traing gear for 450 heli

[Jetskeeter]

hi, what would be a good carbon fiber rod diameter to make training gear for a 450 size heli?thanks

[philiusm]

I'm using 5mm diameter CF rod with ping pong balls on one end. These are fixed with a little screw and washer on the end of the rod so that there is nothing sticking out of the far side of the ping-pong ball to catch in the grass. (It was fun trying to drill a screw hole in the ends of the rod) The other end of the rods go into a shallow cone made out of CF with little CF tubes laminated into it to receive the rods.

This gives the training gear about a 10 degree slope downwards on each rod. The downward angle is better than the crossed sticks approach as it gives the training gear a good degree of flex. I can drop the heli onto a hard surface from about a metre and it will bounce. If you wanted the training gear more flexible you could drop to a 4mm diameter rod

Some one called Rick Rotorhead posted his training gear arrangement on one of the forums and I copied it but with a carbon fibre hub.

The hub's not too pretty but it works well and being CF it's light.

[Jetskeeter]

thanks philiusm for the tip. I tried the one one I had for my king2 and one of the rods broke using it on my CX450 so I know I need a thicker rod and I have a hub and ping pong balls. 5mm dia should be strong enough you say for a 450. I found an online vendor selling 1000mm lengths of different sizes. I think I best use the training gear as this is a new build and I haven't got it trimmed out properly yet. Followed all the finless videos and the swash was level and the cg was good but on initial spoolup it immmediately wanted to dive to the left . I need to protect the blades until I get it trimmed so it lifts off and hovers in one spot before I transition to ff. I'll order some 5mm rods.

[philiusm]

I had a bit more time today and I took 3 pictures of my crappy attempts at carbon fiber laminating. It isn't pretty but it's tough and light.

[shaggybirdman]

i take it you layed up the center piece yourself?

[philiusm]

I'm ashamed to admit it, but yes.

I found that the carbon fiber mat that I had to hand was very springy and wouldn't stick down too well and mould to the shape I wanted. I think it was a bit thick.

It's survived about 6 months and is due to be retired shortly as soon as I've had a few more flights to convine myself that I'm ready.

[shaggybirdman]

why? it did it's job as expected. nothing wrong with that. it also doesen't look bad, and if someone thinks it does tell them to make you one that WORKS as good, and looks better. kudos to you :thumbup: