My First Real Flight Impressions With The 500

[rupps5]

I just got done with my first real flight at the park with the 500.

I flew 5 minutes of flight with 2 3s evolight 2500 and a 12 tooth pinion with a 95% flat throttle curve. I am going to switch to a 13 tooth soon, but the 12 tooth is fine for messing around now.

This is all compared to my 450v2:

-the 500 is slower cyclically
-the 500 can be flown farther away without loosing orientation
-the 500 is generally more stable and is noticeable less affected by wind
-the 500 is easier to hover inverted
-the 500 is way easier to auto
-the 500 lands more smoothly

I am sure I will think of some more things to add to the list, but overall I like it a lot.

[Iwreckhelis]

I had an issue with sloooooowww cyclic but I found out it was with the swash settings, which should be much higher than on a 450. Now the cyclic is the same, if not faster than the 450.

[dieselracer]

my cyclic response is the same as my 450. But the roll rate is slower. I had the Helimax axe cp paddles on my 450 tho (fastest paddle for 450), I am running the lighter colored paddles ont he 500. and i have my Elev at 100 and my Aile at 90 in my Dx7's swash menu.

[etrex]

Deiselracer, I noticed this too. on my 450 the aileron and elevator match up pretty closely, but on my 500 the rolls are much slower than the flips with my swash values set to the same number..

[dieselracer]

well my 500 rolls faster then a stock 450
But slow for the set up i had in my 450. Buy the lighter paddles. the colored ones. and max out your swash. right before the flybar cage hits the bottom of the blade grip.

[etrex]

right now my swash is only at 67 for ail and elev. so Ive got room to go up it just seemed weird that the roll rate seems slightly slower than elevator.. at these numbers it will do stationary flips in a circle not much bigger than the heli. but the rolls are larger. Is it common to have different numbers in your swash menu for elev. and ail.?

[dieselracer]

right now my swash is only at 67 for ail and elev. so Ive got room to go up it just seemed weird that the roll rate seems slightly slower than elevator.. at these numbers it will do stationary flips in a circle not much bigger than the heli. but the rolls are larger. Is it common to have different numbers in your swash menu for elev. and ail.?
I did on mine. more elev then aile I just made sure there was the same distance between the blade grip and the fly bar cage in both direction. ALI and Elev

[whaleboy]

I had an issue with sloooooowww cyclic but I found out it was with the swash settings, which should be much higher than on a 450. Now the cyclic is the same, if not faster than the 450.

Ditto. I had mine set up to the same 6 degrees as my 450, but it was downright sluggish and not very easy to control. I bumped it up to around 8 degrees, and its much better... I even had to put in a bit of expo (which I didn't have earlier) to keep it from being too twitchy.

-David

[Iwreckhelis]

Yeah, for a whiile there my 500 felt like flying a brick with rotors and I HATED the thing but it really livened up with a little bump in the swash settings.

[rupps5]

I think I have the 500 set up with 7 deg for ail and pitch with 0 expo with a 12 tooth set at 95% throttle. I am going to tach it this weekend and give it more ail and pitch. A switch to a 13 tooth would be nice but I like longer run time.

My 450v2 is set up with 2800 rpm gov mode with no weights CF paddles 7deg ail and pitch with 30% expo on both.

Since the 500 is a bigger copter I was not expecting it to be as agile as the 450, but we will see after I start fine tuning it how aggressive it can be.

[psindrup]

A switch to a 13 tooth would be nice but I like longer run time.

Why not start with a 100% throttle curve. It is supposed to be more "fuel efficient".

Peter

[rupps5]

Why not start with a 100% throttle curve. It is supposed to be more "fuel efficient".

Peter

When I flew my 450 with fixed endpoints I felt that it flew better with 95% flat so I thought that it might hold true for the 500. 95% is just how I set the 500 up to start off, I hope to get about 10 flights in this weekend and I will start to adjust it and see what works best for me.

[LoveMyTrex]

are the colored paddles lighter? I would like lighter paddles but would rather not have colored ones.

[dieselracer]

are the colored paddles lighter? I would like lighter paddles but would rather not have colored ones.
Te colored paddles are around a gram lighter each. I am also running 100 Elev and 90 aile in the swash menu,

[rupps5]

I will have to pick up some of those paddles.

On another note I got 2 flights in at the park today. The only thing I changed was the expo on the rudder from 10% to 20% and I think it was slightly too much. So for my next flight I am going to try 15% on rudder, all the other channels are set to linear expo.

Man I really like this copter, it is so smooth. Just very pleasant to fly. This may sound weird but it feels like I am flying the 500 where as I am trying to keep up with the 450v2.

I still need to dial in more cyclic and give it some more head speed but one change at a time.

Maybe I can get someone to shoot some video this weekend too.

[JeepCJ]

I installed the yellow paddles, and took 20mm of a 400mm flybar from a 600, and the cyclic was much quicker, just as stable, great tracking, and no bogging.


Bob

[rupps5]

took 20mm of a 400mm flybar from a 600

Please explain.

I have four packs charged up for flying, too bad I am getting my taxes for the next 3 hours :(

[JeepCJ]

that should have been 20mm "off" a 400mm flybar. I just cut 10mm off each end, and threaded the paddles on the same distance as they were on the stock flybar Someone else had the idea first. It works very nice.

Bob

[rupps5]

Got 4 more flights in with the 500 today, everything is all good. I took the rudder expo back down to 10% and I am going to keep it there. I also tried a 13 tooth pinion and set the rpm to 2680 rpm which turned out to be 90% flat throttle curve. I like the way it flew but for my flying the bigger pinion is not needed so I am going to put the 12 tooth back on with a 100% flat curve.

I want to get some more flights in on Sunday, so lets hope its dry.

[rupps5]

Got 3 flights in today with the 500. I decided to fly the 450v2 too so I could not get the 4th flight in with the 500. I switched the 500 back to the 12 tooth pinion with a 100% flat curve. I did not tach it though so I don't know how many rpms it had. The 13 tooth did not fit the motor shaft well anyway, it would not slide down far enough (its tapered inside). Just did some more normal flight with some flips, 8s, rolls, inverted hover, and loops. The thing just flies so nice and it is great to practice inverted hover with. One of my friends took some pics with his new camera so I hope to get some copies to post up later today.

One change I did to the copter was to make the canopy holes larger using a rotary tool. I elongated the holes in the downward direction so that the canopy would sit higher up. Then I put some Raptor grommets in the holes. Now there is slightly more room for my bats and the canopy does not fight as tightly.

[rupps5]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v443/Sco0terzsl/Flying%203.16.08/IMG_4110copy.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v443/Sco0terzsl/Flying%203.16.08/IMG_4073copy.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v443/Sco0terzsl/Flying%203.16.08/IMG_4069copy.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v443/Sco0terzsl/Flying%203.16.08/IMG_4068copy.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v443/Sco0terzsl/Flying%203.16.08/IMG_4104copy.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v443/Sco0terzsl/Flying%203.16.08/IMG_4103copy.jpg

One of my friends took these today, here is the rest of his site Scotts Site (http://www.thetoj.com/toj/files/Scotts%20Website/Site/Welcome.html)

[mk1spitfire]

nice clear shots