450 Lazy Hover

[DarkHeli]

My mx450 is being a little weird. I have finally got everything needed to fly this thing and last night I spun it up to check everything out. First of all, When i give it full throttle and full pitch, it barely lifts off, It is sort of a delayed reaction (I go full throttle, it takes a second or two and then it lifts off, its as if the blades have to load or something before it goes up.) Secondly, I have align woodies and last night I (by accident) touched the throttle when I was looking something over on the heli, It spun up and smacked me in the hand before I could turn it off. Hurt like a %$#@$ but only a drop of blood came out! :thumbup: It could have been worse, but I learned a lesson. This of course did some damage to the heli, I bent the spindle rod into a Z-Shape. That is all the damage that it did, but I did manage to straighten the rod to the point where I could put it on again. Now my blade tracking is off by about 1/4 inch, and I would like to know if its still fine to fly with that much tracking diff.

I will buy new spindle rods later of course.

at 100% throttle & pitch, my pitch goes to about +6 degrees. I have to give it full throttle to slooooowly lift up and I have heard I should be hovering at about 3/4th stick?

[MarkD]

My mx450 is being a little weird. I have finally got everything needed to fly this thing and last night I spun it up to check everything out. First of all, When i give it full throttle and full pitch, it barely lifts off, It is sort of a delayed reaction (I go full throttle, it takes a second or two and then it lifts off, its as if the blades have to load or something before it goes up.) Secondly, I have align woodies and last night I (by accident) touched the throttle when I was looking something over on the heli, It spun up and smacked me in the hand before I could turn it off. Hurt like a %$#@$ but only a drop of blood came out! :thumbup: It could have been worse, but I learned a lesson. This of course did some damage to the heli, I bent the spindle rod into a Z-Shape. That is all the damage that it did, but I did manage to straighten the rod to the point where I could put it on again. Now my blade tracking is off by about 1/4 inch, and I would like to know if its still fine to fly with that much tracking diff.

NO

I will buy new spindle rods later of course.Buy them now, fit them and don't fly untill then. There is no way you can set the head up correctly with a bent feathering shaft let alone the damage the vibrations will do

at 100% throttle & pitch, my pitch goes to about +6 degrees. I have to give it full throttle to slooooowly lift up and I have heard I should be hovering at about 3/4th stick?If this was before you bent the shaft your head isn't setup correctly. Replace the shaft and then go through right from the start - servo arm centering upto the pitch links and tracking.

[DarkHeli]

I found out that the reason my pitch was so low at 100% was because the middle links were set up too tight, I fixed it and now have around 8 or 9 on normal and 11 on idle up. before I saw your post, I flew it again in my living room. I only got it light on the skids and no real hovering, just to see how the trim is. The heli has a tendency to move left & aft when it gets light on skids, Is this normal or is it due to the tracking and/or ground effect? (the skids aren't tipping left, they are level.)
I will take your advise and I wont mess around until I get the shafts.
Also, whats a good online store besides tower that will ship fairly small bits, that wont rape me with shipping? i'm in the u.s.
thanks again

[PTFlyer]

check out Joe at
http://www.techmodelproducts.com/

He's in CT and ships super fast...you could have your parts in NYC in a day or two with standard shipping..

also these places are also good....as well as most if not all the advertisers on helifreak..

http://www.helidirect.com/


http://www.readyheli.com/

[jeffk]

Left movement is normal especially when so close to the ground. If you were to get the heli up into clean air, the tendency to drift left would be minimal. It's got to do mostly with ground effect.

I would agree though, not to fly until your head parts have been replaced. You might be fine, but you risk doing a LOT more damage.

[DarkHeli]

Left movement is normal especially when so close to the ground. If you were to get the heli up into clean air, the tendency to drift left would be minimal. It's got to do mostly with ground effect.

I would agree though, not to fly until your head parts have been replaced. You might be fine, but you risk doing a LOT more damage.

Thats great to hear...At first I thought my swash was not straight but its fine. Thats very true about not flying but...just cant help it.. :nanabobo it took me a very long time to get to where I can finally hover this beast...my build took a couple of months so I needed to see where my hard work and $$$$$ went. I have been hovering it in my living room (about 7 rotor lengths all around) with training gear to get to see how cyclic response and gyro programming is doing. Its been great, very little vibrations and the shaft is true. All I know is that there is no way I am going to fly outside or do anything past hovering until blades are 100% tracked and I get the new shafts I ordered. :smokin:
I am willing to fix/repair any parts that get destroyed as a consequence ;)
after all, I will probably get the v2 head as soon as I destroy more then 40% of my current head.

BTW, does anyone know where I can get a v2 head anodized RED? :YeaBaby:

the heli has been like my trucks, once you start to upgrade....it never stops! :YeaBaby:

[istandalone]

if you don't already, get a pitch gauge. that paper template in the mx450 manual is terrible. so, if you were having trouble before the issue with your feathering spindle, what is your throttle/pitch curves? def could be related to that.

[Pinecone]

Actually left drift is because of the tail rotor. The tail rotor blows to the right (for clockwise main rotor rotation) and this tries to push the heli to the left.

The more power to the main rotor, the more the tail rotor has to counteract torque and the more it tries to move the heli to the left.

And you have to give some right cyclic to stop that drift, and this is what gives you the right lean in a hover.

As for ground effect, the left drift is MORE pronouced down low as you need less power to hover when you are within a max of 1/2 - 1 rotor span above the ground. Less power to main rotor, less tail rotor thrust, less drift.

[DarkHeli]

if u don't already, get a pitch gauge. that paper template in the mx450 manual is terrible. so, if you were having trouble bee
fore the issue with your feathering spindle, what is your throttle/pitch curves? def could be related to that. Yea, I totally agree, I already have the giant red helimax pitch gauge.

my curves are:

(NORM)

Throttle

1 0
2 55
3 90
4 95
5 100

pitch

1 -1
2 -1
3 0
4 +6
5 +9

Also, Thanks pinecone. I got pretty worried that I needed to spend more $$ :bawl
luckily thats not happening for a week or 2...lol :rolling