Got my old Raptor MD500 60/90 out... need Advise with some long awaited upgrades.

[cswann821]

Hi everyone,

I recently got my raptor 60 out of storage. She's been sitting for about 2 or 3 seasons and I'm flying her again and loving it!
Anyway I was hoping you could give me some suggestions ...point me to some material that will help educate myself on the following questions. I don't know many Heli fliers in my area that I can get advice from. This is just a weekend summer hobby for me so I am by far not a RC Heli Master. I just like flying around doing figure eights and such..anything else scares me. lol Maybe this year.,.. Ill do a roll or loop with my heli.

First . She is a Raptor 60 with the Hues MD500 fiberglass kit on it. So she has a 90size tail boom/ build. She weighs about 13lbs and I think I have her at about 1400 head speed. This keeps vibrations in the fiberglass body down.

1) It was suggested to me some time ago, that putting Flybar weights would help a bird this Size be more stable and smooth. She does shutter a little in a hover, or maybe I should say you can see the that through the fuselage jerking how responsive she is to control inputs. Can someone explain what Flybar weights are? What they do? and how to pick them for the size heli, install?

2) I always wanted to go flybarless... How would this effect flight? If I went flybarless..I couldn't get weights ...so what mechanisms does it have for stability? Witch conversion kits would be easiest to install and fit well with this body?

3) NOW that Heliproz shut down , where is everyone buying their Raptor Parts....where can I get fly bar weights to fit now?
Thanks!

[cswann821]

Reading ....some...maybe I won't go fkybarless

[MrBrink]

I have a raptor 60 that I'm working on getting into the air. I've been having issues with getting parts for it but managed to track some down.

Based off of what I've read here and have seen from Thunder Tiger I don't think I'll convert mine to FBL. One major concern for me is the parts issue. I don't know if the parts are still available for this conversion and if they are, what is the availability if I crash?

This bird is pretty much just going to be a sport flyer and slow maneuvers as I don't want to be committed to a psychiatric hospital for a nervous breakdown after trying to locate parts

I've tried to get parts through the new distributor with no luck and it seems that TT has hung all of their customers out to dry even with newer models than ours. I'll check back on this thread to see if you've managed to find anything out. Good luck and God Speed.

[ticedoff8]

Dude, you are flying a helicopter that was "new" in 2000.
How can you expect anyone to keep an inventory of spare parts for a 15 year old design.

Having said that, there are still a lot of parts out there, if you are willing to dig around.

I converted mine to FBL using the Align head - I had two 90 SE/3D that I converted.
I didn't like it.
I was always worried about blowing up the heli and not being able to get spare parts.
Plus, there were a lot of basic design problems - keeping in mind that this was a pioneer in 2000 and everyone else used it as a lesson in building a more durable helicopter

They fly best with the old Align flybar head instead of the TT R90 SE/3D flybar head.
The TT flybar head is beautiful, but it does not have the range of cyclic that is needed to get it to "pop" like the Align head.
The main difference is that the TT flybar is above the blades while the Align's flybar is below. Align eliminates the weird hoops that connect the swash to the flybar teeter-totter

The reason you have flybar weights if to slow down the cyclic response.
The added weights allow you to "tune" the cyclic response of the head by moving the weights around on the flybar. The farther out on the flybar they are (closed to the paddles), the more stable the head will be (slower).
This is related to the paddles too. Bigger paddles will make the cyclic quicker

IMHO: 1400 RPM head speed is too slow, even for a scale fuse.