First Flight and Pictures of the 600

[R1R 7humbs]

Our first flight wasn't without issues, fortunately the TRex is still in one piece. Two things were wrong; 1. the swash wasn't completely level, which made it pitch to the left. 2. the gyro wasn't working at all to a very small amount. The gyro plugs into the rudder and AUX 2 ports of our RX and because I'm stupid, I had the AUX2 switch on the TX switched to "off". I had to put in constant yaw control to keep it from spinning. It was both a fun and stressful first flight! My brother and his friends came over to watch it and after seeing that things weren't right all they kept saying was "just land it whever you can! :)

Now everything is fixed but it's supposed to rain tomorrow so I'll probably have to wait until Monday to really enjoy it. Now that I've flown for real I can't wait to do it again. I've spent the last 4 months flying in Realflight G3.5 and now G4. If it hadn't been for all of the simulator time, the TREX wouldn't be in on piece right now, guaranteed. I've added a few pics below, some of them are pre-flight and some are post.

The TREX is an awesome heli!

[george0079]

welcome to the addiction. Now repeat after me

Step one is to admit that we have an addiction.:lol::smokin:

[R1R 7humbs]

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[R1R 7humbs]

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[R1R 7humbs]

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[R1R 7humbs]

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[R1R 7humbs]

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[R1R 7humbs]

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[R1R 7humbs]

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[R1R 7humbs]

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[R1R 7humbs]

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[R1R 7humbs]

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[helis101]

Welcome to the hobby nice looking heli . I have to ask what size battery do you have ? it looks freakin huge. :glasses2:

[R1R 7humbs]

welcome to the addiction. Now repeat after me

Step one is to admit that we have an addiction.:lol::smokin:
I'm not addicted. :YeaBaby:

[R1R 7humbs]

Welcome to the hobby nice looking heli . I have to ask what size battery do you have ? it looks freakin huge. :glasses2:
It's the Flightpower 4340 EVO RX 2S2P.

I thought it may be too big and make the heli nose heavy but it didn't. When pick it up by the head the heli is just about perfectly balanced front to back, with a very slight bias towards the back.

[Finless]

Lookin good man....

Nice build!

Bob

[Chief heli]

Nice heli!

But is that a proper way to install the 2.4 reciever?
Think you need the extension on the side of the frame.
But thats to the more experienced 2.4 users to decide.

Greetz,
Chief

[mewsikman]

Nice heli!

But is that a proper way to install the 2.4 reciever?
Think you need the extension on the side of the frame.
But thats to the more experienced 2.4 users to decide.

Greetz,
Chief

I have mine the same way as R1R 7humbs.... my heli was set up by a guy that flys at the 3d masters....

But to be honest I have never really thought about it, I would have said it wouldnt matter....

Please correct me if im wrong...

[OHIOBOWHUNTER]

Welcome ! and good job not wrecking under the circumstances !:) Yep ! sounds like another one Hooked :YeaBaby:

[R1R 7humbs]

Just wanted to say thanks for the compliments and Merry Chirstmas & Happy Holidays to everyone.

We got it to the flying field early yesterday afternoon and it's definitely more fun to fly in tail lock mode. I've also joined the AMA and I'm going to try to Join VFSS. VFSS is a local flying organiztion and they have a great field close by to my home, so I'll be able to fly just about anything over there.

Also, the first time we flew I had the the x9303 gyro gain set to 23%, I've changed the radio around so that both rudder modes are at a % > 51 for tail lock. The lower setting is 55% the higher one is 62%, per JR's recomendation.

We're still having a problem with the tail. When I yaw right the tail shakes a lot. It happens once in a while if I yaw left or if I'm diving (20 - 40 degrees) at full throttle and level out (throttle travel is limited to 80% in the radio because our GOV isn't being used right now).

We leaned the engine out a bit (still plenty of smoke and cool to the touch) and that helped. Unfortunately I won't be flying again until the 2nd week in January so I won't be able to see if the new gyro settings will improve things (I lowered the gain from 65% to 55 and 62%). There was one other setting that was wrong in the radio: Rudder travel % was at 100% but JR wants 150% in the radio and then use the travel adj screw on the Gyro to reduce servo travel. The only other thing that I was thinking about is that our Gyro is mounted on Zeal Tape. Which is about 10mm think and has a consistency of very think Jello. This is supposed to fliter our vibration but I'm wondering if it could be wiggling too much and causing problems. Anyone else use Zeal, or should I just use the regular thin dual sided adhesive sent with the gyro?

My borther disassembled the tail boom to check the bearing and look for any damage. I also watched the Finless Bob X9303 config for the TRex 500 and heard him mention the letter "A" should be facing you when you snap the linkage ends on (some of our ends had the "A" facing away from us). We had never heard of that before so thanks for the tip Bob.

[fiveoboy01]

I have a drift issue with my gyro which is the same as yours.

I haven't flown the bird since(which has been a couple weeks now) but I did also switch to zeal tape. It does seem like it might be a little too flexible and allow the gyro to move excessively.

I'm going to switch back to the other tape(which did not produce any wagging, stops were dead solid and the piros were smooth) because I don't think that the tape is the cause of the drift and I want to try something else.

I'd say try the tape that came with the gyro. You might end up having to adjust your gain settings after switching.

[invertmast]

I always use the thin double sided tape included with the gyro's..

also, just to clarify, the "A" is supposed to face away from the mounting surface of the ball.

[R1R 7humbs]

Just wanted to post an update and some pics of the upgrades we made...

The heli is flying great after making a few adjustments. We added metal grips for the tail and head. The metal tail grips have a lot less play in them, which could have been a reason for the tail shake problems from before.

We had one close call today.. based on our first 2 flights today, we estimated that we could fly for approx 7 minutes. Well... it was more like 6:30, so I got to do my first auto :shock: ... I practiced it all the time in the sim but I didn't have the balls to do it for real... It was about 30 feet up in fast forward flight and then it went dead silent! I thought I screwed something up at first by hitting a switch or something and I was shocked to see that we ran out of fuel. Fortunately there was no damage to the heli and after looking things over (landing wasn't perfect) we got 3 more flights in before calling it a day (thumbs were getting slow in the cold weather).

Other tweaks:
- Programmed the Curtis Youngblood ATG for 3 flight modes (N,S1, S2) @ 1800, 1900 and 2000 RPM respectively.
- Changed rudder travel in TX to 150% in both directions, per JR's recommendation (it was set to 100%)
- Changed overall pitch to +-12
- Fine tuned tail rotor servo travel and throttle servo linkage.
- Metal elevator arms
- VBlade tail rotors.
- Added a fuel T
- Align carbon boom
- Added fine machine oil to main rotor shaft and tail thrust bearing shaft. The swash moves a lot more freely than before.
- Fixed most of the linkage clips so the "A" is facing away from the mounting surface.
- Changed the internal tank fuel pickup line to a small diameter neoprene hose. The LHS guy said it's more resistant to break down caused by the fuel. All of the fuel and exhaust hoses have been cable tied to belp prevent detachment.
- Removed the Zeal tape from the gyro and mounted it on the double sided tape it came with. We didn't like how much it could twist on the Zeal, now it's locked down.
- Changed the throttle hold to -2.5% because I like to use it during start up. I've almost accidentally hit the collective stick while messing with the trim to get it started... so I'd rather just use the hold at a level that doesn't engage the clutch. If I stall it during a planned auto I don't care.

Future mods:
- High performance swash once the one we're using starts to get sloppy.
- VBlades... if I damage the Align D's (came close today).
- Somehow pinning the tail gear box to the boom, to help prevent it from flying off.

Pictures:
http://athalade.com/trex_images/600N Pics/rear_3qtr_view.jpg
http://athalade.com/trex_images/600N Pics/tail_up_close.jpg
http://athalade.com/trex_images/600N Pics/front_3qtr_view.jpg
http://athalade.com/trex_images/600N Pics/carbon_tail.jpg

[Hulley]

Tagging along! Great job! :thumbup:

[Mudsurfer1234]

Where in PA you from? I'm about a 40 minute drive from VFSS, fly at their fun flies in the summer.

Our story's of getting into heli's sound VERY similar, haha, to the point where i thought i was reading my own thread.

nice pics, and sharp lookin' 600!

-Scott