Anyone still flying the 3DNT?

[duc996bp]

Flew this baby today, 12 years on and still puts a smile on my face, headspeed of 1300 and 14 mins on a tank of 0%. Just doing big air loops and rolls but still good fun.

[flyfishsick]

i wish they still made this but in FBL!!!! With the lack of nitro air frames to choose from nowadays i bet they would sell

[duc996bp]

Yes agree, a FBL upgrade would be very nice.

[jiminator]

Nice to see that beautiful ship in the air.

[HilliHeli]

Very Cool

IIRC there was a fbl conversion for your fb'd head at one point and I believe that the older MiniCopter conversion was very-close ;

[duc996bp]

Ahh ok, interesting. I have been meaning to email Jan but didn't want to bother him!

[duc996bp]

Ahh ok, interesting. I have been meaning to email Jan but didn't want to bother him!

[cudaboy_71]

jan made his own FBL converstion head that worked fine on the NT. It was for the MP but, with a few geometry changes it works great.

I had to retire my airframe though..can't get parts--can't afford to fly it.

I ran it at 1900 with 690s on it and it would 3D pretty good for a 13 year old heli...couldn't really smack it. It would load the head up and stay at about 1650 RPM through everything you could throw at it.

here's one of its last flights before I shelved it.

[duc996bp]

Nice one! I remember you puting posts up when you were converting it.
Shame about the parts, there are some for sale on ebay UK, not cheap though.

I have a brand new C-Spec with the correct crank, it will make it LH rotation, have all the bits to convert it too. One day when I get the time I might have a change. For now though I take it out and just do gentle big loops and rolls.

Noticed you live in Sacramento, I went there about 10 years ago, was on a training course in Roseville, Hewlett Packard. I remeber going to a Restaurant overlooking the river, in the old part of town, very nice.

[cudaboy_71]

ya, it had an "incident" when I retired it. Rear bearing is shot and vibes freaked out the vbar. Really only needs $50 or so worth of parts to get back in the air. But, from 3 different sources and international shipping it ends up being closer to $150.

And, then what? Risk it again? It's just a cool piece hanging on my wall at this point. Shame really...it is a lot of fun to fly.

[HilliHeli]

Mighty-quiet lately

[mkovalcson]

Originally Posted by HilliHeli

Mighty-quiet lately

No new kits have been delivered in a year and a half.

Unless people are buying used TDR's and have questions, it's just people talking about helis that they are comfortable with and have been enjoying for a while.

[HilliHeli]

Thanks for the post,
I have to apologize for kind-of thread-jacking duc's original post.

fwiw I hope duc continues to enjoy his 3DNT in Flybar'd form

[quark333]

Hi guys,

I just looked in my shed the other day and saw my beautiful 3DNT - man, what a heli that still is - sleek, fast, just standing there.

Here's my conundrum.
It's all setup with flybar for my old Futaba 9Z WC2. I haven't fired up either the radio nor the 3DNT in over 5 years. The question begs itself - is it worth keeping as is (but that means also maintaining batteries for my 9Z and all) or convert to FBL and be able to use my VBar Control?
cudaboy - I know we emailed many years ago on how to do this but I never got around to it - nor visit you. Maybe we need to try this again in the new year!

Decisions, decisions ;-)

Let's hear it for this beautiful heli - it deserves to be flown - but yes, it looks nice enough on the wall that I don't want to risk any, uhm, mishaps either...



Oliver

[thuvanduc]

My 3DNT has been collecting dust in the last 6 years or longer. I could not convert the drive system to accept the standard OS engine.

May be one of these day I will buy a lathe and machine a cluth system for the lastest OS engine

[HilliHeli]

or convert to FBL and be able to use my VBar Control?

The 3DNT has to be one of the best with a Flybar, however if you decide to change to a fbl main-rotor head set-up you may want to try to find one of the RJX brand fbl heads for this (they were available in both 10 / 12mm).
IIRC you will need to make new linkage-rods to do this (not a big problem),
http://www.fblrotors.com/
There are a few companies making the adj. type linkages or maybe Mikado's are close to lengths needed (L600 (?))
There are a few other brands of fbl heads that will work for doing this (I'm thinking Align (but you may want to machine the "ALIGN" brand OFF the pieces !! (or not)).

I do know that you could also consider going with the MiniCopter DiaBOLO fbl head assembly as it is probably the closest to the Henseleit conversion-kit or the Henseleit fbl head for this application.
I believe that a TDR-1 fbl head assembly would be a perfect-fit too

Really, really hard to find one-of the Hense' conversions but you may also look at making the pieces to convert the Flybar'd head to fbl.
I have a pic. of this (in the MiniCopter-version) in my earlier post above.

[cudaboy_71]

Mine was flying great until vibrations got the vbar a couple of years ago. It just rolled hard right and dropped from the sky.

Needs about $350 to hodge podge it in the air—$700 to do it right.

If I could get an OS 105 in there I might consider it. But I’m skeptical about the tuning limits of the hatori 700 on that motor. That’s a lot of money on a sketchy gamble. Maybe if I bump in to a few $1000 spare hobby capital I might give it a go.

[quark333]

Thanks HilliHeli,
Ha, funny, I had contacted minicopter and Gerd also told me the Diabolo head would work - with a slightly differently drilled hole in the main shaft. TDR-1 is probably also hard to find - but that's another good avenue to go down.

Thanks for the tip re RJX - I've used them in the past for other FBL conversions, so I know they're solid.

I wish I had bought the FBL conversion kit - I was thinking about it way back but then just didn't do it for one reason or another.

cudaboy - outch, that's a hefty price tag to pay. Yes, the 105 is probably too big for the 700. I'm running a 970 on my Webra 91 but they don't make that pipe anymore. It's shorter than the 700 and fatter, so it gives more torque. The 900 is way too big - it could fit the 3DNT since it would just hang out the tail more but might also produce a more difficult CG to deal with.

Thanks guys - good to have this knowledge to share about a still fabulous and (almost) timeless heli. For those that have on in the US, that's hard core (I'm German but have lived in the US for a long time - but my heritage was what brought me to the 3DNT in the first place).

Oliver

[HilliHeli]

I had contacted minicopter and Gerd also told me the Diabolo head would work - with a slightly differently drilled hole in the main shaft.

I wonder if this is because you are going to try to use the stock 3DNT servo linkages (?)
RJX would be best solution as I believe they are very affordable and would only need linkages to complete the conversion or, if you can somehow machine the pieces that I have shown of the MiniCopter flybar'd-to-fbl head conversion (which is IIRC nearly the same as the Hense' conversion was) would to me be best (remember it is the second pic. in my post above).

[quark333]

HilliHeli - thanks for the reminder re RJX and the pic you had posted earlier in this thread - that sounds like the most economical solution at this point. I'll look into that.

Re the linkage length - not sure why Gerd suggested to drill a different hole in the main shaft - you're right, if I change the length of the linkages, I shouldn't have to change the hole.

Oliver