blind auto

[enigma]

Not sure what happened, but I had a forced auto today. It sounded to me like the motor stopped, but my wife says the motor was going but not the blades. The main gear stripped. I had repaired the anti-rotation pin on the swash a while back, and I beleieve it let go, wrapped itself up and bound up enough to strip the gear?? Anyway, I was around 150' and suddenly the blades slowed almost to a stop and the heli began to drop on it's side. I pulled full negative and left cyclic in an attempt to get the wind under the blades. As it leveled out I managed to get out from on top of the pond and began feeding the positive, at which time the heli dropped below my sight, behind a small hill and brush. I had no idea how much room I had before contact so I fed full positive. It touched down flat, in soft mud. Broke the landing skids and rebroke some earlier repaired areas, and bent the flybar from the sudden stop, and destroyed my home made camera mount :arggg: So how does everybody handle an auto when line of sight is compromised? Oh, and of course, the client was there watching.... :oops:

[miami6]

Ouch How is the Camera ?

[WillJames]

It actually does not look as bad as it could be!! That mud helped!

As Miami said, how is the camera?

Man I am sorry to see the wreckage. :(

As for the auto question, what is your pitch range setup?

[enigma]

Camera is muddy, I believe a good cleaning will be all it needs. The pitch range is around +11/-11 it seemed to auto well, until I couldn't see it anymore! I'm just glad I had the old Olympus on it and not the new H2. Funny thing, since I thought the motor quit, I failed to hit the throttle hold so now I don't know for sure if the stripped gear was the problem or a result of the crash. Didn't even break the FG canopy, just a few small chips!

[WayneBrown]

that sucks!
Bright side is You can now implement some changes to your mount to make it better.
Sounds like you did okay with the auto all in all Jon. Don't beat yourself up over it.
A bladestop that ends up with the machine on it's side is generally terminal...

[enigma]

I'm wondering if the 550mm blades are too much for the main gear?

[WayneBrown]

:dontknow :dontknow :dontknow

[heliplt]

Not bad for a blind Auto, The damage does not look all the bad dude .

[askman]

550 is fine with 550, but I do think it is at its limit. good setup is mandatory. still, logo 14 uses same gear as well. sorry to hear about your crash. it happens to the best of us. damage does not look terrible. that is good. check the pinion gear as well. I've had the setscrew come lose in the air and did the same thing.

[AZ ChopperCam]

what temps is that motor running?

[enigma]

Around 150F, bearings don't feel bad, but the thought has crossed my mind...
Ouch How is the Camera ?
Turns out the camera took one for the team. The lens assy got jammed. I had another Olympus parts cam, I swapped the lens out, looks to be a bit out of focus, but my eyes are tired! When this happened, it sounded like the motor came to a sudden stop, I was on my fourth flight in a 1 1/2 hour period. All electronics check out good on the bench, not sure what happened, it did not slow down like a battery or LVC issue, I think the swash pin let go (was replaced recently) and bound up for a split second, at least that's the only faulty part I've found. I have noticed a small tail kick occasionally, now I'm questioning this Hacker. :badair:

[askman]

big hackers tend todo well on this heli, and they are lot higher quality compare to a30 series.

[enigma]

I'm running a 13 tooth pinion dialed to around 1800-1900 depending on mood/wind. What HS should I shoot for with the 550's for AP?

[enigma]

550 is fine with 550, but I do think it is at its limit. good setup is mandatory. still, logo 14 uses same gear as well. sorry to hear about your crash. it happens to the best of us. damage does not look terrible. that is good. check the pinion gear as well. I've had the setscrew come lose in the air and did the same thing.
Think I'll grind a flat on the shaft.

[Menno]

Sorry to hear about the crash. I think you did good for a blind auto. It's always my biggest fear to lose sight of the heli.


I'm wondering if the 550mm blades are too much for the main gear?


If I'am correct the main gear in the picture is the same as I use on my Logo 24 with 680mm blades. As long as I keep the backlash with the pinion correct it holds just fine.

Also the setscrew in the pinion that Askman talked about sound like a plausible explanation. Should be easy to check if this happened. I never trusted that little point on the setscrew as it goes blunt after the first time you screw it in. I also grinded a small flat spot on the motorshaft and I think it's a good solution.

Menno

[R Hudson]

Are you running the aluminum motor plate?

I've heard of at least a good handful of guys who have stripped the main gear because of the flex from the plastic motor plate.

I think for AP, it is a good idea to run that plate and make sure gear mesh is perfect. I ALWAYS grind a flat spot on the motor shaft to help prevent slippage.

There is another pllus. The aluminum motor plate acts as a heatsink as well. Anything that can draw heat away from the motor is a big plus in my book, even if the motor isn't running too hot.

My 2 cents:)

R

[aramsdell]

I had a desire to auto this afternoon. The motor shaft on my TREX camship broke below the top bearing inside the motor. A quick whiny noise as the Tial rotor wound up faster caught my attention for about 2 sec. That was about long enough for the main blades( 335 unbranded carbon fiber and very light) to nearly stop. I went full negative but they hardly started again before it landed on a pile of rip/rap in a drainage area where I was shooting. Olympus Stylus 740 slowed the bird saving all the radio gear. Motor/plastic 450 XL frame/ my own CF tall landing gear/ Olympus gone. OUCH! Beware of Align 430L motor with gold endcaps.

[enigma]

I'm thinking of an airbag or eject/parachute for the camera! :lol:

[aramsdell]

I'm thinking I have a spare battery,charger and XD card. Might get an Olympus 750. It has active and digital image stabilization. I'll then have 2 bats. spare charger, memory.........

[askman]

ouch My rule of thumb is to use sub 100 buck camera on test flights. :) I've been lucky so far. I've destroyed one camera on a prototype AP airplane, but that is all so far.

[WillJames]

Full negative was probably way to much to auto successfully. To much negatove in an auto is like to much positive in the fact that it gives to much drag on the blades. I fly V-Blades and in a normal auto especially with a heavy heli, it only takes a couple degrees of negative or so, if you over pitch negative with the V's you will stop the head quick.

[enigma]

Full negative was probably way to much to auto successfully. To much negatove in an auto is like to much positive in the fact that it gives to much drag on the blades. I fly V-Blades and in a normal auto especially with a heavy heli, it only takes a couple degrees of negative or so, if you over pitch negative with the V's you will stop the head quick.Wills right, I just tried it on Reflex and it seems anything over 2 or 3 degrees negative is overkill. Real world blades surely respond differently, but try it on reflex and watch the RPM at different negative pitch settings. (I simply adjusted my pitch/hold to alter the pitch at full negative on throttle hold for this experiment)

[flyinfool]

I had to a blind auto once with my night ship.
Bear in mind that my night ship is a R50 at 10 lbs.
I was doing high speed circuits out over the woods and had a flame out.
I put in a little neg and pushed the nose forward trying to make it back to the field.
When I got low enough that I knew it was going in the wooded swamp I leveled it out, winced and watched it descend into the trees.
As soon as it entered the trees it was out of sight.
All I could do was count 1, 2, 3, flair, add collective, pray.
All the while coming down thru the trees we never heard that distinctive sound of breaking branches, just a single thud.
Get out the waders and head into the woods. After 1.5 hours of walking through wooded swamp where you can only see about 3 feet in any direction, and water from wet ground to 3 feet deep, I finally found the heli on its side buried in the mud. and half under water. expecting the worse I went to retrieve it.
Looking up from the spot where it was I could not see any sky through the canopy of trees.
How it got to where it was without hitting a tree is beyond me.
Everyone was truly amazed when I finally came out of the woods carrying what still looked like a heli.
The total damage was 6 of the 13 lighting circuits were shorted by swamp water and junk, a broken landing gear and a bent flybar.

I stopped and bought a lotto ticket on the way home but I must have used up all of my luck already.

[aramsdell]

Full negative in hover on that REX is about -3 to -4 degrees. That ship had 40 - 50 great flights with that camera. Near as I can figure the shaft of the Align motor broke then the case separated and pushed against the T/R drive gear and stopped the whole thing( except gravity). It wasn't a test. 5MP $100 HP does my testing.

As of tonight 9MP Fuji E 900 looking good for purchase tomorrow. Email inbox rattled today. My first shoot was a freebie for the local airport manager at his orchard in late September. He just referred another client to me. This one wants me to do 4 houses in a 1 mile area!