ea01bg

My hurricane 550 developed an intermittent ESC failure yesterday. I’ve ordered the parts and are waiting for there arrival. My 450’s fuselage still needs some work. This left me grounded on a perfect spring day. I started to collect the parts and tools to work on the 450 and realized that I had fixed my Art-Tech Falcon 3D over the winter. This was my 1st Heli and is an absolute POS. I had all kinds of problems with the tail that I was never able to correct ( and still have not) and the gyro sucks. I was going to fix it to its original condition and sell it but decided that the bad karma just wasn’t worth it. Instead I hung it from some fishing line in my den along side models I’ve built through the years. I’m not knocking the guys that are flying this bird but to clarify my opinion of my Falcon. I relegated it to static display where it would collect dust until my home collapsed or I died.

I took it down and fished its transmitter out of a junk drawer. I dusted it off and began searching for its lipo. I couldn’t find the lipo that came with it and none of my other Heli’s used a batteries that would fit. Still determined to fly something I grabbed a couple of old 2200s and some Velcro straps. I strapped the Lipo under the landing gear and balanced it out. The canopy wouldn’t fit but I didn’t think it would fly long before crashing to earth anyway.

I have just started learning forward flight. I’ve had endless flights on the sim with great ease and success. This is what I’ve just started with my Hurricane 550. I’ve had two flights doing slow forward flight and I’ve been tense (read scared out of my mind) every time. As I was balancing the Falcon out a small smile began tugging at the corners of my mouth , I realized I really didn’t care if the falcon crashed. In fact I thought it was a forgone conclusion.
So with visions of the Falcon lying smoldering in a small impact crater I headed out to my back yard. Before the safety police start jumping me. I live in a farm house with 7 ½ acres (the back yard) and even it I were to fly the falcon out of range the only danger would be that it would land in another farm field ( there is a small chance of a cow impact but I found it to be negligible).
I spooled the heli up it took a bit more power to get it into the air but into the air it went. I fought to get it into a good 10’ hover then dropped the nose and off we went. I ran it full tilt over my garage and house then spun a quick 180 turn and zoomed back across the yard. I ran it over the trees that border my property on the side and repeated the turn then brought it nose in back toward me before flipping the tail 180 deg and yanking the tail up to stop in a hover. I spent the next 4 min yanking and banking the Heli all over the yard. I did tight turns ,loose turns and nose in flight all the things I’ve been doing on the sim all winter but haven’t had the guts to do on my $1000 bird. The flight ended with a touchy landing and me giggling like a school girl. I flew it one more time that day with the same carefree feeling and repeated my forward flight antics. All because I really didn’t care if this heli’s flight ended in a pile of debris.
I fished the garage and found three more Lipos for the Falcon for today!

ea01bg

EA01bg's wife
P.S. From the wife of the heli maniac…

My husband’s recent flight with the Falcon, from a shaking observer (as I see $$$ flying across the back yard, of course), was simply outstanding!


The heli cranked up and he brought it up into what he intended (I guess) was a hover. Yeah, right. The heli was swinging back and forth like a pendulum as it rose into the air. Then the nutcase brought the nose around and zoomed forward like a rocket, about 3 feet above the ground. Then the heli screamed upward, he flipped it into a number of turns, then zoomed downward at a great deal of speed. He then yanked it back up and wound it into a forward flight curve – incredible to watch, for sure!! I shook (as I need my hubby to have a functioning heli). Then he yanked it back up into the air, flew directly overhead, and it looked like he intended to run the thing into the roof of the house! All I saw was the big-ass blue battery whizzing overhead, then a high-speed turn (or two – I lost track) to get the heli back. And he was laughing like a kid!

I must say that the entire experience was awesome!

For all of you wives out there with “heli-husbands”, my take on this very expensive hobby is this. If your guys who are heli-addicted seem to a lot of money, it is worth it! It makes him HAPPY! And a happy hubby makes for a happy wife and family. His fun is contagious, and I enjoy being a part of his hobby. So, the saying of “money can’t buy happiness” is wrong. If it takes a $1,000 here and there to keep him smiling, so what!?

Ren� N.

Thank you both very much !
I'll subscribe and bookmark this post.
My wife sends her love and respect

Happy Hóóóó...óóóó....óóóóvering !

René

noobflyer01

lol. awesome. just some carefree flying.

jamesc43

My Feedback: (2)

Hello ea01bg and wife,

Do you think your additional flight time has helped you get you Falcon 3D under control?

Congrats on your flights today.

ea01bg

I had good control during the fast forward flight but hovering and landing is still a crap shoot. I can hover fine with my other helis the falcon is just a pos. the gyro is stock and is junk , zbend links , overall its not a very good bird. On the up side it is cheap. What made the fligh so good was the fact that i didnt care what happened to it. It was like flying the sim. Zero tension or nerves i honestly expected it to crash. I do think that I picked up alot of knowlage that I will use when I fix my Hurricane 550 as well as the knowlage that I need to lighten up a little when flying it.

redvtr1000

thats great man!

I had an old axe cp that I did some flying like that with but it was next to impossible with the scuzzy stock gyro. It's great to loosen up and get into a groove, really seems that it is much easier to learn and calm down when you aren't bothered about the reassembly or buying expensive parts.

My skills picked up some from using a couple old LMH helis. You could crash em pretty hard and pick them up, straighten out the blades then fly again.

I still get the jitters playing with my raptor, takes a good tank (sometimes two) before I calm down enough to the point where I don't worry that I will crash in every turn.

stanza

Sometimes its really hard to tell what our significant other's take is on this addictive hobby. My fiancee would shake her head every time a box of replacement parts or whatnot showed up on the porch. But then one day she watched me having such a good time that she asked me "can I fly it?" The responsible thing to do would have been to say no, but how could I stifle such genuine curiosity. I decided that since I had plenty of spare parts, I could let her give it a whirl. Surprisingly enough, she really didn't do half bad for a girl who had never touched anything RC in her whole life. She actually kept the thing in a stable tail-in hover for well, all of ten seconds before I made her give me the control before someone got hurt. Still think it will be a long time before she actually wants one of her own though!

noobflyer01

eao1bg...you were my inspiration the other day when i took my HBK2 to the park. i just didn't care if i crash. i just let it all go. not only i didn't crash but learned all kinds of manuervers i never did before. by far my biggest gain on experience. i was nose diving figure 8's. piros out the ying yang. i even nosed in flying. what a rush

ea01bg

noobflyer01
Gratz!

Flypaper 2

I too have an old beater Lite Machines that I do things with that I wouldn't think of with the Hurri 550. Piros, loops and rolls then don't quite make it in a roll and roll it up in a ball and cartwheel down the runway, straighten the blades, maybe replace the plywood tailfin, then do it again with a big grin. I still think it's the best trainer heli made for these reasons. Maybe not the best flying heli in the world but certainly the toughest.

ea01bg

I finaly did lawn dart the falcon, we had some wind gusts that the little 400 just couldnt handle. Got away with just a bent flybar and feathering shaft. I think I'll actualy order the parts and put it back in fling order.

HeLiTuBBies

I seriously need to buy a beater to practice on! I crashed my BH450 on a 2 inch hover from the carpet floor.. Being not afraid to crash brings out a better pilot in you..

Flypaper 2

Couple of days ago I was flying in to much wind. Shoulda knowed better.Got a couple of hundred ft downwind and lost orientation. When it was about 8 ft. above the bushes and small trees, I throttled all the way down and planted it. Walked over to it and there was no damage what so ever. The guys on the other side of the field got a chuckle when they see this thing flying out of the bushes when they thought it Gord trashed it again.

ea01bg

HeLiTuBBies ,
Unless you have one very large room the 450 is a bit bigg of indoor flying. Also you will find it a bit easyer to handle once its at waist level or a bit higher, at that point its out of its ground affect.