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It's going to sound like an AA meeting.. but then the site does too
..
So I admit I own a predator NX. I was full of enthusiasm when I ot it.. actually I was after a Spectra G at the time but they were unavailable and Ron Lund did me a deal over a Preddie kit..full combo ordered from him at the time.
- have a ****gy dog story:
For someone who had only owned a couple of electrics - but massive rebuild experience on them.. it was a challenge.
I foudn despite theory and CNC cut frames..well nothing quite fit as it should. The only way to get the clutch deep enough to be level with the bell and horizontal was to dremel off soem of the middle lower back frame parts which otherwise just sat on the fan shroud way too proud.
I syppose if one owned a machine shop then skimming something off the base of the 231PUH might have worked but the casting wasn't so proud as to be obvious.. Id have been into the base of the thing for sure to do it that way.
Obviously it did get built and came the day for it's maiden.. a minor glitch there when it took me a while to figure why it wouldn't come off the ground - yeah I'd got the pitch reversed - Doh!
When it did lift off.. boy it was stable.. not a wobble on the tail..perfection. I even pulled a loop on that maiden flight. Third day out and the pinion thread failed - my first forced auto on the thing.
A delay getting it replaced..
Back to flying and I thought I was a king ..until i tookit to show JohnJ and lost a tail servo connection in flight..
Fortunately John was videoing it so you can see some history here:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWBbTWKZ6M"]YouTube- Predator Gasser Crash[/ame]
Adelay and a rebuild..and got him back to condition.. shortly therafter he got mid-aired by a plank! Hell's teeth all the guy had had to do was wait 10mins until I;d finished flying ..it's not as if he couldn't have noticed the darned thing up there!.. but smack into the windscreen.
The only pleasing aspect was how Preddie chopped up his plank.. including his nitro engine and servos.. confetti everywhere. In fact all he salvaged was a voltspy. Not that it did preddie umuch good either.. a new canopy, shafts, those beautiful Scott Grey 710's etc, etc
It took me a few months to rebuild him and then fiddling with stuff like tail wandering. It also got a bit nervous about flying the chappy.
Eventually got back into him..all nicely sorted and then at least it was me.. his engine coughed alarmingly one day and I pulled him down fast to land and check.. and forgot quite how much inertia there was there. Another foot or two and it'd have been OK but there wasn't anyone handy with a shovel to dig the ditch in time.
..so i rebuilt him again..
After a period of mourning I got to flying him once more: pussy flying if being honest. Then a few months ago Preddie decided to go sightseeing..
I was cheerfully flying wide circuits, nthig challenging and about 100-159 yds out I decide it's time for a turn..and he didn't. I banked over with cyclic tying to curve him back.. but he happily banked and carried on straight. I hit throttle hold.. it didn't.. I kept flicking it, mankign the tail.. nothing..
Preddie flew straight as a die over the trees while I'm resigned to pulling him down if he will.. when suddely he does a spontaneous 180 and trots back towards daddy..
As he approached rudder still not woring I hit throttle hold again, then throttle cut then toggled my remore killswitch (yeah, I'd forgotten that earlier) and groudn the magneto..except it didn't.
I was ready for a nice auto near to me but Preddie had other ideas.. and flew on another 100yds before deciding to cut his engine and lose his tail into piros.
I'm no great shakes at autos.. and that far out it was difficult to judge. He did lad on his skids but it was tad heavy..fell over and boomstruck himself before wrecking another £130 set of scott greys.
Naturally on the ground everything worked fine. 3600 lipo had 3300 left!
Futaba 2.4 isn't supposed to lock out.. and I did have failsafe set to throttle cut anyway.. so I never did find a happy explanation..but was darned glad he came down.. He had a full tank on board and that was good for at least another 35mins - far enough to make Coulsdon and a decent school playground where he could decapitate a dozen or so kids...
Now as well as his killswitch he wears dual lipos, dual regulators with independant switches and I only fuel him for no more than 15 mins at a time.
,..but flying him isn't relaxing..not at all!
(you give your heli the best of everything, care, expensive avoinics, lots of nut checking, x-frame mods and o-ring mods and do they show any appreciation...?)
..So I admit I own a predator NX. I was full of enthusiasm when I ot it.. actually I was after a Spectra G at the time but they were unavailable and Ron Lund did me a deal over a Preddie kit..full combo ordered from him at the time.
- have a ****gy dog story:
For someone who had only owned a couple of electrics - but massive rebuild experience on them
.. it was a challenge.I foudn despite theory and CNC cut frames..well nothing quite fit as it should. The only way to get the clutch deep enough to be level with the bell and horizontal was to dremel off soem of the middle lower back frame parts which otherwise just sat on the fan shroud way too proud.
I syppose if one owned a machine shop then skimming something off the base of the 231PUH might have worked but the casting wasn't so proud as to be obvious.. Id have been into the base of the thing for sure to do it that way.
Obviously it did get built and came the day for it's maiden.. a minor glitch there when it took me a while to figure why it wouldn't come off the ground - yeah I'd got the pitch reversed - Doh!
When it did lift off.. boy it was stable.. not a wobble on the tail..perfection. I even pulled a loop on that maiden flight. Third day out and the pinion thread failed - my first forced auto on the thing.
A delay getting it replaced..
Back to flying and I thought I was a king ..until i tookit to show JohnJ and lost a tail servo connection in flight..
Fortunately John was videoing it so you can see some history here:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZWBbTWKZ6M"]YouTube- Predator Gasser Crash[/ame]
Adelay and a rebuild..and got him back to condition.. shortly therafter he got mid-aired by a plank! Hell's teeth all the guy had had to do was wait 10mins until I;d finished flying ..it's not as if he couldn't have noticed the darned thing up there!.. but smack into the windscreen.
The only pleasing aspect was how Preddie chopped up his plank.. including his nitro engine and servos.. confetti everywhere. In fact all he salvaged was a voltspy. Not that it did preddie umuch good either.. a new canopy, shafts, those beautiful Scott Grey 710's etc, etc
It took me a few months to rebuild him and then fiddling with stuff like tail wandering. It also got a bit nervous about flying the chappy.
Eventually got back into him..all nicely sorted and then at least it was me.. his engine coughed alarmingly one day and I pulled him down fast to land and check.. and forgot quite how much inertia there was there. Another foot or two and it'd have been OK but there wasn't anyone handy with a shovel to dig the ditch in time.
..so i rebuilt him again..
After a period of mourning I got to flying him once more: pussy flying if being honest. Then a few months ago Preddie decided to go sightseeing..
I was cheerfully flying wide circuits, nthig challenging and about 100-159 yds out I decide it's time for a turn..and he didn't. I banked over with cyclic tying to curve him back.. but he happily banked and carried on straight. I hit throttle hold.. it didn't.. I kept flicking it, mankign the tail.. nothing..
Preddie flew straight as a die over the trees while I'm resigned to pulling him down if he will.. when suddely he does a spontaneous 180 and trots back towards daddy..
As he approached rudder still not woring I hit throttle hold again, then throttle cut then toggled my remore killswitch (yeah, I'd forgotten that earlier) and groudn the magneto..except it didn't.
I was ready for a nice auto near to me but Preddie had other ideas.. and flew on another 100yds before deciding to cut his engine and lose his tail into piros.
I'm no great shakes at autos.. and that far out it was difficult to judge. He did lad on his skids but it was tad heavy..fell over and boomstruck himself before wrecking another £130 set of scott greys.
Naturally on the ground everything worked fine. 3600 lipo had 3300 left!
Futaba 2.4 isn't supposed to lock out.. and I did have failsafe set to throttle cut anyway.. so I never did find a happy explanation..but was darned glad he came down.. He had a full tank on board and that was good for at least another 35mins - far enough to make Coulsdon and a decent school playground where he could decapitate a dozen or so kids...
Now as well as his killswitch he wears dual lipos, dual regulators with independant switches and I only fuel him for no more than 15 mins at a time.
,..but flying him isn't relaxing..not at all!
(you give your heli the best of everything, care, expensive avoinics, lots of nut checking, x-frame mods and o-ring mods and do they show any appreciation...?)
and a platinum star 
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