BlackholeZ

Hey all,

I'm Dan. I've been flying my CX2 for probably 6 months now and finally upgraded to a Blade 400. Several guys I work with have 400s and I've been itching to fly a proper heli. I've gotten pretty good with the CX2 and the last few months I've been doing purposeful exercises in controlled flight, rather than just flying around willy-nilly. Even though I'm very confident with the CX2, reading here on wattflyer(Ron's blade start to finish), and watching the other guys flying has taught me better than to think this will be easy. I haven't even powered my 400 on yet and I've already got the training gear on. So I'm excited.
I'll still fly the CX2, it's too much fun not to, just not outside. I learned my lesson on that one. Inverted CX2s aren't much fun.

Happy flying,
Dan

Twmaster

Dan,

Welcome to WattFlyer!

Be respectful of that Blade 400. She is not anything like what you are used to. Get a simulator if you can. Fly the blades off the sim.

Also you may want to look into RADD'S School of Rotary Flight.

Good luck!

BlackholeZ

Thanks. I have looked at Radd's school and printed it out this morning. I'm not the most patient type, but I will be taking it slow. When I was learning with my CX2 I got out of my bounds a couple times, luckily it is cheap/easy to fix. I hope I learned my lesson and can hold myself back.

HoaRC

Dan, I am thrilled to welcome you to Wattflyer! I can't wait to see you post up some pictures of you heli.

Jeff

BlackholeZ

Filler post to satisfy the required 3 posts before posting pics.

1st Flight! and I didn't crash it. Though I do have training gear on it. I have a good amount of right and forward cyclic trim, and I had to adjust the Flybar and Blade tracking. This may ease a bit of the trim I had.

BlackholeZ

My "hangar"
Blade CX2: All Alum. mods and SH60 Seahawk body.
Blade 400 - Brand new stock
[media]http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v408/116/102/717042773/n717042773_1658450_1278.jpg[/media]

Heli Jim

You may want to put some ping pong or golf-sized whiffle balls on the ends of your training gear as the plain old sticks can catch the ground and cause a tip over.

Nice body on your CX...............good luck!!

jr

BlackholeZ

So I did some tweaking in my Tx, following recommendations online and in the Blade 400 Bible. I wanted to set these myself, so I actually knew what was being changed and how, so that I could know what changes affect what, and be able to further tune the settings myself. I spent last night and this morning reading online and reading through the DX6I manual, then used these settings from the Blade 400 Bible:

Throttle:
0, 33.5, 50, 65, 80
Pitch:
40, 45, 50, 65, 80
D/R and Exp
Ail: 90%, 5%
Elv: 90%, 5%

Huge difference! wow. I was almost immediately able to establish a decent hover and move around. The carbon rod "training gear" are only loosely zip tied to the skids. so if they catch, they just slide out and don't flip me. I will still put balls on the ends though, to be safe.
Unfortunately the flight wasn't too long, ~10 min because the wind picked up and blew me into a chair.
All it did was split the plastic covering on the main rotors.(I've heard people say it's monokote? Is it adhesive or just shrink wrap?) I'll have it CA'd and back up in no time.

I flew!

BlackholeZ

2 batteries of hovering in the bag. I gotta lay off the coffee when I'm gonna be flying, I almost had to cut this last flight short b/c my thumbs were shaking too much. I've got it almost trimmed perfect, I can hover without even having to worry about the tail, just cyclic to keep it in place. My friends don't think I'm so much fun to watch anymore.
-Dan

Heli Jim

Dan--don't leave the rods loose on the skids. If they shift to one side or the other it will upset the balance and could cause a condition that you couldn't recover from quickly enough. As I mentioned earlier, you should get some balls on the ends--hold them there with zip ties on each side. You will outgrow the trainers soon if you keep up like you are.

That's a big step to take and you'll know when you're ready. Once you do remove the trainers, use a couple of batteries just taking off and landing so you get used to how you have to do it.

Have fun............let us know how you're doing.

jr

BlackholeZ

I forgot to mention, all today's flying was done without the carbon training gear! I got tired of them catching, screwing with the CG and all, and I had flown a little without them yesterday. I also changed my throttle curve to a more stable 0,45,75,85,100 at the advice of one of the pilots I work with.
The biggest thing that helped me (I think) was realizing that, unlike my CX2, constant input means constant CHANGE. Once I quit pushing the sticks, and started just giving them small bumps, all my over correcting went away. The D/R and Expo probably helped too.

One question:
While hovering, the helicopter holds about 10degrees of roll to the right, maybe more. I know helicopters do this a little naturally to counter the thrust of the tail rotor, but I wasn't sure if it is that much. Several of my friends' B400s do this as well. I've got the rotor tracking dead on, and the flybar looks pretty good. Just wondering if this is normal.

Thanks

Heli Jim

Yes, the lean to the right is perfectly normal. It is just the heli countering the push of the tail rotor, like you said.

BlackholeZ

Well, killed my first set of main blades. Wind blew me into a curb. Pulled the blades and the main shaft is still nice and straight, no other damage. Gave me a reason to go to the (not so) lhs and get a backup set of tailrotors, and trex 500 main gear for this mod: http://www.wattflyer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40578