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Awful Mornings Flying, But a couple of lessons learned....
Perfectly still morning and field to myself what could go wrong?
Spooled up my TRex 500 and just about the point where the soft start had finished ramping up to 75% throttle and BANG! both rotor blades fly off. My instincts for hitting throttle hold must be getting better as I hit it without thinking and fortunately my heli stayed on its feet but I'm still looking at a new canopy, fly bar and paddles. Looking at the blades they failed at the mounting hole.
The blades where recently fitted and came with the heli (bought seconds hand), looking them up today they appear to be cheapo blades from HK (HobbyKing R/C Hobby Store : 430mm Fiber Glass Main Blades). The second pair I have are going in the bin, I spend more than these cost on blades for my MCPx and 250.
Lesson learned, don't fly a TRex 500 with £5 rotor blades and lookup what you are fitting if you didn't buy them.
Pulled out my TRex 250 and flew a couple of batteries no problems, then I lost the radio link to the heli and it fell out of the sky. Ripped of the skids and battery tray, but every thing else looks OK. Interesting thing is I lost the link at the same place at the field doing the same basic manoeuvre at about the same height with the 500 about two weeks ago (hence the change of blade). I blamed this on the ESC and replaced it, but it looks like the radio is the problem. I did some range checks at the field with both heli's and both loose signal at about the same point. Using the range check feature on the Dx6i and I loose signal at around 20 paces, the manual suggests this shouldn't happen until at least 30 paces. I'll be calling Horizon on Tuesday.
Lesson learned, the range check feature on the radio is not just for decoration, use it!
Sharing my misfortune so hopefully somebody else will read it and learn without denting their heli or bank account.
Spooled up my TRex 500 and just about the point where the soft start had finished ramping up to 75% throttle and BANG! both rotor blades fly off. My instincts for hitting throttle hold must be getting better as I hit it without thinking and fortunately my heli stayed on its feet but I'm still looking at a new canopy, fly bar and paddles. Looking at the blades they failed at the mounting hole.
The blades where recently fitted and came with the heli (bought seconds hand), looking them up today they appear to be cheapo blades from HK (HobbyKing R/C Hobby Store : 430mm Fiber Glass Main Blades). The second pair I have are going in the bin, I spend more than these cost on blades for my MCPx and 250.
Lesson learned, don't fly a TRex 500 with £5 rotor blades and lookup what you are fitting if you didn't buy them.
Pulled out my TRex 250 and flew a couple of batteries no problems, then I lost the radio link to the heli and it fell out of the sky. Ripped of the skids and battery tray, but every thing else looks OK. Interesting thing is I lost the link at the same place at the field doing the same basic manoeuvre at about the same height with the 500 about two weeks ago (hence the change of blade). I blamed this on the ESC and replaced it, but it looks like the radio is the problem. I did some range checks at the field with both heli's and both loose signal at about the same point. Using the range check feature on the Dx6i and I loose signal at around 20 paces, the manual suggests this shouldn't happen until at least 30 paces. I'll be calling Horizon on Tuesday.
Lesson learned, the range check feature on the radio is not just for decoration, use it!
Sharing my misfortune so hopefully somebody else will read it and learn without denting their heli or bank account.
and a platinum star 
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