Cranial surgery

[FrittsLogic]

I think I read in a post somewhere about someone putting a Tempest FAI head on their Ion. I'm thinking of doing the same thing, swapping out cranial works with my tempest. Any thoughts on this? Would the extra weight be noticeable? I'm guessing that no adjustments to the linkages will be necessary, true? Thanks in advance for any advice or shared experiences, Don.

[PDC]

I heard about this option as well, what is the idea behind doing that?

[FrittsLogic]

My objective would be to get the smoothest possible FAI style flight out of a Heli that's much quieter and vibration free to begin with due to its powerplant. I know that I can tune down the Extreme head that comes with it, but the FAI head was designed, as I understand it, to be the ultimate in smooth, precision flying. I would like to also get a decent ESC governor mode to allow 2 headspeeds, 1500 and 1900ish.

[misskimo]

hey , you can use it , I flew the 3D head on mine , did great , they are the same weight , should fly real nice , great in FF
I use 2 stock heads and now running a VStabi flybarless head on the 3rd , had its second flight in the gym last night , man that heli sure dont like gym flying now with this setup , its craving outside duty

[freddyferris]

I dont knowif you do compete in FAI and how are the Rules in the US,
but as Missikmo said you could use a Vstabi... Your head will look weired but it's worth it! You can fly with 40mph wind, you wont even notice it! With the Vstabi there is no pitching up or anything els!

Fred

[ChrisS]

I have run the Tempest head on my Ion's now for quite some time and have found them to do very well there. Depending on what motor and headspeeds you run, you may want to run 680mm blades as opposed to 710's.

I have used the 77-O-heli control to do two speed setups and it seemed to do well, although is not really recommended for this. I have just always made sure to use the slow speed for hovering maneuvers only. Alternately, since you are allowed a battery change between the hovering and aerobatic portions of the schedule, you could use 8S and 10S battery packs. I have done this as well and it works out well as the control is always operating at or very near to full throttle so it stays nice and cool. The two speeds you mention are not at all difficult to attain and the machine, like any of this size, will fly very nice at them.


Chris

[FrittsLogic]

Well, I did the head transplant and put the FAI head on my Ion. 2 test flights in 15 knot winds...smooth as butter!!! It did pull about 25-30% more amps using the same SAB 690's. Once I get a better ESC on, I'll go for lower HS and see what I can get out of it. Currently 10 minutes of slow, precise circuits used 5400 mah on TP 5s4pv prolites.