Finally was able to complete my build and take the bird out for a maiden flight.



Here were the final steps:

• Set the head up with norm pitch curve between -3 degrees and +11 degrees [37, 43.5, 50, 75, 100] and a throttle curve of [0, 65, 80, 90, 100]
• Charged three of five 6s2600 batteries.
• Checked main blades for balance (they were balanced out of the box).

The maiden flights went well as I was able to take both my 450 and 500 to the local field over the weekend....

I am entering the final stretch with my 500 build and am getting anxious to see this thing fly. The one thing I wan't really expecting was how heavy this thing is! With the battery, motor, and electronics installed you can tell this is a substantial bird.


Anyway, I was able to spent a couple of hours on the build Sunday evening and accomplished the following (the rest of the weekend was spent golfing and on honey-do's):

• Mounted the motor and attached the RevCo 12T pinion.
• Cleaned

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This weekend I was able to make some progress once again on my build. I really got sidetracked with all of the sleeving on the servo wiring. I even ended up putting braiding on the satellite RX!


On Saturday and Sunday I was able to accomplish the following:

• Added braiding to all cabling except the main power cables.
• Cut down the gyro cabling to 4-5 inches, added braiding, and repinned connectors.
• Mounted the RX and Gyro to my rdlohr tray using Zeal tape.
• Mounted

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Today I was able to work on my 500 for a couple of hours. Golf season has really hit full speed and with 2-3 rounds of golf eating up 10-15 hours a week I am finding it harder and harder to complete the build. I will admit that I am a little torn as I play golf I tend to think of the heli...

Anyway, today I was able to accomplish the following:

• Determined the final location for all of the electronics (RX, Gyro, ESC, Lipo alarm, buzzer, Eagletree V3, Eagletree LCD display panel,

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My 500 build is taking longer than I expected due to the high number of "honey do" projects I have going on. I remember reading a post by Rick Lohr where he talks about how his was delayed in part because of some house painting. My distractions are similar; Tint the house windows, build a water feature for our back yard, paint the trim on the house, etc.

However, I was able to carve out some time yesterday to assemble the tail, lube the belt, and get organized for the next...