JimLerch
08-03-2008, 09:12 PM
Ok, this is fun. Stupid, overkill, and ear to ear grin kinda fun! :)
I was given a used and abused Audacity Pantera by a fellow heli pilot at our field. This poor bird had a an incredible amount of flight time on it, and was still flyable when I got it. Basically the previous owner felt he got his $250 out of it, and instead of rebuilding he just re-kitted and started fresh, which left me with a free airframe.
I tore the airframe down and really the only thing I found wrong with it was the obvious damage to the side frames, the tail boom, and a striped bolt on the flybar see-saw bearing . The landing gear was held on by zip ties from one too many unscheduled landings. The "damage" to the tail boom was interesting, it wasn't really damaged, but WORN OUT :D The boom support clamp was loose, looked like it had been loose for a really long time, and actually abraded the aluminum tube enough that my cheap self was concerned that it might actually break in half at the wear marks!
Anyway, got the heli cleaned up and put back together for the price of a side frame kit, tail boom, and the time spent to drill and tap the head / see-saw to accept a larger pivot bolt.
One the of things that got me interested in this bird is I had heard the manufacturer was working on a Big Block kit, so we could stuff 60 -91 sized motors in the 50 airframe. If anyone knows me, they would know I love doing just this kind of stupid over the top kinda stuff, needless to say, I was pretty excited about it.
After upgrading my Raptor 60 from a YS-80 to a YS-91-SR, I had this spare YS-80 laying about gathering dust, and once you go to a 91, I couldn't imagine putting the 80 back into a 90 class airframe. However, I can definitely imagine stuffing it into a 50 class airframe, especially one that has enough structure to handle the load, something the Pantera absolutely has in spades! :D
So, I got the upgrade kit from John, along with the 620 blades, and proceeded to assemble the heli and prep it for its maiden voyage. For the most part, everything went together fairly easy. We had one misstep regarding the front collet / nut assembly, which was compounded by my lack of experience assembling nitro helis, but once that issue was resolved, things went together quickly.
Now, to be honest, I wasn't "WOWED" on my maiden voyage with this airframe. However, Its more me, than the bird, because it flew fine. By this I mean,
I've only been flying Nitro for 6 months, and 450 class electrics for 9 months. Or in other words, I'm still a newbie...
In addition, I went from a Blade 400 to a Raptor 60 with a YS-80 in it. Then I found a deal on a used YS-91-SR I and made the upgrade to that motor about a month ago. Or in other words, I'm a newbie accustomed to flying birds way more capable than my skill set.
I have never flown a 50 (or 30) sized heli. I've never really had to be too worried about honest collective management skills. Actually, the only time I worry about having too much collective is when the Raptor is starting to go faster than I'm comfortable with :-) (joking kinda, but not really)
So, with that said, the Pantera with the YS-80, the 620 main blades, and the stock 8.7:1 gear ratio flew fine. It was completely un-boggable and very well behaved. It just wasn't insane, and getting the YS-80 to swing the head at 2000rpm meant going past the manufactures recommended useful rpm range. What the bird needed was a gear ratio swap, John (the manufacturer) hadn't released his pre-production prototypes yet, and I'm cursed by being impatient and creative, so I made my own gear set out of Thunder Tiger Parts :eek:
What I ended up with was a Raptor 30 86 tooth main gear (P/N AK0031)and a Raptor 60 11 tooth Pinion (P/N PV0192) The main gear was a direct fit, asides from some shims between the main gear and the one way hub. The pinion on the other hand needed a little work to make it fit. Fortunately the work can be done with an abrasive cutoff wheel in an angle grinder or a Dremel tool. So, this is something anyone can do. If your curious and have some time to kill, here is an HD video I put together showing how to do the mod yourself:
1445553
With the new 7.82:1 gear ratio, the Pantera is officially INSANE with the YS-80 dragging it around the sky like some kind of physics defying UFO. :D:D:D My head speeds are 1650, 1950, and 2100. I dialed in the stock head to have +16/-14 of collective pitch and +/- 9 degrees of Cyclic. Yea its too much, and its too much in a weird way with so much motor behind it.
I almost balled the heli up because I got into what I'm guessing is a high speed stall. I started off with a high speed pass down the runway, then went full positive collective into a HUGE loop, and made the error of holding the collective pitch all the way around. (in the back of my mind, I was trying to bog the disk).
I made it 7/8th of the way thru the loop, I had lost maybe 100 rpm on the rotor disk, and then it made this "sound". I was 30 feet off the deck, with a nose up attitude, had a forward speed of 30 or 40 mph, but I was still descending at a 45 degree angle towards the deck, and I had plenty of head speed and full collective and a about half back cyclic raising the nose. Honestly, It reminded me of this event:
paEY1lgO6lY
Anyway, I was able to recover, and all it took was to get my fat fingers off the cyclic and out of the collective a little, and suddenly it stopped "Making that noise" and "grabbed some air" and flew away like I meant to do it, which I did of course! (at least that's what I'd say if anyone asked!) :rolleyes:
So anyway, I pretty much in awe of this little over powered egg beater! Today was the first day I really got to ring it out, and I wanna say its faster than my Raptor 90, with the YS-91-SR, Hatori Pipe, and 710 Radix blades. Tomorrow I'll do some testing to see if my gut feeling is true or not.
In the mean time, here is a video shot by a fellow heli freak as I made a lame attempt at thrashing on the bird (yea, it does need to be leaned out some more, which honestly gets me a little spooky feeling! :D
1461100
WOW, that was fun, I can't wait till I get it completely dialed in!
I was given a used and abused Audacity Pantera by a fellow heli pilot at our field. This poor bird had a an incredible amount of flight time on it, and was still flyable when I got it. Basically the previous owner felt he got his $250 out of it, and instead of rebuilding he just re-kitted and started fresh, which left me with a free airframe.
I tore the airframe down and really the only thing I found wrong with it was the obvious damage to the side frames, the tail boom, and a striped bolt on the flybar see-saw bearing . The landing gear was held on by zip ties from one too many unscheduled landings. The "damage" to the tail boom was interesting, it wasn't really damaged, but WORN OUT :D The boom support clamp was loose, looked like it had been loose for a really long time, and actually abraded the aluminum tube enough that my cheap self was concerned that it might actually break in half at the wear marks!
Anyway, got the heli cleaned up and put back together for the price of a side frame kit, tail boom, and the time spent to drill and tap the head / see-saw to accept a larger pivot bolt.
One the of things that got me interested in this bird is I had heard the manufacturer was working on a Big Block kit, so we could stuff 60 -91 sized motors in the 50 airframe. If anyone knows me, they would know I love doing just this kind of stupid over the top kinda stuff, needless to say, I was pretty excited about it.
After upgrading my Raptor 60 from a YS-80 to a YS-91-SR, I had this spare YS-80 laying about gathering dust, and once you go to a 91, I couldn't imagine putting the 80 back into a 90 class airframe. However, I can definitely imagine stuffing it into a 50 class airframe, especially one that has enough structure to handle the load, something the Pantera absolutely has in spades! :D
So, I got the upgrade kit from John, along with the 620 blades, and proceeded to assemble the heli and prep it for its maiden voyage. For the most part, everything went together fairly easy. We had one misstep regarding the front collet / nut assembly, which was compounded by my lack of experience assembling nitro helis, but once that issue was resolved, things went together quickly.
Now, to be honest, I wasn't "WOWED" on my maiden voyage with this airframe. However, Its more me, than the bird, because it flew fine. By this I mean,
I've only been flying Nitro for 6 months, and 450 class electrics for 9 months. Or in other words, I'm still a newbie...
In addition, I went from a Blade 400 to a Raptor 60 with a YS-80 in it. Then I found a deal on a used YS-91-SR I and made the upgrade to that motor about a month ago. Or in other words, I'm a newbie accustomed to flying birds way more capable than my skill set.
I have never flown a 50 (or 30) sized heli. I've never really had to be too worried about honest collective management skills. Actually, the only time I worry about having too much collective is when the Raptor is starting to go faster than I'm comfortable with :-) (joking kinda, but not really)
So, with that said, the Pantera with the YS-80, the 620 main blades, and the stock 8.7:1 gear ratio flew fine. It was completely un-boggable and very well behaved. It just wasn't insane, and getting the YS-80 to swing the head at 2000rpm meant going past the manufactures recommended useful rpm range. What the bird needed was a gear ratio swap, John (the manufacturer) hadn't released his pre-production prototypes yet, and I'm cursed by being impatient and creative, so I made my own gear set out of Thunder Tiger Parts :eek:
What I ended up with was a Raptor 30 86 tooth main gear (P/N AK0031)and a Raptor 60 11 tooth Pinion (P/N PV0192) The main gear was a direct fit, asides from some shims between the main gear and the one way hub. The pinion on the other hand needed a little work to make it fit. Fortunately the work can be done with an abrasive cutoff wheel in an angle grinder or a Dremel tool. So, this is something anyone can do. If your curious and have some time to kill, here is an HD video I put together showing how to do the mod yourself:
1445553
With the new 7.82:1 gear ratio, the Pantera is officially INSANE with the YS-80 dragging it around the sky like some kind of physics defying UFO. :D:D:D My head speeds are 1650, 1950, and 2100. I dialed in the stock head to have +16/-14 of collective pitch and +/- 9 degrees of Cyclic. Yea its too much, and its too much in a weird way with so much motor behind it.
I almost balled the heli up because I got into what I'm guessing is a high speed stall. I started off with a high speed pass down the runway, then went full positive collective into a HUGE loop, and made the error of holding the collective pitch all the way around. (in the back of my mind, I was trying to bog the disk).
I made it 7/8th of the way thru the loop, I had lost maybe 100 rpm on the rotor disk, and then it made this "sound". I was 30 feet off the deck, with a nose up attitude, had a forward speed of 30 or 40 mph, but I was still descending at a 45 degree angle towards the deck, and I had plenty of head speed and full collective and a about half back cyclic raising the nose. Honestly, It reminded me of this event:
paEY1lgO6lY
Anyway, I was able to recover, and all it took was to get my fat fingers off the cyclic and out of the collective a little, and suddenly it stopped "Making that noise" and "grabbed some air" and flew away like I meant to do it, which I did of course! (at least that's what I'd say if anyone asked!) :rolleyes:
So anyway, I pretty much in awe of this little over powered egg beater! Today was the first day I really got to ring it out, and I wanna say its faster than my Raptor 90, with the YS-91-SR, Hatori Pipe, and 710 Radix blades. Tomorrow I'll do some testing to see if my gut feeling is true or not.
In the mean time, here is a video shot by a fellow heli freak as I made a lame attempt at thrashing on the bird (yea, it does need to be leaned out some more, which honestly gets me a little spooky feeling! :D
1461100
WOW, that was fun, I can't wait till I get it completely dialed in!