pratt of the year award

[anyw]

thisyears pratt of the year award goes to

MEEEEE, for replacing the feather shaft on my blade400.
following on from the other thread i got the parts dropped the grandchild off to nursery and had 2 & 1/2 hours with no one else around, so read the link from the other thread twice making sure i understood everything i had to do, got everything ready and carefully started using the computor at every stage for reference, got the feather shaft out and yes it was bent then started to put everything back in the same order and eventually it was done with 15 minutes spare lifts up the heli to look at it from the side yes everything looks straight and good , puts her back down and hears a little rattle, picks her up and a bearing drops down, i wont say what i said but what an idiot a bearing had droped off during assembley and i hadn't noticed so back to square one waiting for some me time to have another go.

anyone else got anything stupid they done to make me feel better or am i going to win it by myself

[Mart61]

Well, you did the right thing by checking it over and, as a result, spotted the error. No harm done and a good and valuable lesson learned!

[Airwolfie]

We do silly things all the time when we have little time to ourselves!

I for one had a mishap assembling my t-rex. Got her all done for the saturday, was up till gone 3am to get her finished!! First flight/hover/check everything is ok went fine. On landing and removing the canopy, I noticed white shavings all over the heli. Thought it may be the gears meshing a bit tight and flashes coming off them. Went to pick her up on the head, and there was play in the head, about 1mm. I'm sure I checked the collar, I tought. Checked it, yup, was a bit off, so I retightened it and added more locktite. Took her up again, and on landing, same thing. I now was getting worried because the shavings actually looked like ally. After a thorough search we found I put the collar on the wrong way round!!! I now have a shiny ring around my black collar lol! No damage other than that, but it shows, haste (could!!) makes waste!!

[asomaro]

Been there, done that and have a wardrobe full of tee shirts to prove it!

Good that you saw the error though.

Cheers,

[anyw]

i will say lesson learned , BUT

[heliboy]

Hi,When replacing the feathering shaft use an old flybar to keep everything where it should be.

In other words loosen and take off one of the bolts on one end of the shaft then insert the end of the flybar through...and push everything out the other end until the feathering shaft comes out the other end.Then change the feathering shaft and push it back through.

It keep everything together so you dont lose any bits and keep them in the correct order.

Always good though to know the parts layout so if something falls you know where it should be.

Anyway hope this helps.

[Aidi]

On the subject of shafts, it was the main shaft for me. Took a bent main shaft out of my 600, placed it on my desk. Got the new one out and also put it on the desk next to the old one.....

Need i say any more??!!

[anyw]

Hi,When replacing the feathering shaft use an old flybar to keep everything where it should be.

In other words loosen and take off one of the bolts on one end of the shaft then insert the end of the flybar through...and push everything out the other end until the feathering shaft comes out the other end.Then change the feathering shaft and push it back through.

It keep everything together so you dont lose any bits and keep them in the correct order.

Always good though to know the parts layout so if something falls you know where it should be.

Anyway hope this helps.

great tip unfortunately 5 hrs too late but i am sure this won't be the last one i have to replace

[p4ddy]

Go on Martin, give him a Chocolate Starfish award

[Hangar-7]

I know it is too late this time... but next time you might find the drawing below is helpful.

[Jamin_00]

I got a stupid one.

I had a Trex 250 and for some reason it was losing headspeed.It would be ok up till I increased pitch to take off then it would drop dramatically.

Cut a long story short I tried everything I/we could think of on and off for 6 weeks till one Sunday I tried it and it took off for a few seconds until the headspeed dropped again.Then a fellow club member (Rambo) went over to the heli and picked it up for me and on walking back to the pits with it see that the jesus bolt on it had snapped off and was only just gripping the shaft.Changed that and it was sorted.

Well it so small and to look at you would not have noticed it was snapped until you look at it and turn the head


Now that truely deserves this chocolate starfish or whatever it is

[Steve]

There's still 3 months left of 2009 to collect the ultimate award.

We're all still in with a chance! Lol.

[anyw]

just thought i would share with you, just finished the task. no parts left over and it all seems fine

[dam74]

I know it is too late this time... but next time you might find the drawing below is helpful.

Nice drawing Hangar-7.