My first day with Horbury Heli Club.

[Fixer]

At last I met up with the guys at the local Heli club today and what a great bunch of lads too.
Well after the formal introductions they told me to get the Raptor out and they would have a look, after admiring the new head and its tuned muffler they started checking it over, the Aileron servo needed reversing but apart from that I had everything setup OK
One of the club members tried it out and I was over the moon to see it hovering and with a little trimming he was up and flying round, you can imagine the grin on my face at this point
I didnt get to have a go because I forgot to take my trainer gear but I was more than happy to watch the others flying around.

Not such a good day for another member though, he crashed just before Christmas and today was the first time out after an extensive rebuild, frame, boom, most of the head and of course, new blades anyway after setting it up and hovering for a few minutes he attempted an inverted hover, I dont understand why but it just came hurtling down and smashed to pieces on the ground. Im glad he didnt test mine:twisted:

I cant wait for next Saturday, and yes, I will be taking the trainer gear with me.

What do you guys think to this HELI TRAINING SYSTEM would it be a good thing to have or not?

http://www.mmhelitrainer.co.uk/

[Smoothound]

Stick with the basic training gear, spend the rest of the difference on fuel and get shot of the gear as soon as you can comfortable hover tail in

[Ade_Law]

or at a flying school.

good to hear you had a good day. Heli crashes always look bad at the field. When you get them home you take some of the mangled bits off and it doesnt seem all that bad.

its really hard to write off a heli.

Ade

[Fixer]

Well Ade it certainly looked bad to me the tail, boom and head, were messed up; if that happened to mine, I would be gutted.

When talking later the thrust bearings came up in a conversation and the person who crashed said he had removed the thrust washers and replaced them with bearings, could that have been the cause of the crash.

[Ade_Law]

what heli was it?

Ade

[Fixer]

Raptor 50

[Dedcalm]

My Rappy 50 has bearings as standard... You do need to check their orientation though as they can be back to front I seem to remember.

Rob

[Ade_Law]

there are 3 bearings in the grips of a raptor.

2 normal radial bearings

then a set of thrust races too. then thrust washers sit between between the thrust races and one of the bearings.

The idea is that the centrifugal force goes from the grip, through the inner half of the thrust race that is a loose fit on the spindle so it can rotate freely. Then the race itself, to the outer half of the thrust race which is a tight fit on the shaft but loose in the grip so it can rotate freely in the grip.

the thrust washer is also a tight fit on the spindle. it is there to spaceer the thrust race off of the outer radial bearing so that it can rotate freely without binding up.

Some helis (like the Robbe Ornith) come without thrust races. All raptors have them tho.

Ade

[Fixer]

I know the 30 has them because they caused me a few problems at first, I didnt read the instructions properly and was looking for a large and small race size, I rebuilt them 3 or four times before it registered it was the inside diameter they were referring to ops:

The guy who crashed the 50 has replaced the thrust races with the same size bearing used in the grips so he is now running with two bearings each side.

[Dedcalm]

I think I am right in thinking that the thrust races would be better than standard ballraces in this position. After all they are taking the load from the blades...
Thrust races seem to cost a great deal more than standard ballraces as well so I doubt they are standard as a whim.

Rob

[Fixer]

Thanks for the explanation Ade.


Dedcalm
Thats what I thought as well, they must have used thrust washers instead of bearings for a reason.

Maybe this has contributed to his last two crashes, as he couldnt explain why it crashed like it did.