Another Swift in the air!

[Naruto28]

Got my new Swift flying this weekend. What a cool heli! Cyclic is a lot faster than my T-rex 450. I think I might get some carbon blades and maybe some slightly heavier paddles to tone it down a bit.

Flies pretty good with the 550+ and maxamps 4S 4000mah packs with 9T pinion. Doesn't have the crazy power of my T-rex, but it's plenty for the sport flying and learning mild 3d I'm doing. I flew for 6.5 minutes (stall turns, lots of flips and rolls, etc.) and put back 3400 into the packs. Motor, esc, and batt were barely warm.

The tail doesn't hold as well as I'm used to, and has a bit of wag/bounce. Linkage is really smooth and 401 gyro gain is pretty low, so I'm thinking the cheapo digital servo on the tail is probably too slow. Does anyone run a delay higher than zero with slower digital servos? I'm using a HS-5475HB (0.23sec/60° :( ). So I'm thinking an upgrade to a 9254? I gotta say, when I bumped up the endpoint to 120% the piro rate was craaaaazy fast!

The crappy stock woodies needed a mile of tape :roll: So, I'm looking at upgrading the blades and tail servo pretty soon, then possibly moving up to 6S and a 600+ when my skills need more power.

So far I love the bird, thanks all for helping and Bob for the build vids!

[trevorz]

Hi,

Glad you like the Swift, me too! For the tail, obviously a good fast servo makes a world of difference. That servo does seem pretty slow. I would say your issues are probably related to that. I have never run a slow servo, so can't tell you if the delay will help. I would say give it a try though!

Some carbon blades, or even fiberglass (like the funkey 530) would help. The woodies are not tooooo bad though.

Must be nice to fly, it is -29 degrees C here today. Bit cool for me :glasses2: .

Trevor.

[Greybird]

Naruto. What flight times do you get with that battery? I am building almost the same set-up. I have the same batteries also. What ESC do you have? A 9 tooth might be too small. I am going to start with an 11 tooth. Might be part of your wag problem.

[Naruto28]

I've been putting back about 3600mah after 6 - 6.5 minutes, so I should probably limit flights to under 6 minutes.

The 550+ on 4S with 9T is supposed to be around 1900rpm, but I don't have a way to confirm at the moment. I don't want to go higher with these woodies, but might try a larger pinion when I get some carbons on it.

I'm using the Century electron 55/70 esc.

Also, I was wrong about the tail servo, it's a HS-5245MG (.15 sec) so not as bad as I thought. The tail certainly has plenty of authority, so I don't think it's headspeed related. Spent some time last night going over ball links, pushrod guide, etc. to make sure it's as smooth as it can get. Will try adding some delay to the 401 to lessen bounce. Going to test it out in just a bit.

[Naruto28]

Ok, I lowered my gyro gain to around +40, the tail is still rock solid and the wag/bounce appears to be gone. I left the delay at zero. I'm probably just used to running a relatively high gain on my T-rex. Endpoints at +/-110 and the tail is scary fast in each direction.

We also got a break from the wind and I was able to trim it out better. Much happier with the bird now! For some reason, I was expecting the Swift to be less responsive and more stable than my T-rex. Now that it's trimmed better, it IS more stable, but it's definitely quicker. Really liking it... :D

[broke-again]

Add me to the list - I took delivery today of a SWIFT16 Im looking forward to getting it built. Seems to be a well liked heli, value for the money too. :D

[Finless]

Cool Broke! Let us know how it goes....

Bob