What we can expect.....

[Rick Hauler]

The inner shaft gear (that meshes with the main gear) for the tail rotor after 6 flights.

Not quite sure what caused it. The tail blades come extremely close to the ground when your spooling up. Have to be REAL careful landing on hard surfaces not to go tail first. I didn't see any scrapes on the tail blades, but I guess I bumped it or something. Guess we know 1 part to keep on hand. Took me 4 minutes to replace. The inner shaft is real easy to get to, and the new gear presses right on. Took an hour and half to find the main gear pin though....I HATE those things!

[Steve Joblin]

Very interesting! I know many are going to default to saying "looks like typical Walkera junk", but when something hits the blade and makes it stop from rotating, something is going to have to give! I'm glad what breaks is an small cheap easy to fix part!

[SQRT(-2)]

Are the tail rotors rigid? That is, do they swing in blade holders? If so, loosening them may prevent such failures.

PS

Hate main gear pins? I checked at Westlakes (a smaller chain hardware store), they make hitch pins that small.

[Rick Hauler]

The rotors aren't rigid, but you can't have them too loose or it causes a nasty vibration in the tail. They do "fold back"...the problem is the tail gear (more so the one that meshes with the main gear) have very tiny teeth. I think really no matter what, a tail strike is likely to strip them.

Funny you mention the hitch pins. I've had my eye set on some and never bought them. Might just be the time....

[SQRT(-2)]

So when parts become available, those gears are going to be a hot item.

[ehirobo]

I only got around 10 flight on mine so it is still ok. But I checked mine and notice there are some small play in the tail shaft, around 0.5mm. Maybe shim it out properly would help?