Unbelievable 500 incident

[pgkevet]

First pack today using an old canopy and remmebered why..it was a bit loose.. so messed about with lipo position until happy that it was on solid...

But despite that the thing came off at 35/40 feet..a huge explosion sound and I'm into auto mode (Yay, instincts working for a change)..it's coming down nice but I've got a touch too much negative I think and try to give pitch to slow it for the landing..a bit of a bouncy settle and it's sitting on it's skids on the runway with no damage but the bent flybar..

I walk up to it..and the lipo's not there..it's 30feet away next to the canopy!!

Auto Auto??

[Jamin_00]

Whoa, you are one lucky fella

[trillian]

That is pretty wacky! You'd think the massive change in C of G would be very noticeable, not to mention the reduced weight.

[spunkmyer]

Well done fella, you did well to save the heli.

[Hellski]

Great save well done, any damage to pack.
Had the canopy of my 500 come off mid flight, unfortunately went through the blades taking links out so no chance of saving! I've now fitted screw canopy mounts to avoid this happening again using these Fast Lad Performance. cutting the post and threading to accept the canopy screw.

[GravityKills]

it remembered the way back

[moonmanflyer]

Wow it is a magic heli that saves itself, superb, i have see videos of canopies coming off in flight and the heli being destroyed so count yourself very lucky mate

[ChrisB]

That is pretty wacky! You'd think the massive change in C of G would be very noticeable, not to mention the reduced weight.

Also not to mention that no pack means no rx power either

[barryorbik]

Maybe if 'Gravity Kills' - loosing your Lipo introduces Anti-Gravity - which saves!!

I'm still working on an automatically deployed parachute to protect my birds though

Barry

[machasm]

No Lipo means you have no power at all (unless your running a seperate supply for the RX).
So there would have been no control at all and you could not have autoed it down.
Must have been a freak of nature to have come down on its own and land on its skids.
Bought a lottery ticket?
Ade.

[murph]

Well done for maintaining control over your heli that had NO power to control servos etc!!!!

[pgkevet]

Just to make it clear.. I am fully aware that I had no power and control over the heli... the whole point of writing about this freaky incident..more so because it appeared to be responding to my inputs up until I tried to add pitch for landing...so not only a freak that it came down undamaged but a freak that it followed my stick pattern on the way down..

And of course I knew nothing about that until I went to collect the model!

[trillian]

Also not to mention that no pack means no rx power either

Yeah, I actually didn't think about that at first. So the craziest part being that it autoed itself down and that this wasn't obvious until it was discovered the LiPo had gone AWOL along with the canopy!