Alan Szabo "crack" stick movements

Nitro killer : Avant Aurora 90E

Jason Bell Dodging The Asphalt with his Avant Aurora 90 Electric Radio Control Helicopter

NEW: Avant Aurora 90 Electric

Touted as a true “native electric 90 design”, the Avant Aurora 90E officially splashed onto vendor row late Thursday. The 90 electric market has really taken off this season and Avant has answered those wishes with a electric flavor of their popular nitro heli.

One thing different about the Aurora 90 Electric is the battery mouting and placement. Similar to the MA Ion-X which mounts both batteries inside the frame on one side up front. The Avant mounts one battery on each side of the frame. Both batteries are surrounded by frame and in mild crashes will be protected from damage to the battery packs.



All wires and cables fit inside the frames leaving no clutter outside.
If no BEC is used a receiver battery can be installed in the front plate or in the back between the frames.

Check the rest of the story at AvantRc

I NEED ONE........NEED.

Lazy Sunday afternoon at the SOD farm.

Just getting there, now it's time to get in the air.


Here's my fleet of helis as I get ready to fly them. Both 700s gave me issues all day. I need to spend some time with them as I have spent most of my time getting that Trex 600E back on track.

The 600 has Scorpion 4025 1100kv, CC ICE 100AMP ESC, JR770 and 8900 tail servo, followed up by some 821's on the cyclic, yes I have 821s in it! She is flying real good, Head speed is around 2020.

She has plenty of guts, I am loving that Motor ESC combo. She may not give me 8 mins like the nitros, but she gives me 4 mins of strap in, buckle up, shut up, and enjoy the flat out, heart pounding rocket ride!

As good as she is flying I really find it hard to take the 821's out and put in my Hitecs 6965s.


Cooper and I have been flying this plane for a little more than 2 years. She's an Extreme Flight Extra 300. I killed off the old one back in Sept of 2009 and Cooper has put here back together in order to get ready for AMA competition this year. Today is her maiden and Cooper left her have it.

Nothing like flying with a buddy on a Lazy Sunday Afternoon.

Scale Master - R/C AH-1 Super Cobra RC Helicopter - RTF

Found this baby on RCU this morning. This is one wicked scale bird!

Nasa Puffin: One Cool Personal Aircraft

I must apologize as I usually try to keep this blog full of RC Heli stuff as I am personally into RC for the thrill of flying and help keep the little engineer in me happy, but I could not resist sharing NASA’s just unveiled Puffin aircraft design.

What's cooler than a hover-capable, electric-powered, super-quiet personal VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft? If you answered "absolutely nothing," then check this out, because NASA is preparing to oblige you.

The Puffin is something of a personal V-22 Osprey, complete with vertical-takeoff and landing capability (but minus the squad of Marines). But rather than tilting the rotors forward for horizontal flight, the whole craft -- cockpit and all -- pitches forward, meaning the pilot flies from a prone position. During takeoff and landing the tail splits into four legs that serve as landing gear, and flaps on the wings deploy to keep the aircraft stable as it lifts and descends.

It's 12-foot height and 13.5-foot wingspan mean it's big, but of manageable stature. In theory it can cruise at 150 miles per hour and sprint at more like 300 miles per hour.

When the first production vehicle going to be released? Only God and NASA really knows. I just hope something like this makes it to production before I am too old to use it. ;-)

The Revell Proto CX Ultra-Micro Heli RTF

I was down at RChobbies the other day and got the opportunity to test fly a few micro helis.

I have always liked the micro class helis as they welcome pilots with no flying experience, and in no time they allow you to hover and work on your flying skills, any room can become a flying field and nothing is more fun than doing a little heli combat in the front room with your son.

One of the helis was the Revell Proto CX Ultra-Micro Heli RTF. The first thing that caught my attention besides the snappy canopy was the aggressive way this thing took air. She can get in the air a lot faster than an E-Flite mCX! She handles well in forward and reverse flight. maybe a little faster than a mCX.

The second thing that I really liked was the Lipo battery connector. Nice and big, did not look like you could break it very easily as you can with others.

The control seemed a little bit awkward to hold, but I think that's more me than the design of the controller. But for $79.99 you get a completely assembled and ready-to-fly Proto CX helicopter, a 2.4GHz radio system, LiPo battery, four “AA” radio batteries, even a spare set of rotor blades and you can start flying it immediately!

I would hurry down to to your local hobby shop and get one as I do not think these babies will be on the shelves long.

Rating :

Is Align seriously trying to compete with Spartan?

Align released another new product for January 2010. The align GP780 3D Gyro. Looks like it is the same as the GP750 but with better pirouette consistency and a few other features.

FEATURES:

•Brand new intelligent control logic providing dynamic gain adjustment bydetecting current flying conditions, allowing for consistent pirouetting rates during chaos or other demanding 3D maneuvers.

•Utilizes feed forward control logic to boost rudder starting speed, and increase response sensitivity.

•Utilizes Silicon Micro Machines (SMM) sensor with excellent stability to dramatically reduce in-flight tail drifts.

•Utilizes AHTCS (Active Helicopter Tail Control System) to compensate any drift caused by wind direction and force ,as well as unintended yaw induced by helicopter itself during flight maneuvers.

•Tailor made specifically for use with high speed digital rudder servos. This gyro festures high sensitivity and minimal reaction time, fully utilizing the potential of modern high speed digital rudder servos.

•Features 1520μs pulse wide and 760μs narrow pulse wide frame rate.

•Digital/Analog servo switchable.

•Reverse switch.

•Rudder servo travel limit adjustment (ATV).

•Delay adjustment.

•Gyro locking mode and gain can be adjusted remotely from the transmitter.

SPECS:
•Operating Voltage:DC 4.5~7V
•Current Consumption:<80mA @ 4.8V
•Angular Detection Speed:500 degrees/sec
•Operating Humidity:0℃~65℃
•RoHS certification.
•Operating Humidity:0%~95%
•Size:26×25x11mm
•Weight:14g

Calculating head speed

The first question I asked myself is why calculate the head speed when I can simply measure it with a tachometer?

There are few answers, 1) if you are going to buy a new one you’d know what the head speed is with the various Motor and pinions out on the market today. 2) Upgrading an existing heli, I am always calculating head speed when trying to upgrade my Trex 600E to a 8 or 12s setup.

Calculating the head speed will not give you exact head speed but it can get you in the ball park to answer questions like what motor based on KV and amps. What ESC, what Pinion?

Also you are going to find a bunch of head speed “Calculators” online. I use them mostly when I am in a hurry, but I try to use this formula to keep my Algebra skills.

HS = ((motor KV x Battery Voltage)/(Main gear teeth/pinion teeth)) x Efficiency
coefficient

KV of the motor is the RPM it turns per volt. For example a Scorpion HK-4035-560 has a KV of 560 and if you plan to run that on a 10s system (~38volts) the RPM will be 21290 unloaded. However sense electric motors are not 100% efficient we have to take the RPM and multiply it by the Efficiency coefficient. Brushless Motor have an EF of anywhere between 85%-90%.

So if or motor has an EF of 90% we would have a RPM of 19152 unloaded. (unloaded means the motor is not under any load like spinning your main gear).

The battery voltage is the nominal voltage of the pack. Even though a 6s will be around 22.2v when fully charged, it runs at around 37v under load so that’s the number you’ll use for head speed calculations, not the fully charged / discharged voltage.

The teeth on your main gear and pinion is simply the number of teeth on the gears. Most manufacturers publish that info, but if in doubt, count it out.

Here’s an example for my Trex 600E on 6S setup:

Align Stock 600XL with a KV of 1650.
Main Gear teeth 170
Pinion Teeth 10
Motor Efficiency I would say is 89%
Volts from a 6s battery I’ll set to 22.8v

Here's the calculation:

Head Speed = ((1650kv x 22.v)/(170/10) x .89
Head speed = (37620/17) x .89
Head speed = ~1960 RPM

My tachometer reads 2050. But I take the measurement with freshly charged batteries so the voltage will be higher and in turn increase the head speed. My eLogger says I float anywhere from 1962-2100 during a hover. So the formula gives me a good idea of what I need to get to increase or decrease your head speed.

Keep your bird in the air.

RaptorEEE

Check this out, I found this on Facebook. A RaptorE, I like the way the batteries mount. I wonder about the C.G.

Trex700E with 12S at 5000mah

Here's another interesting mod that Ken and I have been talking about for a few months. Ken and my Trex600E are starting to turn me back on to electrics and as much as I resist the new mods, cheaper batteries and videos like this ARE NOT HELPING! Watch this kid work the tail.

I am pricing out the parts tonight!

Just when you thought it was safe

These are pictures of a Trex500 converted to a nitro. I found this on runryder a month or so ago. Thought I would give you all some ideas. I believe he had an OS 32 maybe a 37 in it.


Talk about fun in the sun. Man a 37 would be crazy fast! Anyone want to convert one?

Going Electric, Tools you might need.

There are a ton of things to be concerned about when building a RC Helicopter, you need to make sure everything has loctite, pinions and gears mesh, links are a certain size, blades are balanced and track, and the list goes on.

Then there’s the electric powered heli. As easy as it is to set these you there are a few extra tools you need to make sure your heli doesn’t burn up a speed controller, a Lipo or the motor itself. I don't bother with the smaller 200 or 400/450 class helis but when you have 13 degrees of pitch on a 500 class you can easily comsume a lot of amps.

Here's a couple tools, Watt meters. E-Flite makes a Power Meter that support most of the common functions(Ammeter, Amp-hour meter, wattmeter, voltmeter, Watt-hour meter) I like this one because of the big easy to read digits.



Then there's the WATT's UP meter. This has the standard features like the E-Flite but shows all the readings on the screen. It lets you easily measure EIGHT electrical values that tell you what's really going on.



Finally my personal favorite EagleTree's eLogger and the supporting software. In addition to greatly enhanced resolution and accuracy, the V3 now supports voltage to 70 volts, current to 100 amps (150 amps optional), GPS (with optional GPS Expander), 4x the logging capacity of the V2, Three Temperatures, and Throttle Logging (or logging of two RPMs)! And now, you can connect the V3 to the data port of your Spektrum AR9000(TM) or JR R921(TM) Receiver to log and display RF Link performance data!


This is the elogger, with the brushless sensor and the powerpanel display.

Then with the supporting software you can down load flight information to you computer and play it back. You get to view all the vitals as they happened in the air. It also allows you to configure the software and powerpanel displays.

Jame's HK-500.

I had the privilege of working on Jame’s HK500 the other day. Just dialing it in making sure she's ready to fly. Using a DX6I and Ar6100, GY520 with a Futaba 9650 for the tail, Town Pro MG930 for cyclic and the stock align motor and esc (for the Trex 500).

His head speed is about 2520 rpms with a 13T pinion and a 162T main gear. He has +13 and degrees and -9. A few more mods and this think will do just fine.

James has done a lot of work on this bird to get it flying like a good 500.

Measure cyclic pitch angles

There are two measurements you have to take. 1) Aileron and 2) Elevator.

For both measurements first make sure that the main blades are at 0 degrees pitch, should be about mid stick on your collective, but use a pitch gauge to check it. (Keep the pitch gauge on the main blades to take the measurements).

Aileron: (Roll) position the main blades parallel with the fuselage and boom. Simply hold your cyclic stick to the right take a measurement from the pitch gauge, then do the same for the left side. You do not have to do both sides but I do just to confirm the pervious measurement.

Elevator: (fore and aft cyclic) position the main blades perpendicular with the fuselage (paddles should be parallel with the fuselage). Make sure the main blades are still at 0 degrees on the collective. Then simply hold your cyclic stick full forward or backward and read the measurement off the pitch gauge


setup for elevator


Measure by making sure the top of the gauge lines up with the flybar. This is where mine comes out at on a TREX 600E.

Beginners should shoot for 5-6 degrees and more advanced pilots should try to get as much as they can without binding the swash (binding usually occurs in the corners of the cyclic in out)

2010 Frozen Finger Fly In

These frozen finger flying eagles of the frozen tundra met in Oregon as the Snake River Valley Modelers hosted the annual 2010 Frozen Finger Fun Fly. Neither fog, nor snow, nor rain or the local chili could stop these dedicated hobbyists from the sky.

Reports say, "A couple of people lost sight of their planes soon after takeoff. Only one had any significant damage, though."


Good job and thanks to the Snake River Valley Modelers and all the people that showed up to support the effort and have some good old fashion fun. And Ken Says the “The chili and hot chocolate were good.”

Adam's new Trex 600E.

Santa was especially good to Adam this year as he delivered a Trex 600 under the tree. What a nice bird!

And with the New Year she's back!

This was the heli I killed off on 12/24/09, check the rc grave yard. Then racing to get this baby air worthly before the New Year here's a pic. She's not ready yet but she close. God please let the electronics work!

Or maybe I don't want them to work, as it would be nice to move away from the stock Align Motor and ESC. But I WANT TO FLY IT TOMORROW!! hahahaha