I had an issue yesterday at the field. Heli was making a strange noise. The general consensus was that the rear bearing needed to be replaced. I have a little over a year’s worth of flying on this engine, so it really is time to replace the rear bearing. Today I started disassembling the engine and found that everything within looks like new and had a nice coating of oil over everything. The bearing is fine, but I’m going to replace it anyways.

What’s interesting though is that during removal of the engine I found some bolts were missing. 2 that hold the engine to the engine mount and 1 from the clutch. So now I’m thinking that the noise I heard was rattling due to the missing bolts. Upon inspection the clutch wasn’t damaged but the missing bolt was no where to be found. Surely it couldn’t just fall out, but it appears that’s what happened.

I don’t know if replacing the bearing will make a difference in performance but I’ll keep you posted as to the outcome and try to post some pictures shortly of the engine.

Pictures posted. I know the quality isn’t that good, they were taken with my cell phone.

Today was a great day for flying. I had about 4 flights and each one was better than the last. We also had a guest today, Bert Kammerer. He put on some awesome flights. Also, Matt Botos who is a regular at the CCRC field.

I tried out the new Mavrick G5 Wide Chord blades from Heliproz today. They’re much better than the G4 blades. I switched blades initially because the G4 blades didn’t seem to stop the heli when doing a tail slide, then I turned the heli over (radio hit I think) and just snapped one of the G4 blades. So, the new G5 blades seem to stop the heli when doing a tail slide, much better I think.

So, all in all a great day of flying. See you at the field.

OK, so I haven’t really blogged in a while about RC Helicopters I was made aware that people do in fact look at my site. So, I guess it’s time to pay a little more attention to it. How about a year in review?

• This year has been so so eventful, we of course had our Smackdown of the South fun fly at CCRC which we had about 20 pilots and a great time.  Even had some night flying go on. I was informed that this year we were going to try and get it included in the AMA magazine for a little more visibility and hopefully some sponsors.
• Upgrades to the heli included only a regulated power system. I’m using a Flight Power 2S1P setup with an Align BEC and voltage step down. I put the step down going into the receiver as per Futaba the S9252 servos do not support 6 volts. Now some people run their S9252 servos at 6 volts and say they work fine, but with the budget the way it is why risk a failure and it being a month or more to get it repaired? Not to mention the servo would not be covered under warranty for this sort of failure.
• I had my first crash this year learning to hover inverted. It was a minor crash and a deluxe crash kit from HeliProz fixed it. I haven’t really progressed that much on inverted hovering.
• I got rid of the white paddles and went with a set of red paddles. Haven’t had a chance to fly them yet.
• I haven’t progressed a whole lot with my flying. I’ve started doing loops, rolls and attempting inverted hovering. If I can flip the heli over without it getting all wonky (that’s a technical term ) I can keep it inverted for quite a while, however it seems the problem is flipping the heli over.

So, as you can see, not a very eventful year. I’ll try and keep this website a little more updated through the year this year. Until next time….

Keith

Here are some pics of my Raptor 50 Titan. I’ve flown about 5 tanks through it and it is a joy to fly. A lot of power and it’s very responsive.

• Raptor 50 Right side
• Left Side Raptor Titan
• Raptor 50 Canopy Right Side
• Raptor 50 Canopy Left Side

A lot has happened since my last post way back in August. I’ve since added quite a few upgrades to the ole Venture. Some good, some I really don’t know if it helped or not and some, well I guess I did just for the heck of it.

• First off, I was getting hits on my FM radio at the club on channel 25, I wasn’t the only one experiencing this, as a matter of fact a couple of planes went down because of the interference. So, I switched to a Futaba 9CHP Transmitter and R149DP PCM receiver. This seems to have gotten rid of the glitching.
• Then the fun fly which happened at my club, “Smackdown of the South – Heli vs Dirt“. I blew up my Webra at this event, the skirt on the piston broke off in flight. I don’t know what caused the failure but it did not result in a crash which was a good thing. This prompted the purchase of an O.S. .37 szh engine. I must say this engine is a real power house and really provided a lot more performance. I no longer have the headspeed issue I was having with the Webra, as a matter of fact I had to tone it down a little bit with the throttle curve. I purchased the engine from a local guy off RunRyder and in the deal got a metal head. I don’t know what kind of head it is, but I did notice a difference in performance. Also in this deal I got a fiberglass canopy and general concensus seems to agree it’s an old X-Cell canopy (I know, huge on a 30) so I got rid of the ugly painted canopy.
• Next was the Fall Fest Heli Funfly in Sulphur, Louisiana at Larks field. This was an awesome funfly and I purchased a complete Venture 50 minus engine and electronics. This purchase included a metal swash plate which I fitted to the Venture 30. This made a so-so improvement. I was having issues with the tail blowing out and starting to wag violently so it may have made a difference but I was so concerned with the tail wag that I didn’t notice. I also fitted the 50 boom and tail blades in the hopes of stablizing the tail some, but to no avail.
• I purchased a Futaba GY 401 w/9254 servo for the venture and fitted it and all I can say is WOW, what a difference. I was using the JR G500T Gyro with DS811 Servo on the tail. The 401/9254 combo made the tail MUCH more stable and predictable, made the machine much more enjoyable to fly. This was the best $100 I could have ever spent on this heli.

That’s about all the upgrades I’ve made to the heli. I’ve since purchased a Raptor 50 Titan. I don’t have it completed yet as I’m waiting on a few more parts, mainly a Gyro and then I’ll get it in the air. My daughter has started showing interest in the heli and I think she wants to give it a try, so, I think we’re gonna give her the Venture to learn on as it’s a great learning machine. Not to mention that it’s a way to spend time with her, which is always a plus.

Today was a great day of flying. I was flying with Matt Botos today, great guy by the way. I was having issues with the head speed on my Venture 30 being too slow. Well Matt got a hold of it and corrected my issues by fixing the pitch on the blades, basically the engine couldn’t keep up with the pitch, so with adjusting some of the head linkages this was corrected. He also setup my idle up, not for 3d or anything but I now have a linear pitch curve with idle up being almost a straight line, 100 90 85 90 100. This greatly improved the responsiveness of the heli and made flying it much more enjoyable. Also, with the linear pitch curve (-8 to +11) the heli now comes down a lot easier.

Overall, a great day. I learned more today than I have since I started the hobby. I’m really looking forward to my next day of flying, I don’t know when that’ll be, but I’m still looking forward to it.

I’ve painted the canopy on my Venture 30. The process I used is detailed below. While that process probably isn’t the best or most efficient I think it turned out just OK. This was my first time painting a heli canopy so I guess not bad for my first attempt. I’m sure this paint job won’t last and will have to be done again at some point in time and I will try a different preparation. But, in the mean time, doing my research for this I did come up with some useful tips for painting these “Bleach Bottle” type canopies.

• Canopy FX
• Arizona Heli

Hopefully the paints, preps and clear coat I chose will work. I just couldn’t stand the plain white color with the JR decals anymore. Bummer I don’t have anymore “JR Heli Division” stickers to put back on it. But the items I chose are:

• Krylon Fusion White
• Pactra #RC264 Metallic Red
• Pactra #RC265 Metallic Blue
• Pactra #RC279 Flourescent Yellow
• Testors #1629 Red Metal Flake
• Automotive clear coat
• Parma PSE Outlined Flame Design Paint Mask

The steps I took to paint are:

• Remove all the decals that were currently on the heli
• Wash the canopy with dish soap to remove any fuel residue that may be left behind
• Sand the canopy throughly with 600 grit sandpaper. It should have a dull finish when you’re done.
• Spray 3 coats of Krylon Fusion white with very light wet sanding in between each coat with 600 grit sandpaper. This greatly improved the smoothness of the canopy.
• Spray 3 coats of Yellow
• Spray a spackling of the Testors #1629 Red Metal Flake. I taped off the area where the flames are and just spattered the canopy with this color. In hind sight, I wouldn’t tape it off. Go ahead and make this area larger than needed that way you don’t have the problem of not getting full coverage.
• Tape the canopy off, I used 3M painters masking tape
• Apply chosen paint mask (use the transfer tape!)
• Spray 3 coats of the metallic blue on the top part of the canopy
• Let dry for 2 hours
• Remove Tape
• Let dry for 24 hours
• Tape/Cover top of heli
• Spray 3 coats of metallic red on the bottom part of the canopy
• Let dry 2 hours
• Remove Tape
• Let Dry 48 Hours
• Remove the paint mask. Use of a new xacto blade is recommended.
• Add any decals you may like
• Spray as many coats of automotive clear coat as you like. Allow each coat to dry and very lightly wet sand with 1000 grit sandpaper. I personally didn’t sand each coat, but I imagine it will make the finish that much shinier.
• Let dry 24 hours

Here’s the finished product. Sorry I didn’t take pics of the process. I know, it’s kinda cheesy and not that professional looking, but like I said above, it is my first attempt at painting. The next time I will probably use an air brush to do the painting and any detail work.

Now, the next time I have to paint my canopy I will use the Rubber Bumper flexible automotive primer instead of the krylon as I ended up with a few spots where the paint pulled away from the body. It was probably due to my over-anxiousness with the xacto knife cutting too deep, but still, kind-of a bummer after starting over 3 times and getting farther along each time, certainly taxes your patience.

I installed this header tank on my Venture. This was installed for a couple of reasons:

1. To keep the engine from leaning out toward the end of the tank

2. Longer flight times

3. More stable tuning of the engine (hopefully)

The installation was pretty simple. I had to drill a hole in the frame. There is one there already, but it’s too low. I made the bottom nipple of the header tank at the same level as the main fuel tank nipple. This keeps the tuning of the engine fairly constant as it was before. Now, after I installed the header tank I did have to change the Main needle and idle adjustment on the carb. I went 3 clicks richer on the main needle and about 1/8th of a turn richer on the idle adjustment. I also found that you could play with the tuning by tilting the header tank up or down, this should be expected as making the header tank nipple lower will lean out the engine and making the header tank nipple higher will make the engine run richer. I don’t think I would depend on this type of tuning, but it does work.

When I ordered the Header tank I also ordered another package which included 30″ of high quality silicone tubing, a T-Filter a fuel line clip and plug. I don’t really like how long the T-Filter is, it made it difficult to get to fit properly, it still looks kinda bad.

Now, installation…

was pretty simple. The middle nipple is plugged from the factory, don’t mess with this one, at least I didn’t. But from my research you can use this one as a fill line, which I may change depending on how much I grow to dislike that T-Filter. But here are the steps for installation:

1. Find a suitable hole on the frame to mount the tank, or drill a 1/8th” hole in the frame
2. Mount the mounting bracket with the provided screw and nut. I added a washer to the back just to keep the nut from cutting into the frame.
3. Assemble the clunk line to the provided nipple
4. Slide the metal ring over the big inlet to the header tank
5. Insert the nipple, clunk line first, into the header tank
6. Slide the Header tank into the bracket with the large nipple on the bottom
7. Connect the top nipple to the main fuel tank
8. Connect a fuel line from the header tank large nipple to the T-Filter
9. Slide the Fuel line clip onto a length of tubing and attach to the T-Filter
10. Connect the fuel line to the Carb
11. Add another short piece of fuel line to the other side of the T-Filter and plug with the plug located on the other end of the fuel line clip.

That’s it for installation. Pretty simple. Now when it’s time to fill your heli with fuel, clip the fuel line going to the carb closed with the clip that’s there, remove the plug and fill. See, simple. You can see the pictures below.

Lake Area Radio Kontrol Society is hosting the Fall Fest Heli Fun Fly beggining 11/3/2006 and going until 11/5/2006.

Three Days of Fun, Food & Flying

We will be Bar-B-Queing all three days plus Real Cajun Food. Pilot giveaways, raffles and contests with prizes in all skill levels. Our facilities include 1000 ft. of flight line with open skies, 7200 sq. ft. of canopy on concrete slab with
42 4'x8' tables and electric outlets at each one. We have set aside four separate acres with its own canopy and tables for setup, hovering and contests. Our clubhouse includes AC/heating with a full kitchen, and telephone for your convenience. Six RV electric hookups plus unlimited RV parking. Events include: Novice, Advanced, Expert, Scale, Autos and Drag Racing.

Sounds like a good time. I don't know if I'll be going yet but, we have friends in Sulphur so there's a good possibility that I will be attending. Hope to see you there.

Here are General Operating Instructions for Webra 2 Stroke motors. This is on the Webra Engines website.