HeliRaptor
05-06-2007, 05:12 PM
I was out yesterday (Saturday April 28, 2007) with my buddy Jeff and several other club members at the field. The day started off great. We got Jeff's machine running finally (shimmed to 16 thousandths and used an Enya #3) and she now runs great.
I put my 1st 2 flights of the day on the 90 with nothing more than figure 8's, rolls, loops and a few back flips.
Later I went up for a 3rd flight and figured I would do a bit more, so I do a few figure 8's to be sure engine temp is up and I am comfortable. All is going well, I flip the machine inverted for just a few seconds not long at all, I got a little nervous and flipped it back right side up, during the flip I heard a weird noise, not sure whether or not it was my machine as everything else felt fine, I pulled it into a left turn and zipped down the field, I notice the engine seemed to have a higher pitch sound and I was getting less power to the head, head speed slowing down, I banked right and started to head back to land, and that's when the motor just whined but not headspeed, I immediately went into auto mode in my mind (The heli was only like 15 - 20 feet off the ground) but I was too low to regain head speed, I got it level and flared it as best I could but at about 4-5 feet I lost total head speed and she went in.
When I walked over to the Heli I noticed it was still running great, it went into a nice low idle like I set the failsafe to do if it loses communication with the TX, it did lose communication because when it hit I immediately turned off the TX to test the failsafe hoping that it will do what I set it to do to keep it from doing a dance.
Anyhow, the damage is not fully *****, but I got lucky and the main blades were intact but the tail is pretty beat up, tail blades junk, boom, torque tube, plastic frames front and back, landing gear and I'm sure there is more.
I realized at the field where the failure / error might have been. The White main gear was stripped of its teeth. I haven't checked it out as to what caused it but my only guess is that when I ***** it after replacing the pinion bearing that I must have improperly set the gear mesh. I find it odd as it flew with no issues before the mishap and there was no signs of gears being tight or being chewed up.
In any event the 90 is down. I went out and had a few to many drinks after that and got in around 2 AM and didn't want to even think about it.
More to come once I take a closer look at the damage, sorry no pics I didn't have the camera with me.
I put my 1st 2 flights of the day on the 90 with nothing more than figure 8's, rolls, loops and a few back flips.
Later I went up for a 3rd flight and figured I would do a bit more, so I do a few figure 8's to be sure engine temp is up and I am comfortable. All is going well, I flip the machine inverted for just a few seconds not long at all, I got a little nervous and flipped it back right side up, during the flip I heard a weird noise, not sure whether or not it was my machine as everything else felt fine, I pulled it into a left turn and zipped down the field, I notice the engine seemed to have a higher pitch sound and I was getting less power to the head, head speed slowing down, I banked right and started to head back to land, and that's when the motor just whined but not headspeed, I immediately went into auto mode in my mind (The heli was only like 15 - 20 feet off the ground) but I was too low to regain head speed, I got it level and flared it as best I could but at about 4-5 feet I lost total head speed and she went in.
When I walked over to the Heli I noticed it was still running great, it went into a nice low idle like I set the failsafe to do if it loses communication with the TX, it did lose communication because when it hit I immediately turned off the TX to test the failsafe hoping that it will do what I set it to do to keep it from doing a dance.
Anyhow, the damage is not fully *****, but I got lucky and the main blades were intact but the tail is pretty beat up, tail blades junk, boom, torque tube, plastic frames front and back, landing gear and I'm sure there is more.
I realized at the field where the failure / error might have been. The White main gear was stripped of its teeth. I haven't checked it out as to what caused it but my only guess is that when I ***** it after replacing the pinion bearing that I must have improperly set the gear mesh. I find it odd as it flew with no issues before the mishap and there was no signs of gears being tight or being chewed up.
In any event the 90 is down. I went out and had a few to many drinks after that and got in around 2 AM and didn't want to even think about it.
More to come once I take a closer look at the damage, sorry no pics I didn't have the camera with me.