Peter Wales
Key Veteran
Location: Orlando Fl
| Today I took the turbine heli and went to the field to play. I had given the Rocket to my buddy Dale to try and sort out the motor and he arrived a little later on, looking pleased with himself. He said he had the motor running a lot better.
He fired it up and he hovered it a while and it sounded sweet at about 1700 rpm. The light was very bad and he was nervous about flying it, so he shoved the Tx in my hands and told me to get on with it. A quick hover showed it to be a very stable heli, and very controlable, which surprised me after what I had read. I gingerly fed it into forward flight and I suppose by the time I landed, it was scooting around at about 60mph, at about 1/2 throttle in normal mode. This is NOT how this heli was designed to be flown.
A little later on it brightened up some and Dale felt confident enough to have another go. He soon had the thing whistling around at about 70 -80 mph on full throttle, but still in normal. Then he was bringing it in downwind for a landing, tail well down to try and stop it, when the motor quit.
One ugly auto later and it had a very bent tail boom, driveshaft, T/R pushrod and two bent blades. Everything else seemed to be ok. So, its back to the drawing board for a while. I guess I will be flying it from now on as he will be nervous of breaking it again, so I will see what the spares situation is tomorrow.
PS Turbine Rock!!!
Peter Wales |
). The cost of the damage could've seen a new Raptor sitting on the bench, but then I wouldn't have the best helicopter to fly would I? All the bits needed came to less than a 3rd of the new cost which wasn't as much as I had anticipated since the crash took out a lot of the mechanics. I took the opportunity of switching to a yellow canopy as I thought it would be easier to see - and easier to paint a dark bit on 
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