FMF Heli is up and about!

Ditch the training skids! Soooooooooooooo much easier to fly without them.
I was going to mention it when you first posted pics on fb (I think that’s where you posted - or was it vid).

Anyhow, yeah the trainers really affect flight stability, they are intended just for when your skidding around on the ground getting a feeling for the controls. Once you are confident in launching (as you’ve learned the danger zone - because of ground effect. The pinging balls get blown around.

Have you upgraded the giro? Stock gyros are generally not great and are over weight. I haven’t checked your build details, don’t have computer ATM.
I also found getting plastic blades made an amazing difference and last forever.

After upgrading my motor I put plastic 600blades on (which I had to cut to stop hitting tail rotor) they have lasted over 20 flights and 3 full rebuilds (terminal crashes).
CarbonFiber is dangerous.
Wood break to easy.

Had wood on when I first wound up my most powerful motor and the wood couldn’t handle the G’s, they separated from themselves and chipped a brick wall only missing my leg by 30cm - I was a good 5m away! Carbon in flesh is really bad(toxic).

Ok, got inspired yesterday to get my bird airborne.

Pre flight checks revealed some work needed. Half hour later I was ready to power up but batteries didn’t have enough juice. Last battery I tried had enough power while Hand held so I set it on a launch area.
Spun it up and… The tail rotor blew apart, Dang!
No tail rotor spares so now have to wait for parts.

I may try to fabricate something myself.

I might consider buying a cheap 600heli. They are about the $100 mark and from the ones I’ve seen should have the power to carry my Drift camera - they are so easy to fly and a heap more durable than 3D models.
I can always try to hop-up using the more powerful motors I have

Nice! thats rad you fired it up again!

This bird might be a bit more advanced then what your thinking in terms of gyro - it weighs about as much as a 50c coin, and takes care of a lot of things! (Align 3GX if your interested) Pretty clever little unit however it has some known issues on the forums, nothing to report from my experience so far.

I’m still very underconfident with landing, got one super soft touch down so far but the rest have been a little bouncy, so I’m keeping the practice skids on for a few sessions yet, primarily to avoid turn over on landing, and secondly to avoid stripping the tail gears (It’s torque tube not belt driven and the tail umbrella gears are notorious for being churned to pieces if the tail roter hits grass)

I purchased some turnigy batteries from Hobby King recently for reasonable price and are going well so far.
Blades are CF, I will probably stick with them until I finish up with uni and my OS hike, then I’ll be able to muck around with it more. What kind of 600 size heli can you find for $100…? Unless your just talking body, you’d want to upgrade those servo’s and gyro etc to be safe from failure?

600 under $100 is the similar to the $45 twin rotor you can get from K-Mart (wich comes with built in camera).
My mate was playing with his $45 (with camera) late Friday night. Smaking into walls, people, poles, bottles, table legs and other helis mid air - it just kept going!

At the price why worry about failure? Parts cost more than buying a new one. Cameras on the other hand!! (But if I use the Drift720 its price is almost disposable)

‘Why worry about failure’... a 600 size heli will hurt you or a bystander, that’s what I would be worried about when my cheap chinese screws pop, and poor circuitry goes haywire and the thing flies at warp 10 into your buddy or whatever it is your filming. Not really something I’d ever be thinking of purchasing considering the size, risk, and potential for a catastrophic failure.

Post up a link to one of these things?

http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=GT3360
Being twin rotor they don’t run at high rpm and have soft plastic blades. No serious damage would normally be caused.
But good point! I wasn’t thinking about bystanders in my post.
When operating my RC gear - my nitro truck could easily put a person in hospital and runs fail safe equipment and I only fly my chopper on private property, any onlookers stay behind me at safe distance and kids have other adults supervising. I’ve come close to losing fingers or having parts embedded into me (hence my concern for CF blades).

oh, totally different to what I had pictured! I had one of those - that was the one that dropped from the sky haha, they are good fun, but 3ch is so limiting! I thought you were thinking of getting in the air to film, hence the risk of people. A 600 size heli won’t fly inside either, that looks more 450 sorta size? My rotor dimension is 1347mm and nose to tail is 1160mm. Jaycars only saying 770, but those plastic blades are definately forgiving!

I thought yours was bigger. IT’S HEAPS BIGGER!
I figure only a few secs of footage will be used anyway so 3ch will still get “a shot” if the trimming is right.

The last few years I have really focused on the cheapest way to make pro looking vidz (hence specializing in HeadCams). It will be a while before I start putting big dollars back into my profession. If I’m going cheap - IM GOING CHEAP! I don’t believe this industry has found its cheapest prosumer equipment yet but it’s close! $200 is pretty low for a broadcast quality camera, 3 years ago it was $1200.

Lately I’ve been entertaining the idea of a blimp. I have a indoor helium blimp but I don’t think it will lift 120g.
The blimps used to video sports events are in the +$10k range (just like the GPS guided quadcopters).

That heli looks so sick FMF. I’m inspired to get one. Where do you recommend I start?

^ By saving lots of money and setting aside lots of time!
RC is an addictive hobby and when heli’s crash something breaks.

There are some very good forums around worth reading.
Your best fast-track into flying 3d helicopters is a club, try your local hobby store. 3d (+6 channel) heli’s use part of your brain that’s not well exercised and it takes many broken parts before you become competent. The cheap K-Mart and Jaycar models are good places to get airborne at little expense.

I started with a $300 chopper and have spent over $1000 on hop-ups and endless hours on the workbench (many more than flying).

went flying again today!

took it up pretty high over sydney park, had the go-pro on 5s sequence. Still needs some fine tuning, haven’t adjusted anything since I first fired it up, however all is good so far after 8 flights!

Looks like you’re our “Guy in The Sky”!!!!! 

sick!

nene, nene, nene, nene….. BatCam!

haha