Newbie now with a Blade 450 3D

[owend]

Rainy and windy yesterday, but dry and not so windy this morning; a quick testflight showed it's much more stable with all trims set to zero, although it's flying a bit erratically because of the wind. So the swashplate certainly seems to have been the villain, but I'm still not sure what's changed so suddenly - the famous gremlins strike again!

I cleaned it yesterday for something to do, it was red and white under the mud, grass and dead insects - maybe the extra weight was the problem!!

[owend]

Flying today with no sub-trim on the menu and no trim on the Tx - stable! Don't know why, but the swashplate was out, as tomatwalden suggested, good one!

I've got the tail-in hover OK, nose-in fairly OK, but I still find it difficult to transition my thumbs from one to the other without a brief landing. More practice needed - I got a Nano yesterday, after reading the comments on the site, tomatwalden's was the tipping advice, thanks again. Just about getting it up controllably - a bit of a culture shock after the mCX2!

[Chris200]

Very helpful thread

[owend]

Tail-in hover OK to within a three foot radius when I concentrate, nose-in hover OK but floats over about six foot radius, getting the transition (pirouette) in the air, not too bad from nose-in to tail-in, it's easier to control as it comes to tail-in. Tail-in to nose-in rotation less reliable - this morning it drifted too far too fast on an airborne rotation and hit a plant support post before I could kill the engine completely . Stripped main gear, both blades splintered, flybar slightly bent, so that was the rest of the day's work, replacing them and checking things over! Quick test flight just now, seems OK, but a lesson learnt.

The longest part of the repair was getting the bolt back through the one-way bearing shaft and main shaft - real pain, it's a very close fit and had obviously turned slightly when I took it off, ended up spending over an hour just on that.

I'm quite slow getting the change of thumb movements from nose-in to nose-out (age, my bus pass gets in the way): I can hover fairly reliably both ways, but I still need to land quickly after rotating, from nose-out to nose-in especially, and let my brain realise the transmitter needs different commands, heli left is suddenly my right! It'll come. I'm getting the Nano hovering indoors, so steady practice with that should help, and more cheaply too!

[owend]

Yeah, well, longer flight attempted today. Erratic although not uncontrollable, plus more of a roaring sound than before. Closer examination showed the spindle was bent , so I did more damage than I'd thought. LHS out of stock until Thursday-ish, so a few days grounded. Lesson reinforced!