Having some trouble keeping her straight...

[schpenxel]

Welp, I bought this complete heli off of eBay. I have flown simulators and have no trouble on any of them and have flown a few other heli's of friends/family but am having trouble with this one. I know very little about them so please bear with me.

I purchased the Freya SST Eagle am and running the YS61stII engine. 3 Jr 8101’s on collective, cyclic, and elevator. 1 Jr 531 on throttle. Jr 500t Gyro with 810g on tail. 8103 PCM heli/air Tx.

Well, there's the setup.. when I received it, it was still almost fully assembled except for the tail section had been removed for shipping. I followed the instructions very carefully when assembling it and all went well. My problem is the heli will not stop trying to rotate everytime it leaves the ground. It seems that no matter how I adjust the gyro between tail lock mode and all other possible places, it always wants to spin around. I've adjusted the trims everyway I can but it just won't stay still/straight. I've managed to get it up a time or two but always have to put it back down because it's spinning around in circles so quick.

I've double checked that the blades are on right and all the angles are right between the servo arm and the arm that controls the pitch of the blades ont he rear tail with no luck. I haven't done anything to adjust the gyro itself though.

What should I do?? No one local to me really knows much about these and I'd like to get this figured out myself if at all possible.

Thanks for any help!

Carson

[ShawnK]

I could be wrong, but it sounds like your gyro direction is reversed.

[400 flyer]

it sounds like your gyro is reversed in your radio.

[Scoopy]

If it is not, you may need to adjust your sub-trim in your radio. This is your servo centering in radio setup, not the trim adjusters by your sticks. With the heli just sitting there, your tail blades will drift (engine not running) Unlike the 401 gyro, the g500t needs you to center it with sub-trim. Make sure you adjust it with your ATV's all the way up on your tail. Then drop the ATV back to 75-85% so your tail is not so fast. Lastly as you fly, turn the gain up till your tail wags, then back off just enough that it stops. Hope this helps.

Sam

[BarracudaHockey]

Ensure that your tail blades are turning the right way and installed correctly.

Then make sure when you give right stick the tail blades are increasing such that it will push the tail to the left. Watch which way the servo goes.

Then put it in HH mode and pick up the heli and turn the nose to the left (counter clockwise) the tail blades should do the same thing they did when you gave right stick, if thats wrong reverse the gyro on the gyro I think theres a small switch on the jrs.

Then do what scoopy said, crank the gain all the way up to 100 in hh mode and watch the servo, if it drifts give sub trim until it stops, you may have to keep centering it with the stick till you find the magic number, it will probably be less than 10 so go slow. Put the gain back to where you had it and fly it.

Also if there is too much pitch in the main rotor and you are breaking ground before sufficent head speed is obtained the tail rotor will be ineffective and the heli will want to spin nose left.

[schpenxel]

Thanks for all the responses. I hope to have a few hours tomorrow to work on this issue. One thing that bothers me is the arm on servo that was included with the heli for the tail rudder was installed 180* away from where the manual showed it should be. I'm not sure if it the previous owner had things setup differently than the manual suggested or if it was just a coincidence and not significant (maybe he removed the arm when removing to ship or something). Anyways... The heli is trying to rotate counter clockwise if you were looking down on it from the sky. I have managed to get it in the air and hover for a few seconds a few times but was making a ton of corrections in all sorts of directions with the rudder control and I had to have the adjustment for the gyro on the remote pretty much as low as it would go. If I set it high (~75% or above) it would spin around uncontrollably counter clockwise.

Also, I have noticed the "drifting" of the servo when I set the gain to 100 so I will try to get that issue worked out as described in earlier responses.

Then make sure when you give right stick the tail blades are increasing such that it will push the tail to the left. Watch which way the servo goes.

I will check this tomorrow, I have a feeling something is backwards...which would explain my difficulties.

Thanks for the help guys... I'd have been struggling with this forever without the help!

Carson

[schpenxel]

Well... that didn't go so well. I checked the direction of the tail blades when giving right stick and it was correct, as was the direction of correction from the gyro when I rotated the whole heli. I adjusted the sub-trim until I got it to stop "hunting" (the magic number was 10). Went out to fly and it seemed worse than before somehow. Ended up being a nice crash, bent the tail boom and all :(

Ah well, I'm starting to think this sport isn't for me... I bought a nice heli that was suppose to be easy to fly, had no trouble with the cheaper models of some friends or the simulators but have had nothing but trouble from this thing :(

[mudbogger2]

Any chance you are coming to the blacksheep funfly in SC this weekend?
I would be glad to help get you up in the air.

[schpenxel]

Wish I could, just have too much going on right now with building a new house.. I'm sure it would be at least possible for me to learn some on my own if things were setup right once by someone knowledgable. Maybe I can find somebody at one of the local places to help me out... Thanks for the offer though

[eeeyal]

You said that your servo/gyro is not reversed. And a counter clock wise rotation is with the torque of the motor.

If you fix the ship; take the main blades off and fire it up. Hold the tail boom tight (be careful of the fly bar/paddles) and spool it up slowly. Move the rudder stick to test the tail.

Things to look for:

Is your tail rotor slowing down under load?
Is your gyro/ tail servo going crazy/failing?

[BarracudaHockey]

Holding a running helicopter by the tail boom is really not the safest idea I've heard this week.

Running up a helicopter with no blades and no load on the head is even worse.

Just my 2 cents.

[eeeyal]

BarracudaHockey wrote:
Holding a running helicopter by the tail boom is really not the safest idea I've heard this week.

Running up a helicopter with no blades and no load on the head is even worse.

Just my 2 cents.


You don’t need to go much over idle to generate load on the tail rotor. You are not damaging the engine/drive train in any way (as long as you keep that engine rpm low).


also, the head can be completely removed for safety.


If anyone attempts to do this, make sure you hold the tail boom tight! And be VERY gentle with rudder stick movements. Tail rotors are extremely powerful on any size machine

[Mike C]

Please call me when your ready to try again,, I'll walk you through the set up,,

You had either the servo or the gyro operating backwards :shock: I can walk you through the setup and testing on the phone.

It's kinda hard to explain here. No need to start up a Heli to get the Gyro setup :wink:

I'll pm you my #

[Ivan]

see this:

http://www.helifreak.com/viewtopic.php?t=4373

Call someone or more preferably get help. Sims are great for flying reflex development, but you must find help to learn setup. As you can see, an improperly setup heli can be impossible to fly.

It will be financially sound to drive somewhere for the weekend and get help, even at the cost of fuel and hotel rooms.