maac16324
06-13-2004, 01:59 PM
I will start out by saying that I am nobody's rep and none of you will stop what you are doing to watch while I fly. I guess you could say that after three years of flying helis I am a competent sport pilot. Business has been good enough to me (I retired 9 years ago) that I can pretty much fly what I want so cost really wasn't a consideration.
I now have 30 flights on my ION and thought that I would share the experience with the forum. I bought the ION because I have grown sensitive to the smoke from my nitro helis particularly when hovering around or doing close in maneuvers. I also felt that it might be more acceptable to the fixed wing crowd in our club.
Construction really wasn't an issue although I have built a few X-Cells and they are very similar. After printing the manual and installing the pages in a binder it took me about a week to build my ION. Everything from the auto-rotation clutch up to the main blades and the tail boom /rotor assembly are stock X-Cell. I set the head up with 1.5mm of shims and a standard and two dot (very stiff) set of "O" rings. I find the MA white paddles a little pitchy so initially used Pro II paddles at 36 gms. The design of the carbon mainframes and equipment are IMHO a stunning success. Build one and you will see what I mean. I am constantly amazed at the technological progress that the MA team brings forth with each generation of helis. I know how tough it is to do in a big company with lots of resources but Tim and his gang continue to hit home runs. For the rest of the equipment I used 9252's on cyclic/collective and a 601/9251 for the gyro. I bought a Duralite 2000 mAh pack for the receiver and flight pack. SAB 680's and an "Alien" painted canopy finished off the ION. For main power packs used MA's 7600 mAh 5S4P packs.
First lift off was absolutely perfect. No trim and the blades tracked perfectly. I hovered it around for a couple of minutes and then set it down and checked it over. I started to spool it up and blipped the throttle three times getting ready for lift off. That was mistake #1. In blipping the throttle I cleaned off three batches of teeth from the 52 tooth secondary gear. Good thing though because I also had a problem with the tail rotor that I had missed that needed fixing. The next morning I called Chris at MA, explained my stupidity and asked for a replacement. I had the replacement (plus a couple of spares) in my hands 27 hours later. That icluded shipping by MA from Florida to British Columbia, the UPS guy and clearing Canadian Customs. I can't get delivery on a local letter in under a week. Kudos to MA.
The next 26 flights were absolutely wonderful. The heli is sooooo smooth. No trim change during each flight is very pleasant. The ION sounds more like a turbine than a turbine does - all I need to add is the kerosene smell. It does every aerobatic maneuver at least as well as the YS80 powered nitro Extreme that I have been flying. For some reason I can hit nose down funnels with the ION much more easily that I can with my Extreme. It has no problem with Tic Tocs but I'm not really good at them. It is wonderful if you have limitied time at the field. You can literally walk out with your ION, frequency tag and TX and fly. It has been flown by a few of my pals including a Century rep and the lone? Canadian MA rep Kevin Forsyth. Kevin had a big grin on his face and Greg (the Century rep) flew it pretty much the way he flew his Carbon Predator with lots of aggressive 3D. With the stock 52 tooth secondary gear I was getting 1850 to 1950 rpm head speed. The manual strongly recommends against aborting an auto with the ION. This really isn't an issue and I am back to doing my 180 autos as a relaxing way to end a flight. As predicted flight times and battery performance has improved steadily. Yesterday I did a 16:30 min fligth and used 6370 mAh out of my 7600 mAh packs. On flight 27 I did take out my second 52 tooth secondary gear and replaced it with a 55 tooth gear so this might have something to do with the improved flight times. The 55 tooth gear reduces head speeds to 1750 to 1850 rpm. My throttle curve is straight line 100% power in IU #2 with +/- 9.5 degrees of pitch range. No smoke is great and at least up til now it is acceptable to the fixed wing crowd at the field. For my next ION I will go with 5S3P packs. This will cost less, save a lot of weight and still give me lots of flight time.
The down side has to be cost. The cost of the ION kit is comparable or a little less than the same equipment in my Tempest. The up front cost of batteries and charges make the entry cost a little high. At $700 USD for a pair of 5S4P batteries you are carrying a years worth of fuel with you every time you fly. I don't like charging at the field so I have three sets of packs that I carry around in a little Sentry 1100 fire safe from Walmart. That gives me as much flying as I want to do in a session and if I wanted more I could alway fire up my Extreme. Charging means a pair of Li-Poly chargers. I went with the Orbit Pro's because they will charge 5S Li-Poly's at 8 amps. I added a Pyramid 52 amp power supply for charging at home. It works great but is far too heavy to travel with. After draining my deep discharge marine battery in 1 1/2 charges at the Chiliwack electric fly-in I bought a pair of Samlex 1223 power supplies (23 amps, 3.5 lbs each) and a little Honda 1000W generatorfor travelling.
Am I happy with my ION ... you bet I am and I'm building my second. More than that I'm really turned on to the Li Poly, brushless world. I'm moving big time to electric fixed wing to amortize my up front costs. Cost is an issue but it is still one heck of a lot cheaper that my friends golf addiction or what my sailboat used to cost me.
Thatzall!
I now have 30 flights on my ION and thought that I would share the experience with the forum. I bought the ION because I have grown sensitive to the smoke from my nitro helis particularly when hovering around or doing close in maneuvers. I also felt that it might be more acceptable to the fixed wing crowd in our club.
Construction really wasn't an issue although I have built a few X-Cells and they are very similar. After printing the manual and installing the pages in a binder it took me about a week to build my ION. Everything from the auto-rotation clutch up to the main blades and the tail boom /rotor assembly are stock X-Cell. I set the head up with 1.5mm of shims and a standard and two dot (very stiff) set of "O" rings. I find the MA white paddles a little pitchy so initially used Pro II paddles at 36 gms. The design of the carbon mainframes and equipment are IMHO a stunning success. Build one and you will see what I mean. I am constantly amazed at the technological progress that the MA team brings forth with each generation of helis. I know how tough it is to do in a big company with lots of resources but Tim and his gang continue to hit home runs. For the rest of the equipment I used 9252's on cyclic/collective and a 601/9251 for the gyro. I bought a Duralite 2000 mAh pack for the receiver and flight pack. SAB 680's and an "Alien" painted canopy finished off the ION. For main power packs used MA's 7600 mAh 5S4P packs.
First lift off was absolutely perfect. No trim and the blades tracked perfectly. I hovered it around for a couple of minutes and then set it down and checked it over. I started to spool it up and blipped the throttle three times getting ready for lift off. That was mistake #1. In blipping the throttle I cleaned off three batches of teeth from the 52 tooth secondary gear. Good thing though because I also had a problem with the tail rotor that I had missed that needed fixing. The next morning I called Chris at MA, explained my stupidity and asked for a replacement. I had the replacement (plus a couple of spares) in my hands 27 hours later. That icluded shipping by MA from Florida to British Columbia, the UPS guy and clearing Canadian Customs. I can't get delivery on a local letter in under a week. Kudos to MA.
The next 26 flights were absolutely wonderful. The heli is sooooo smooth. No trim change during each flight is very pleasant. The ION sounds more like a turbine than a turbine does - all I need to add is the kerosene smell. It does every aerobatic maneuver at least as well as the YS80 powered nitro Extreme that I have been flying. For some reason I can hit nose down funnels with the ION much more easily that I can with my Extreme. It has no problem with Tic Tocs but I'm not really good at them. It is wonderful if you have limitied time at the field. You can literally walk out with your ION, frequency tag and TX and fly. It has been flown by a few of my pals including a Century rep and the lone? Canadian MA rep Kevin Forsyth. Kevin had a big grin on his face and Greg (the Century rep) flew it pretty much the way he flew his Carbon Predator with lots of aggressive 3D. With the stock 52 tooth secondary gear I was getting 1850 to 1950 rpm head speed. The manual strongly recommends against aborting an auto with the ION. This really isn't an issue and I am back to doing my 180 autos as a relaxing way to end a flight. As predicted flight times and battery performance has improved steadily. Yesterday I did a 16:30 min fligth and used 6370 mAh out of my 7600 mAh packs. On flight 27 I did take out my second 52 tooth secondary gear and replaced it with a 55 tooth gear so this might have something to do with the improved flight times. The 55 tooth gear reduces head speeds to 1750 to 1850 rpm. My throttle curve is straight line 100% power in IU #2 with +/- 9.5 degrees of pitch range. No smoke is great and at least up til now it is acceptable to the fixed wing crowd at the field. For my next ION I will go with 5S3P packs. This will cost less, save a lot of weight and still give me lots of flight time.
The down side has to be cost. The cost of the ION kit is comparable or a little less than the same equipment in my Tempest. The up front cost of batteries and charges make the entry cost a little high. At $700 USD for a pair of 5S4P batteries you are carrying a years worth of fuel with you every time you fly. I don't like charging at the field so I have three sets of packs that I carry around in a little Sentry 1100 fire safe from Walmart. That gives me as much flying as I want to do in a session and if I wanted more I could alway fire up my Extreme. Charging means a pair of Li-Poly chargers. I went with the Orbit Pro's because they will charge 5S Li-Poly's at 8 amps. I added a Pyramid 52 amp power supply for charging at home. It works great but is far too heavy to travel with. After draining my deep discharge marine battery in 1 1/2 charges at the Chiliwack electric fly-in I bought a pair of Samlex 1223 power supplies (23 amps, 3.5 lbs each) and a little Honda 1000W generatorfor travelling.
Am I happy with my ION ... you bet I am and I'm building my second. More than that I'm really turned on to the Li Poly, brushless world. I'm moving big time to electric fixed wing to amortize my up front costs. Cost is an issue but it is still one heck of a lot cheaper that my friends golf addiction or what my sailboat used to cost me.
Thatzall!