nhp main blades

[chris-green]

hi
anyone know if there is a difference between flybarred or flybarless blades
just got two sets of blades from midlands and one set were flybarred, apparently nhp are neutral weighted and should fly the same as the flybarless ones, is this true ? or should I return them

thanks

[trillian]

The thing is there's no standard really. In general flybarless blades tend to have a more outboard distribution of mass. But, it varies so much that it's almost meaningless. I spent some time once weighing blades and checking for the span-wise C of G and, just as an example, the Radix FAI 710s are both heavier AND have a more outboard C of G than any 710 FBL blade I have seen yet, so they are actually more 'flybarless' than just about anything and yet those were never sold as 'FBL' blades.

I like lots of FB blades on FBL helis and quite liked the Edge FBL 600s on a FB Knight 3D.

Just comparing a few 600 size blades: RJX Vector, weighs 132 grams, balances just a bit outboard of the middle, Rail 606 147 grams, roughly the same balance point, perhaps ever so slightly more outboard. NHP Razor 620s 144 grams and similar balance point to the others. Thunder Tiger (I think they were made by BBT) 138 grams, balance point very similar, just a bit past the middle.

Of the blades above, RJX and Rails are called FBL the other two are not. I have always liked the old Thunder Tiger black and white blades on FB and FBL helis, same with the standard Radix.

With flybar blades the other thing that used to be quite important is the chord-wise placement of the bolt hole, more toward the leading edge and the blade will tend to lead more in flight, more toward the trailing edge and the blade will lag more and on a FB machine this affects the phasing and the stability. But with FBL it's not as critical because the FBL controller will compensate for a lot of that. Of the three above, the Rails and the RJXs are about the same and the NHPs have the bolt hole a little more forward so the tip leads a bit more - not sure exactly how that would change the way they fly on a FBL heli.