Going Ballistic!

[PeteStewardson]

Will be useful to get an overview of the log data. I've got a Kontronik 80HV for mine so I'm hoping that will be enough. It's not like I'm a stick banger, I just fly around looping and rolling mainly

[trillian]

Will be useful to get an overview of the log data. I've got a Kontronik 80HV for mine so I'm hoping that will be enough. It's not like I'm a stick banger, I just fly around looping and rolling mainly

I think it will be fine. On the Triabolo, which is heavier and has very high torque HV servos, the motor amps average between 40 and 60 with only the occasional short peak up to 100/110, BEC amps are right around 6 amps with peaks around 7.5 ish. Total capacity drawn is about 1700mah over 5.20, so I'll slowly start increasing the flight times.

[PeteStewardson]

Yeah I'm sure it'll be fine. Fingers crossed for good weather tomorrow for you

[trillian]

Just to conclude this thread; I have now flown the Ballistic and all is well. On my first time out with it I had a mistake in the FBL setup which I realised a bit later exactly what I had done wrong and fixed it. Next time it was pretty much right on the money. It's almost all Next-D/ CY using a Total-G and Radix F3C 710s. Rewound Align 700M motor (it may not look very blingy but it has plenty of grunt and runs cool due to the extra cooling afforded by single strand windings).

As I like to run lower headspeeds I started really on the low side just to see how it would work, my normal mode was at about 1400 and idle-1 at 1600, idle-2 at 1800. Looking at the logs I was actually getting a little over 1600 and a little under 1800 but at those speeds it will happily do all the FAI type stuff and is very economical on the power drawn so flights times should theoretically be very good. I've just been running 5-6 minutes on the timer for the maiden flights and having around 50% left.

I think I know what you guys were talking about with the thumb screws on the battery tray. I thought they were snug but ended up losing one and the only reason I didn't lose both of them was because one was still rolling around inside the canopy. So I then started tightening it a bit firmer and ran a piece of tape over it as well which seems fine.

I think my tail mesh was slightly too tight at first as it was a bit noisy and I was seeing some vibes, so I loosened the tail unit and boom supports and turned the heli on it's side before re-tightening them and tried to make sure it wasn't somehow being pulled at any angle. My thought was that when I put the Ballistic frames together and had everything sitting upright the weight of the tail would have been trying to pull the whole assembly ever so slightly downward. Anyway, it seems to have helped because it was quieter and felt a bit smoother and I didn't see the canopy vibrating as it spooled up.

I have flown it with packs ranging from 3500 to 5000 mah (obviously you can't expect very long flight times on 3500s but it will work). 4000s seem to be the ideal size in terms of being easy to fit. I'm finding with the bigger packs it's easier to put them in separately with the tray on the heli rather than trying to strap them on the tray first because the straps catch on the frames and have to be massaged along to get the tray to slide in. But with the bottom of the frames wide open it's very easy to just feed them in and then strap them down. It occurs to me that by adding some longer bolts that hold the tray rails on, with something as a spacer so they stick out enough, you could even use the same kind of o-ring bands that the Minicopter Diabolo uses as an alternative to the regular straps. I probably won't do that but I'm sure it is possible.

[ady]

looks pretty sweet does that nice one

[trillian]

looks pretty sweet does that nice one

Thanks! Those are ENV canopies so they sit a bit taller than the proper Ballistic canopy which looks a bit sleeker but as I had four ENV canopies including the Fusuno I got in the big FL blowout sale, I wanted to be able to still use them. So it required drilling a new hole for the rear mount as the perportions are a bit different.

[ady]

silly question time , you run low headspeeds , may i enquire what main and tail blades you use please ?

[trillian]

silly question time , you run low headspeeds , may i enquire what main and tail blades you use please ?

At the moment I have been flying with Radix 710 FAIs (the original version) and NHP 105s on the tail. I have some Align 700 F3Cs I'll try at some point and Revolution 710 FBL.
The Radix FAI blades are quite heavy, about 230 grams each, but they're great in windy conditions.

One thing I need to do is up the collective pitch range. I have something like +/- 11.5 which would be fine at higher headspeeds but I am having to bury the stick sometimes at 1600. So I need to max it out. The compromise headspeed is probably 1750 or something around there but I'll see how far it will go at 1600-1650. I did fly it when it was still an ENV at about 2000 and that is fun, it has tons of punch at that speed but I just don't need it 90% of the time.

---just to add, with the stock boom you could actually fit blades up to about 740mm with 105 tails. The Rave headblock is quite narrow so it's not giving the same disc area as most other 700 size helis with the same size blades. I'd like to try blades a bit longer if I could find something around 730-740mm, or stretch it to run 800s.

[ady]

thank you , i`m trying to lower my headspeeds to get a bit longer in the air

ady

[Bluegarry1]

So Trillian, when are you going to pay us a visit at Brentwood club with your Ballistic ??
It'd be nice to seen both your and mine in the air together !!

Garry

[trillian]

So Trillian, when are you going to pay us a visit at Brentwood club with your Ballistic ??
It'd be nice to seen both your and mine in the air together !!

Garry

It would be great to come over sometime, as long as someone could collect me from a nearby train station. I feel like I need to get out and just fly as it's been a constant testing / maiden flight going on this year sorting out things with the Rave, the Faifa and Triabolo, motors, ESCs and FBL settings etc.

Regarding the Rave, does anyone make turnbuckles that fit the links from the swash to the grips? I noticed that at the moment they're not reading exactly the same on a pitch guage. Visually the tracking looks good but maybe it could be just a little tighter.