Morelight
Fearless Freep
Hi. Needed a new hobby, and started getting into Eheli in Dec 2011. Been wanting to fly a heli since a kid, and finally getting around to it. What a learning curve. Bought a couple cheap co-ax without doing proper research and almost gave up. Last 3 months I've been doing a lot of studying, and flying Phoenix -- micro's to 700 and love it and the challenge. John Salt's site really helped me over the hump, and I bought 3 of his books.
I already have decided to move up to larger CP heli's, since the summers are not long here, and other than just after dawn and sunset, usually a fair bit of wind. Right now, all I have to fly, is a BH Tornado, 400 class, (first and last from them, laugh out loud if you like). Fortunately, it actually seems setup pretty good. I know it won't fly long, since they are basically built from crap, but I'm going to have a new Blade 500 in July, and also plan to build an Align 600 FBL, or 700, this year or next.
With the long winters, and only an apartment to live in, I also decided to build my own heli setup, work and test stand all in one. I just visualized what I thought would be useful in such a thing: vertical adjustment from 4 to 8 feet, free moving verticality for lift testing, 360 degrees of freedom in the horizontal plane for rudder testing, a stable platform for mounting the birds securely, the ability to lock at level for maintenance and tests, and the ability to run under load, testing cyclic functions.
I am fairly certain my stand is capable of safely testing up to a Trex 700 indoors, as I am probably going to buy one, and since I have not found anywhere to buy these things, I figured to build it right the first time, and re-purpose items that have already been engineered by smarter people than I.
I tested and recorded the stand last night, right after I finished it. Thanks to this stand, I was finally able to get the blade tracking perfect (and without blood loss), inside. It was 5mm or so out, but now its one beautiful line.
One last thing for now is a question to everybody here, ( been ghosting the forum for a bit, and like the members and mods). The mounting table is aluminum (light), but when I tried to test the cyclic functions, after I unlocked the deck, which moves very easily on the ball joint, the 400 does not have enough thrust to pull the deck back up to level and allow me to check F B L R cyclic functions. Disappointing, but the rotor diameter is only 630 mm, and probably not giving enough lift.
On UTube I've seen a guy lift a full case of 12 cans of beer into the air with a Trex 600, so I can't see any reason why my stand won't work 100% with a 600 or 700.
If I've done it right, there will be several pics I took of the stand an hour ago with this post. Any positive input is always welcome. Trolls must die
We have at least 7 months of weather not worth flying a decent heli in. Long 4-5 month winter, very windy wet spring, and cold damp windy fall most years.
). However, that almost certain disaster and call to 911 on other stands I've seen on Utube was thankfully not an anecdote, and, phweew, proved the robustiness of the stand design.