Observer ready for another flight test

[WillJames]

Thanks to Alan and Everett, my Observer is almost ready to fly again. Flight #4 will hopefully be better than flight #3.

Hopefully very soon I can send up the camera.

Keep your great videos coming Craig!! We love to see them.

[iflybyu77]

what happened..

?

[WillJames]

I had a binding elevator servo that caused enough voltage drop on a long flight that reset my 601 nad forced an auto from about 50 feet. I hit pretty hard in soft ground and had a blade strike tipover. Only damage was spindle, bell mixer, pitch yoke, tail rotor axel and flybar. Not to bad. We dial indicated the main shaft nad tail output shaft and they were fine. One of those things.....

Whoops, forgot, some blade grip bearings. and bell mixer bearings.

[Greg Alderman]

I don't know Will why do you want to put a camera on? I sort of like the look of that "big" rock trapped onto the camera mount!

[WillJames]

Rock????


Oh you mean my stone of power. Helped effect that quick deceleration on the bad auto.

[iflybyu77]

truly one of the things I DREAD to try .. autos with equipment. I'm guessing I'll try the "dead weight" approach a few times.. Need to get used to autos with non-driven tail too.. scary! Guess I'll try some low-level ones then progress from there.. Have to get it back in the air first though..

[Christopher J]

Will,

You'll love that Observer when you get everything worked out. I just switched the one I fly for A.I. over to a 601 and got some tial bugs worked out. Painted the body Lime green and fluorescent yellow. Talk about visable. Took it up to about 80ft. in moderate wind. It handled well, got some nice shots of the area.

We'll have to trade pics some time.

As far as autos.........Chris says it will auto. He flies them and is behind the design so I'll take his word for it. The last one I tried felt like the heli had the glide slope of a brick. I'm thinking that perhaps with more room to fall to and keeping the blades speed up along with just the right timing it can be autoed. Now with the 4-6 extra lb of cam equipment........not willing to try that just yet.

[cbergen]

There is not a whole lot of room for error in autoing an Observer , however the new extended boom Observer with 800 mm V-Blades is easier in this respect.

Glad to hear you're getting some time on the bird, Chris. I was getting ready to have you send it back to me to figure it out :glasses2: !!

[Christopher J]

Believe me, I was getting ready to send it back too. I was really scratching my head.

Now I have a permanent bald spot and I feel stupid for not having realised what the problem was.

Anyway all is good now and I'm having fun with the ship, still fying my Vario ships though.

[WillJames]

Been doing any sliding touch and goes withte Wolf lately Chris?

[Christopher J]

All the time. I had practice with Heart of America Show Team a few weeks back and almost scraped the nose on the runway from flying too low. I managed to bump the stinger on the ground a few times too.

One of these days temping fate will catch up with me and I'll have to do some touch up painting......but until then the low fast fly bys will continue :glasses: