Hi all. Probably another dumm question. Finally got the 450 running smoothly and into hover practice. Although the heli comes off the ground nice and smoothly with just a touch of right applied. I find I am leaning on the stick all the time to get it from drifting off to the left. Do I trim out like I would an aircraft with the TX trims or do I do it mechanically i.e. adjust the pitch and aileron push rods. The swash plate is level and the helicopter flies nicely apart from the drifting to the left. One more thing what sort of flight times should I be getting. I'm using Turnighy 2.2 30 to 40 discharge rate. I was going for 6 minutes but after the rebuild and the last flight it floated down from 12 feet or so when the battery give out after four and half minutes. Cheers and thanks in advance.
General Trimming out for flight
- Thread starter treff
- Start date
Slobberdog
Well-Known Member
Treff, first are you sure you had a full charge in the battery before you flew, should get five to six mins on your set up.
secondly, trims, yes you can with your heli, if you have a lot of trim needed then its would be best to adjust the rod,
but what sub trim do you have on the aileron, could start there,
secondly, trims, yes you can with your heli, if you have a lot of trim needed then its would be best to adjust the rod,
but what sub trim do you have on the aileron, could start there,
Derek
Well-Known Member
Helicopters are going to naturally drift to the left a bit upon lift off. it's just the "nature of the beast", due to the ground effect. When you see the heli get light on the skids, just be ready to apply a bit of right aileron to counter. The other alternative would be, when you see the heli getting light on the skids, you can POP the heli off the ground just enough to get out of the ground effect and it shouldn't drift to the left much. Yes, you can add some trim to aid with this but in fact, if you add so much trim to keep the heli from drifting to the left, it will want to drift to the right because of the trim that you've added. Make sense?
As far as your battery life (flight times), that all depends on how you fly. If you are a "hover master" or just simple sport flying, you will probably get 5-6 minutes..maybe more. Once you start doing 3D and all that, the flight times will be much less.
As far as your battery life (flight times), that all depends on how you fly. If you are a "hover master" or just simple sport flying, you will probably get 5-6 minutes..maybe more. Once you start doing 3D and all that, the flight times will be much less.
Thanks both for the info. Yes fully charged battery and my charger says its okay but its not charging long enough in my opinion to be full. I will cycle it through a couple of times to see what happens. Okay on the trim mountaindewdude76 yes I expected the left during lift off but its drifting during flight so will lengthen aileron push rod a little. Thanks again both.
Slobberdog
Well-Known Member
Treff if you want it to trim to the right its shorten.
Thanks for that Slobberdog. Another problem raised its head. Lost complete drive from the motor at 15 feet luckily if you can call it that the helicopter almost floated to the ground with the energy from the blades. My first auto LOL. I stripped the front end down and there is quite a bit of white main gear in powder form around and the drive it self that should be fastened to the spindle had come loose. I wasn't running out of battery power I was running out of drive power. I don't think the drive was to tight on the main gear. I did the paper test so that it was tight up to the drive. Hope this is not going to be one of those helicopters that you fly for 5 minutes then fix for the rest of the month. I will never get in enough flying time. Cheers
Slobberdog
Well-Known Member
Treff, nice that you got it down in one piece, get the Align main gear, as for the mesh slide the pinion in till you can just about rock the main gear a very small amount, nip the motor tight, then turn it around the clock face stopping at each number and give it a wiggle to see if you still have the same amount of play, main gears are not allways round and if you have it set correctly at one point it may be tight in another.
i dont use the paper test allways done itn by feel, even when I used to race 1th scale cars.
i dont use the paper test allways done itn by feel, even when I used to race 1th scale cars.
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Island Breeze
Senior Rc-Help Member
Very true...I found that out with my T450, same goes with the TT gears, but theres nothing you can do there.
Thanks slobberdog. I never thought to check it in difference places. I'll do that tomorrow. On this heli it means removing the front servos and splitting the frame to remove them. I have the Align gear, the first one with the kit was useless, touched in different place and road up and down like a roller coaster so binned it. Thanks again.,
Slobberdog
Well-Known Member
no prob Treff, all here to help each other, I like the new pro dfc mount as it splits to help remove the servos so you can get at the motor easily. have a look at it in my build thread in 450 section.
Tony
Staff member
Heli's drift left because of the tail blades, not ground effect. Ground effect will cause a reduction in lift provided by the main blades, it just keeps swirling the same dirty air over and over again. White powder on the frame is almost telling me that you might have had your gear mesh too tight.
Thanks for the great advice again guys. It is very much appreciated from someone who know absolutely nothing. I could still write down all I know about helicopters and it would fit on the back of a matchbox. LOL The shaft on the motor is slightly smaller by 05mm so I will put locktight on. The trimming out I have done on the TX and I will transfer that to the pushrods if you get my drift (sorry about the pun) Thanks again. Cheers
I did my first piro this evening and survived so I am really chuffed. A very slow piro, almost lost it at one point but regained control so delighted. New head arrived today and very disappointed with the quality. When will I learn. I stripped it down and thread locked everything and have decided to install it on my old frame. I rebuilt a tail from 2 old ones and have enough spare to build another complete helicopter. This is going to be a real bitsa heli. I am still having trouble with my HKGT pro2 trracking. When I was flying this evening I could see two blade tips. There is no vibration now and it flies very well even in the wind but something I will have to look at again. Hope to get some video soon but need to buy a new Imac, we are set up here for Apple and all the software to run cameras and such are on our now dead Mac so looking forward to getting the new model. Cheers
I'm sure its your bent head causing the tracking issues.Thanks Lee. It flies great, nice and smooth, just impossible to get the tracking right so I will change the head for Align one. I'm not spending anymore money on China chunk, there is no point if it is unusable, just throwing good money after bad. Not to mention the time not flying. I could strip this heli down blindfolded now. Still good for learning the mechanics of it all. Yes looking forward to the new Imac which I hope to get next week. Using this old laptop with xp is such a pain. It takes 2 days just to start up LOL The Imac was instant. We never turned it off for nine years. We could change the hard drive and install ssd but its getting a bit old in the tooth now and we are also in photography so we are asking a lot of the old machine. Cheers