The Stupid Things We Do

[lperagallo]

OK, so it's the best weather we've had in months, so out I go with my buddies. Take the Gasser for a spin and after a slight adjustment to richen the high needle a hair it flies great. Especially after Ifixing the elevator control yoke a few days ago:clappp

Next, let's take the turbine for a whirl! I didn't get my new packs from Duralite yet, so I make sure that I check the voltage before the flight. It checks out great. I go ahead and put the propane in and the solenoid is leaking again:bomb: It's dumping propane directly into the combustion chamber. Well, let's start it up anyway, it might start. I turn on the radio, do a range check everything looks good. I start the spool up sequence and after two tries it catches. I let it run a minute to make sure there is no air in the fuel lines and it's purring like a kitten. So I run the trim up for high idle, blades start to spool up a bit, and BANG! Heli does a roll over:mad: I have no aileron control! I shut down the turbine and let it cool down. I look at the broken boom, broken tail blades, bent spindle, etc.

I put it on the table, pull the canopy and turn on the radio. The aileron servo is dead. Nothing, no buzz, no hold, no nothing!. So I think the servo went bad. Then I pull the Velcro off the top of the RX and BINGO, Aileron servo lead hanging out. Apparently when I put the battery back in under the radio tray I must have pulled the servo lead out. I never noticed during my range check or when I checked "all" the controls.

Moral to the story......Make sure you check every control surface before you power up the power plant. I thought I did, but I obviously missed the aileron not moving.

Good news is that after I checked everything the only additional parts it needed was the tail pitch control arm and a new main shaft. I guess stocking up on parts pays off. It's back together again, I blew the propane solenoid in reverse and it seems to be holding. We'll try again tomorrow:clappp

[ShawnK]

I've been there, Lou, and I think I did one better.

I had a bird once that had Airtronics servos on cyclic. For reasons I can't remember now, I had to switch the aileron servo for a test period, so I switched it with a Futaba sero of similar spec (it was what I had at the time). Range checked, confirmed that both elevator and roll cyclic were working, made sure the gyro was initialized, and took off.

Heli started moving a little to the right, I feel in left aileron... then it's really moving to the right, so I add more left aileron... *WHAM*. Down it went.

The moral of the story? Don't just make sure THAT your servos are working... make sure they're working in the correct direction. Futaba servos apparantly rotate the opposite direction as Airtronics servos. Had I been paying attention, a simple flip of the servo reverse switch would have saved my butt.

[rbort]

My experience tells me something does not compute. If the aileron servo is centered and you unplug it I don't see it rolling full left or right to roll your bird into the ground/boom strike -- you would just have no aileron control as you try to roll it.... The only time I've seen that happen is when a link pops off that supports the swashplate and the that side will drop and make like an aileron move.

I could be totally wrong but that's been my experience with my gassers. On the outside note that I'm right, I would just make sure the aileron servo is really good and not ready to screw you again. Maybe the aileron wasn't centered to being with and it just leaned on the spoolup and you couldn't correct it - that could make sense.

Sounds like some technical difficulties with the turbine eh, I was a little scared at first reading you post that the turbine was going to blow or something from that leak! I would fix that for sure as you don't want risk damage to your $3000 turbine...

Sorry to hear about the mishap and I'm sure you'll be flying again in no time. :)

-=>Raja.

[JC]

My experience tells me something does not compute. If the aileron servo is centered and you unplug it I don't see it rolling full left or right to roll your bird into the ground/boom strike -- you would just have no aileron control as you try to roll it.... The only time I've seen that happen is when a link pops off that supports the swashplate and the that side will drop and make like an aileron move.

I could be totally wrong but that's been my experience with my gassers. On the outside note that I'm right, I would just make sure the aileron servo is really good and not ready to screw you again. Maybe the aileron wasn't centered to being with and it just leaned on the spoolup and you couldn't correct it - that could make sense.

Sounds like some technical difficulties with the turbine eh, I was a little scared at first reading you post that the turbine was going to blow or something from that leak! I would fix that for sure as you don't want risk damage to your $3000 turbine...

Sorry to hear about the mishap and I'm sure you'll be flying again in no time. :)

-=>Raja.If your referring to Lou's post, he DID break a long link but we assumed it was from the slamo into the ground (the blades were spun up pretty good).
Maybe there were two problems?

Anyway...he had it repaired and in the air the next day. :thumbup:

[cbergen]

The only time I've seen that happen is when a link pops off that supports the swashplate and the that side will drop and make like an aileron move

Luckily that CANNOT happen when you have a true push pull system like ours. Only a CCPM or a "fake" push pull system can do that.

Try it on the Twin Raja. Pop off one of the aileron links, hell pop all of them off on one side. you WILL still have total control.

Propane being a "dirty" gas, sometimes a little "dirt" can get caught in the solenoid, holding it open. Hooking the propane bottle up on the backside and giving it a squirt can sometimes free it. A drop of lubrication occasionaly can help also. When it is leaking as Lou described, all that happens is that the entire contents of the white canister empty into the combustion chamber where it is burned off during runup... IIRC the Jetcat even gives you the OPTION of doing this normally.

[lperagallo]

Raja,

The link was fine until the mishap. The aileron was probably tilted to one side due to weight when the blades started up. When I had it on the bench with the blades extended if they are not straight they tend to go off to one side. I flew the next day with the same servo plugged in and all is well. I have pretty good Futaba servos and I'm 99% sure it was all caused because it wasn't powered up.

On the propane front, I did blow it out backwards. It seems to hold fine now, but that was only for one filling. I'll see what happens once I get the turbine back up and running after the battery fiasco.

I wasn't worried about it blowing up, I was worried that I couldn't get enough propane and air mixed correctly for it to light up. It did take a couple of tries before it lit up.

Sunday with the solenoid working, it fired up first try.

Lou

[rbort]

Try it on the Twin Raja. Pop off one of the aileron links, hell pop all of them off on one side. you WILL still have total control.

I was talking about the single link that goes to the swashplate after all the doubled up hardware. If that pops off then the swash will drop to that side as its not supported by the link. Am I missing something here as I'm not sure what you mean by the quote above.

In any case its not a big deal anyways, I was just trying to help. I feel bad now that I mentioned something about links and in another post Lou's link actually did pop off and cause a crash. I feel like the jinxed them...sorry Lou!!

-=>Raja.

[cbergen]

Look at the Twin, pop off one side aileron link, from the bellcrank to the swashplate. It will NOT drop to that side. Try it!!

:))

[rbort]

I know exactly what you mean Chris, its because of the ladders that support the swash for the elevator. Sorry my bad... Not the case with other machines like my ccpm Spectra - ask me how I know that!

-=>Raja.