles away, yeah, that was NOT going to happen.
Screw it, time to suck up your pride and go back to the field that you quit and try to talk them into taking you back. When I pulled up, I was looking for the pres of the club, and I found him. Someone that I never thought would be the pres. Great, this guy is what the club needed, not some grouchy old coot that hates change! Time to find the treasurer of the club now, and up he came.
I pulled both of them aside and explained what all had went on, and asked if they would allow me to rejoin their club. They both kind of looked at each other and I started to get a bad feeling about this. so I said "okay hows this, to show my gratitude for letting me back in, and the willingness to help the club out, how about I pay for 12 months, the full $36, but only for the last 4 months of the year?". This must have struck something with them because they both agreed, and I was once again a member of C.O.R.C.S. (Central Oklahoma Radio Controlled Society). Now, I have a place that is large enough to fly this monster of a helicopter.
Tonight when I get off work, I will be stopping by Callsign's house and picking up some 30% fuel that Gaba was kind enough to sell me (for cost, I'm not trying to take everything from him lmao). This should wake this thing up quite well and hopefully, lower the temps at which I have to run to make any power.
So stay tuned, there is a lot more flying going on with this helicopter. Through the headaches, both from the issues as well as the REAL headaches that the smoke has caused, I'm not giving up on this helicopter. It's been a nightmare and a pleasure to have and work on this helicopter and I want that to continue!
Stay tuned for more, there is a lot that this heli has not done. Including going inverted which it is going to do here very soon!!!
This article is all about what I think of this helicopter now, and what I have done to get it to where it is now.
After getting it, and getting all of the parts to get it in the air, it was a struggle with every bolt that I had to turn. From not being able to get the head off the engine (which was severely damaged) to the tail having a lot of slop in it as well as the head, to the muffler being caved in. There was nothing that was "right" on this heli. But trying to look past it, I kept trying to put it in the air.
Over the 18 weeks that it took to get this heli build started to when I was finally able to get it in the air, as stated above, was a complete nightmare. So much so, we gave this helicopter a name... Murphy. Why Murphy? It stands for Murphy's Law. If it can go wrong, it WILL go wrong, and it HAS gone wrong. So much so, I was fed up with it and decided to just part it out and order a brand new kit. Yes, it was that bad.
Unfortunately this didn't set well with some of the members that had put money in on this build. So to try and keep a little bit of peace in the forums, I decided to just rebuild the whole helicopter. Yes, the entire thing. We had saved up some cash in paypal, as well as some of the money from a few of the parts that were sold on ebay during the part out, so why not, lets just get a new helicopter out of this.
With that in mind, I started the hunt on the best items that I could put on this thing. I had already sold the head, so needed a head. No better option than the DFC head, so I ordered it. That took care of the slop in the head. Now the tail, it had a lot of slop as well. Ordered the newest tail with the new linkage, and it's SOLID now. Form there, it was things like a new tail boom to get the faded one off, new torque tube shaft, new fuel lines and so on.
so with all of those new shiny parts on this helicopter, it was time to take it out and give it it's first test hover. This didn't go so well. The vibrations that thing thing puts off made that little 3GX VERY unstable! So much so, it wanted to tip over on the ground. Now I know why there are marks taken out of the tips of the blades. Ugh, okay, it's time for a new gyro. But what one, the AR7200BX or the Ikon...
While looking, a member here on the forum posted an AR7200BX up for sale for a killer deal. Yes, it had the sides ground down so that it would fit in the frame of a 450, but I verified that he took out the electronics when he did the grinding, which he did, so I knew the electronics were in good working order. And as you all know, the case means crap when it comes to performance, it's all in teh electronics!
Got the gyro mounted, an hour later I had it programmed with the factory stock settings, and it was time to take it out once again and see if it would fly. Started the engine, and yes, I was a bit timid at first, but this thing never tipped once, it was just solid right up to the point where it lifted off into the air. Granted, this was and is my first nitro heli. so it was not tuned correctly and the head speed was way too low. But it was in the air!
In the back of my mind this whole time was the fact that the engine in this thing was trash. I'm talking horrible scaring on the block walls where the sleeve goes into, rusted crank, pieces of large metal coming out of the front bearing, just horrible. Not an engine that you would want to rely on.
At this time, Gaba, our moderator, decided to do a big block conversion on his Vibe 50. Yup, he was wanting to put a 90 sized engine in a 600 size heli, awesome lol. As luck would have it, he was running the exact same engine that I was running, the OS 55HZ-H engine. So we struck a deal on it, and he shipped it to me.
At the time, I didn't have the money for the engine. So this engine was on loan to me as well as a governor and extra mufflers. With this in mind, I didn't want to lean it out too much and burn it up, so I tried to stay right at 190ºF. When you are running 15% nitro in a heli, 190ºF makes NO power at all. You have to run it at about 220ºF to 230ºF just to get your head speed up where you need it. I just didn't feel right about this, I didn't want to destroy an engine that I didn't own, so there was only one thing to do to solve this issue.
I pulled Gaba's engine out of the heli and I stuck the old engine back in it, and I leaned her out. Unfortunately during the swap, I broke one of the needle stoppers (makes a click as you turn it) so my mid range needle has no way of holding the adjustment. But, I didn't care, I wanted this thing to fly.
Put the heli up in the air, and at about 210ºF, the head speed was right about where I would call it good for sport flying. Something around 1900, maybe a little lower, but still good for the kind of flying that I do. And I have kept that needle setting, and it's still flying.
Great
Now it's time to add the Governor that Gaba sent me with the engine. The governor, for those that don't know, helps to hold the head speed under hard collective and cyclic changes. Without it, it will bog like crazy! Well, there was no way that I could mount the included sensor, so I decided to just run the sensor that I had on the heli that was plugged into the 3GX and run it into the multigov. This was a bad idea. At the time, I didn't know they were NOT compatible with each other. But they are not. I burnt my sensor up in a hurry, almost frying everything else on the helicopter.
Well crap, now I have no sensor to see what my head speed is on my DX8, and the multigov is not even reading the magnets that is in the heli anyway, so no gov for me. Ah well, time for more flying.
The more I fly this thing, the more stable it becomes. Around this time, I decided to move out of my house, and this heli was one of the first things that went with me. I mean everything went with me, but this was one of the first, have to protect the investment lol. After a month of not flying anything, I fired this thing up, and off we went. Even though I have a larger field now, it was still very small for a heli of this size. I would turn, then it seemed like I had to turn again very quickly to keep from running into something. Ugh.
So that brings me up to last weekend (Labor Day Weekend). With the purchase of two BRAND NEW CARS (yes, only 5 miles on each of them), insurance and so on, I had to find a solution on where I can fly this beast. Through a decision that never should have happened, I had quit a club quite a while back. It was close, it was pretty open (kinda lol) and best of all, it was cheap. I mean REALLY cheap, $3 a month paid in full for a year for a total of $36. CHEAP!!!
With a recent donation, I was able to actually renew my AMA membership that I had to let go due to my work schedule. When you work graveyards, you can't fly at all anyway. But, they sent me an email and offered some things that I couldn't turn down, so I renewed my AMA. Wonderful, now I can crash into crap and be covered lmao.
Okay, but what am I going to do about a larger place to fly. Well, there is a place called Baxter Field, but out there, you MUST have a spotter when you fly, it's REQUIRED. I'm sorry, I'm not going to wait on someone just to go flying. I don't fly well in front of people anyway, so that field was out. The next closest field was about 45 miles away, yeah, that was NOT going to happen.
Screw it, time to suck up your pride and go back to the field that you quit and try to talk them into taking you back. When I pulled up, I was looking for the pres of the club, and I found him. Someone that I never thought would be the pres. Great, this guy is what the club needed, not some grouchy old coot that hates change! Time to find the treasurer of the club now, and up he came.
I pulled both of them aside and explained what all had went on, and asked if they would allow me to rejoin their club. They both kind of looked at each other and I started to get a bad feeling about this. so I said "okay hows this, to show my gratitude for letting me back in, and the willingness to help the club out, how about I pay for 12 months, the full $36, but only for the last 4 months of the year?". This must have struck something with them because they both agreed, and I was once again a member of C.O.R.C.S. (Central Oklahoma Radio Controlled Society). Now, I have a place that is large enough to fly this monster of a helicopter.
Tonight when I get off work, I will be stopping by Callsign's house and picking up some 30% fuel that Gaba was kind enough to sell me (for cost, I'm not trying to take everything from him lmao). This should wake this thing up quite well and hopefully, lower the temps at which I have to run to make any power.
So stay tuned, there is a lot more flying going on with this helicopter. Through the headaches, both from the issues as well as the REAL headaches that the smoke has caused, I'm not giving up on this helicopter. It's been a nightmare and a pleasure to have and work on this helicopter and I want that to continue!
Stay tuned for more, there is a lot that this heli has not done. Including going inverted which it is going to do here very soon!!!
