500 3d tail rotor problem

[AusAnt]

Hi,

I flew for the first time in a few weeks today (days off work and weather have not been lining up well for me :mad:). I am a beginner and only have about 20 flights on my 500 3d, no crashes so far and no problems whatsoever.

So I took it out for a fly today. When I took off into a hover, the nose wanted to creep around to the right at a steady rate. Probably if I let it go for 2 or 3 seconds, it might come around 20 or 30 degrees of yaw.

So I put it down and had a look. The tail rotor pushrod support bracket (or whatever you call the plastic thing half way along the tail boom) had vibrated loose, so I thought the problem might be the tail pushrod flexing. I fixed the problem, then continued on that pack, but it still wanted to yaw steadily to the right. It was just a steady movement, and a bit of left rudder held on kept it on heading.

Anyway, finished that pack, checked it over , couldn't find anything wrong. So put a new pack in, and everything was fine.

Any ideas what I should check over to look for the problem?

Thanks,

Ant

[Mercuriell]

Sounds like your 611 lost it's centre setting - do you carry out the heli to the flight line in normal mode or reset the centre in HH just before flying ?

[Ticidytoc]

You may have moved the heli when the gyro was running through initialization. Try to reboot the rx power making sure not to move the heli or rudder stick while its running through bootup.

[AusAnt]

No, I don't do anything (I never have). I just connect up the battery, then carry it out and put it down. Naturally the gyro tries to correct whilst it is sitting on the ground, but I watch the tail and correct it manually with rudder input just before it lifts off so the tail doesn't look like it is trying to pull one way or the other, and the tail blades look pretty thin from behind.

But even if I had it a bit off, surely as soon as I lifted off it would want to swing to the point it thought was 'straight', and then hold it. But this continuous yawing happened for several minutes, during which I had rudder input. I thought having rudder input would cancel out the gyro's idea of where 'centre' is?

Mind you, if I am mistaken, and my rudder input wasn't resetting out the gyro's centre position, maybe it's 'centre' was say 180 degrees away from current heading, which it never got to, as I was not happy with the feel, so I just held it in a tail in hover for the whole pack.

Thanks,

Ant

[Mercuriell]

No, I don't do anything (I never have). I just connect up the battery, then carry it out and put it down. Naturally the gyro tries to correct whilst it is sitting on the ground, but I watch the tail and correct it manually with rudder input just before it lifts off so the tail doesn't look like it is trying to pull one way or the other, and the tail blades look pretty thin from behind.

But even if I had it a bit off, surely as soon as I lifted off it would want to swing to the point it thought was 'straight', and then hold it. But this continuous yawing happened for several minutes, during which I had rudder input. I thought having rudder input would cancel out the gyro's idea of where 'centre' is?

Mind you, if I am mistaken, and my rudder input wasn't resetting out the gyro's centre position, maybe it's 'centre' was say 180 degrees away from current heading, which it never got to, as I was not happy with the feel, so I just held it in a tail in hover for the whole pack.

Thanks,

Ant

I'm not sure why you haven't previously had problems but you do need to let an HH hold gyro know where centre is set for your neutral rudder input - if it recurs I'd suggest you carry out the heli in normal gyro mode after it has initialised or else flick quickly 3 times in and out of HH/normal mode - the display (if it is visible :) should show ****** then you know it is reset.

[AusAnt]

OK, thanks for that Mercuriel and Ticydytoc.

I was worried there was something mechanically wrong. I didn't realize I had to do that at initialization. Maybe I have just been lucky so far. I guess also the fact that I didn't have problems on my second battery indicates that is was my initialization error.:oops:

Thanks again,
Ant

[cptsnoopy]

Another thing to keep in mind is that you are probably flying in very cold weather. If your helicopter is warmer from being in the house and or a warmed up car then you need to set the helicopter outside for at least five to ten minutes to let the gyro get used to the cold temperature. If you start flying before that you may have the problems you describe.

[AusAnt]

OK cpt, I didn't know that either, so thanks for that. I did take it from the warm house/car as you suggest and flew it fairly quickly.

And btw yes it is pretty cold here (well not compared to up north or inland, but 1 or 2 degrees above freezing is pretty cold for Vancouver!)

Ant

[3secondsToImpact]

Should let it climatize for at least 15 mins if temp change is more then 5 degrees celcius.
I wish for a gyro that could be unplugged from a base, so i can just stick the gyro outside and not the whole bird.
And Remember keep them lipo's warm in cold temps.

[AusAnt]

Thanks 3seconds, sounds like there is lots for me to learn!

And I guess you really know about cold weather over there!!

Ant