smelick

Tonight, after a week and a half - I have my Aerohawk off the ground and at a 5 second hover

I am soooo close. It's coming down to nerves now! No real mods at this point either. I have just balanced the blades, set the tail and gyro on the board, added a gasket on the main shaft, filed down several plastic pieces and used [link=http://www.dream-models.com/eco/flying-index.html]Radd's school of flight[/link]. All tips from this board, thanks!!!!

Just some more encouragement for all the newbies out there!

-Scott

jackclarke

Congratulations Scott and thanks for the encouragement from a two weeker Aerohawk newbie
who still bouncing it on the ground or watching it fly into the walls. Did you have any problems with sideward skidding? Mine seems to want to slide sidewards across the dining room floor before there is enough rotor speed to lift the dang thing in the air. Hard throttle gets it off the ground - but this usually results in an "uncontrolled" landing. I've done some inside sanding as well to reduce the friction on the sidebars and spent lots of time balancing and tweaking. I noticed about 1-2 mm of vertical "play" above the main gear so maybe I can reduce that with a spacer too as you described? Also seems like it takes an awful lot of rotor RPM to start lifting the heli from the ground and perhaps that could be improved with less friction on the main gear as well? What did you use for the spacer on the main shaft and how did you install it? One more question - are you using the training landing gear?


Thanks for your help and any suggestions.

Jack

smelick

Jack, Yes, I am skidding on the floor with low throttle, from what I hear this is normal. (not out of control skidding, just a slide to the left) I overcome this by a quick boost of throttle and get myself a foot or two in the air - seems to level out at that height. I think this is the key to getting a hover - it's also a bit nerve wracking!

I also had vertical throttle and added a spacer and this was the final thing that allowed me to hover a little bit. (much more control) Just used a rubber grommet and it isn't rubbing. I think I also need adjustable control arms off of the servos too, I am maxed out on my forward trim - for now I am going to adjust it on the hand held control board.


And I do not have my gear on anymore [8D]

-Scott

BENZITO

what I found that works for me is being more aggressive with the controls, I used to power up nice and slow then try to lift off nice and easy but that only makes it harder as the heli will want to slide every which way and the ground effect turbulance doesnt help at all. Now I power up the rotors and let them balance out till I see the heli is not shaking then a quick boost of throttle and your in the air by at least 2 feet, then you gotta use the controls to the max but only momentarly if it starts drifting right hit left all the way for just a split sec and she will level out right out and be ready to counter act it's movements fast!!! Thats whats been workin for me

Mossie

It doesnt need to be too aggressive. With more stick time you'll learn to just feed a little more right cyclic until the heli lifts off.

jackclarke

Thanks Scott for the good hints - as you said getting off the ground fast sure helps. Seems like when you are spooling up, once it starts tipping you're better off shutting it down then trying to correct. The adjustable trims on the controller is what finally got me onto the "5 second hover" plateau - working on the 10 second one now. The 2-3 foot "bunny hops" sure helped to see which way it wanted to go by itself and tweak those trims until it stopped crashing into the furniture and walls. Like you - only modification I've made is adding a spacer to take out some of the play on the drive shaft - and sanding some of them mold lines smooth inside the bearing case to get those side paddles to move by themselves. Another thing I found helps a whole lot is careful visual adjustment of the main rotor and not just be pulling on the tips to make them line up in a straight line path. 90 degrees angle between the side wings and the main blades seems easier for me to see than a straight line. I'm still a loooong ways from being able to fly it into the kitchen and get me a cookie but sure is great not to hear that sickening CRASH sound every few minutes. What's even better is that whop whop whop sound you hear when it is hovering in front of you - god what a great sound!!! Thanks again for all the help and encouragement. I got a whole bunch more writing to do to thank everyone who took the time to write and coaching and helping. That Aerohawk really do fly - you just got to be persistent!! Amen to that !!!

smelick

An amen on the "whop whop" sound - I LOVE the sound of it. Like music to your ears [8D]

-Scott

quaker1

I found my aerohawk cyclic controls became a lot more responsive after fitting piccolo pro paddles, the difference is amasing.