i think I fancy a gasser....

[bulnose]

the initial buzz of nitro is not fading, far from it, but the trouble is if I make it to the field 3 times a week then its beginning to get a bit too expensive on fuel....

What is your flying style and what fuel are u using atm .?

[dogbiscuit]

What is your flying style and what fuel are u using atm .?

using opti 20% now, and flying ever better big loops, flips and rolls and moving toward more complicated stuff, but quite slowly. I tried it on 12% initialy and its not really a problem for what i am doing, so just ordered another box of 12% for now. I am quite happy to try and get new moves sorted in a slower and more controlled maner for now using 12.

funy about the raptor 30 thing mentioned above....I recently posted about getting an old rappy 30 to mess with and the response was ....after your 600, dont bother.

Does a .46 in a lighter airframe really use a lot less fuel than the os50 in the trex600n?

[KevDavies]

a raptor 30 is NO lighter than a 50!! most 30's are just a 50 with smaller boom and blades!

I understand what hes trying to get at but I dont think it will work.

Best thing alont them lines is a Gaui nx4 running a 30 engine which is a 500 class and a LOT smaller

[Baldie]

i think I fancy a gasser....

If you are not sure about the 600 gasser, find and buy the smacktalk gasser episode. Watch bert k fly the 600 helibug ..... Looked fine to me. Granted not smack flying, but that's not the issue.

I have just built a gasser, it's not a helibug, but different frames, direct to swash and using a 700 for donor parts, an have fitted the hc3sx just for that odd chance it's needed ....

Only had a few flights on it so far but very pleased.

There are a few issues that I need to sort gassers are not so plug and play due to vibration and heat.

As for 600 or 700. Well 700 is the more powerful for all the reasons stated, the 600 is a bit heavy for the disk loading in standard form. But the 700 could be classed as to light a disk loading in n format for a lot of flying styles, which is why Curtis youngblood made the 630, the exta weight helps to not be too floaty, and easier to speed up the head in an auto. The weight of the 700 g does the same thing. Mine is about 12lbs flying weight.

Just my 2p

[pgkevet]

[QUOTE=dogbiscuit;960153Does a .46 in a lighter airframe really use a lot less fuel than the os50 in the trex600n?[/QUOTE]
The .46 is a much less powerful engine..it's not just displacement it's also designed rpm. You'ld have to ask just engine (very nice company) for comparitive figures. Anyway the 600 cries out for a .55/.56/.57 :-)

[trillian]

Mine is the 'SE' with the 26cc Hanson Zenoah, ali frames and was fitted with an all metal tail unit and metal grips. For the longest time it used to give me the heebee jeebees when I flew it, it just has an imposing brutish look to it with all that aluminium and big old engine right in the middle. It was totally reliable for a couple years and then late in 2011 I took it out and did a few circuits and just at a point when it was at an inverted pause whilst doing an aileron roll, the lower Jesus bolt came off (or broke, I don't know but it was gone anyway) and the main shaft jammed up/down into the frames, one blade caught a bit of the boom and sheared it wide open and through the TT. So it imediately lost the tailrotor and went into a spin, still inverted. I hit TH and began to auto it down as I tried to flip it back to upright. I managed to get it upright just as the ground was reached so it was just a rough landing. The only damage was the boom and TT that had already happened, one side of the skid struts, some linkage and a little chip on one of the blades.

Anyway, it wasn't flying all that great at the time anyway and I just wasn't bothered to fix it so it sat, depressed and dejected, on my shelf till just a few months ago when I ordered all the parts to fix it.

While it's all apart I am going to take the opportunity to have some of the lower frame members anodised in a nice orange or something (I have arranged this with a metal treating company just before Christmas I just need to send off the parts).

I ordered the harder damper O-rings and my goal is to get it feeling a bit punchier on the cyclics. I am pretty confident I can get it setup to fly nicely.

I had always thought of it as just a heavy old cruiser but I had an 'aha' moment not long ago when I realised actually it's not really as heavy, relatively speaking, as I had thought. I realised this when I discovered that my Avro weighs 5.5kg without fuel. This means that with a full tank the Avro weighs about the same as the Predator! And the Avro is very nimble and agile in the air, it doesn't fly like it's heavy at all.

So I am actually keen to take on the challenge of making the Predator fly like I want and let it earn it's keep for a change. I've got too much money in it to sell it.

I have always liked how you don't need any other equipment, no starter needed, no glow lighter etc. It's more the novelty really as opposed to any big convenience. In fact, I have thought before that if I was flying something else as well and only wanted 3 or 4 flights on the Predator I could actually fill the tank at home and not even bring any petrol to the field, I could get four six minute flights just on the fuel in the tank!

Here's mine from it's last outing; (the canopy is actually a bright orange but my camera has a hard time capturing that colour sometimes)
predatorandtrex500.JPG

I had a predator gasser 26cc version

Was a stunner flew well, until I was a dumb ass

The only weak part on the predator is a plastic A arm to the swash, change it to metal to avoid issues...

Other than that not a bad machine flys for 30 mins on a tank

video of my predator gasser in action

Predator Gasser - YouTube


I took my BMFA 'A' With this machine as well

[trillian]

The .46 is a much less powerful engine..it's not just displacement it's also designed rpm. You'ld have to ask just engine (very nice company) for comparitive figures. Anyway the 600 cries out for a .55/.56/.57 :-)

You could use something like a Knight 3D airframe, 'very light. I have an OS46 and I ran it in my Raptor 50 for a while and it actually does quite well, way more power than a .30 size engine, better than I expected anyway but less power than the OS50Hyper and less fuel consumption. The stock carb on it isn't great but it works.

The Ely.Q Vision comp may also be a lighter alternative.

You can run 550mm blades but you'd need either wide chord blades and / or more pitch. The OS46 in a light heli would probably be fine with light-ish 600mm blades and conservative pitch range.

I was actually going to try that with a spare Vision Ultimate airframe some time ago but then I got spoiled and wanted more and more power!

[dogbiscuit]

lots of ideas and thoughts......thanks to all for your input. 700 gasser is going to be too costly at £1000 used. the 600n with new os motor sounds good and worth further research. The little gaui looks great, but for now I think sticking with align gives me easier spares options with of tons of used bits also available.
just been looking at the trex 500 nitro conversion (os 37) on helifreak....not seen or heard much about this over here.... anyone flying one of these? looks like a low fuel consumption option, plus i have one with spares, and complete helis are quite cheap now for the nitro project! are there any conversion kits in the uk?

[KevDavies]

not sure of the conversion kit but it sounds like youve just answered your problem there. The rex 500 is the equivalent to the gaui nx4 so youd be quids in! I think this would be your best option tbh!

[LipolyGone]

Is the nx4 30 size ie 550 ish blades or 500 sized ie 440 blades, there's abit of difference between the two?
When people advised you against the raptor 30 Harvey it was more for the way the swash is powered. Ie mechanical ccpm via a horrible cradle that flexes. After flying a trex 600 using eccpm you would have hated it mate
why not fit a os 37 to a 600 airframe & fit 550 blades, put on the 550 tail boom. Basicaly you would then have a very economic 30 sized airframe. You would have to somehow adapt the engine mount.

[LipolyGone]

Just checked the Gaui site & indeed the nx4 is swinging 425 to 460 blades so its deffo 500 sized.
Dont know why I thought it was a 550 model but this realy makes it a very small 30 machine so performance would be insane I'd imagine.

[KevDavies]

When people advised you against the raptor 30 Harvey it was more for the way the swash is powered. Ie mechanical ccpm via a horrible cradle that flexes.

its not the cradle that flexes its the servo in its mounting, hence the push pull conversion = problem solved

[JoeBailey]

i think I fancy a gasser....

lots of ideas and thoughts......thanks to all for your input. 700 gasser is going to be too costly at £1000 used. the 600n with new os motor sounds good and worth further research. The little gaui looks great, but for now I think sticking with align gives me easier spares options with of tons of used bits also available.
just been looking at the trex 500 nitro conversion (os 37) on helifreak....not seen or heard much about this over here.... anyone flying one of these? looks like a low fuel consumption option, plus i have one with spares, and complete helis are quite cheap now for the nitro project! are there any conversion kits in the uk?

I think they stopped making the conversion a couple of years ago. There's no uk importer and they only had one source in the us.

[bulnose]

hmm, maybe its not worth investing that amount of money or the messing about doing conversions, maybe look at buying some fuel in bulk and just fly the 600n, i think u can get bekra16 direct from model technics for maybe £16 a gallon ( u would have to call them) , the money u are talking about spending on other stuff will buy u a lot of fuel tbh