mooserider
Active Member
Well, I was out yesterday making tail adjustments and test flights yesterday and had my first 'incident'. Things were going well... I went through three batteries and was on my last. The wind was kicking up, more than I should probably be dealing with, and as I was setting it down, it pitch right too much and the rotor blade whacked the ground (grass) a few times, so I yanked the throttle down.
I go and inspect things, and nothing appeared damaged. Grass and mud on the rotors was about it. Gears, servos... everything seemed fine. So I figured I'd spin it up slowly and see if anything seemed odd. No odd sounds, no gear mesh problems... so I get it up to full throttle and hover it about 10 or 15 feet up. Just hanging there, and I'm looking at the tail rotor action again before I leave.
Well after about 30 seconds, there was a loud "POP!", and off go the rotor blades in different directions! The body just dropped to the ground. Turns out that one of the two bolts holding the rotor grips ripped in two. I'm guessing the stress on it from the first hard landing and the rotors hitting the ground caused a stress fracture in the bolt.
Those blade coming off caused a bunch of other damage... stripped all three servos, broke a few linkage arms, stripped the tail drive gear, bent the rotor grip arm, cracked rotor blade, and lost some of the thrust bearings. Pretty brutal for what seemed like a minor crash at first. I can't imagine what would happen by dropping that thing out of the sky at full throttle and wrecking!
Should have it ready again in a day or two... gonna have to re-90 everything, level swash, 3gx setup... all that fun stuff.
Let me know if there's anything else I should take a look at that may not be obvious.
I go and inspect things, and nothing appeared damaged. Grass and mud on the rotors was about it. Gears, servos... everything seemed fine. So I figured I'd spin it up slowly and see if anything seemed odd. No odd sounds, no gear mesh problems... so I get it up to full throttle and hover it about 10 or 15 feet up. Just hanging there, and I'm looking at the tail rotor action again before I leave.
Well after about 30 seconds, there was a loud "POP!", and off go the rotor blades in different directions! The body just dropped to the ground. Turns out that one of the two bolts holding the rotor grips ripped in two. I'm guessing the stress on it from the first hard landing and the rotors hitting the ground caused a stress fracture in the bolt.
Those blade coming off caused a bunch of other damage... stripped all three servos, broke a few linkage arms, stripped the tail drive gear, bent the rotor grip arm, cracked rotor blade, and lost some of the thrust bearings. Pretty brutal for what seemed like a minor crash at first. I can't imagine what would happen by dropping that thing out of the sky at full throttle and wrecking!
Should have it ready again in a day or two... gonna have to re-90 everything, level swash, 3gx setup... all that fun stuff.
Let me know if there's anything else I should take a look at that may not be obvious.