RC Helicopters
Ray Stacy, 15 W. Main St., Webster NY 14580; E-mail: [email protected]
WOW! I HAVE decided that I am never going to move again, and I haven't even completed this move yet! We purchased a new house in upstate New York, and I have found that the purchase and moving have taken up every minute of my time. I hope to have the move completed soon. The flying season is in full swing and I don't want to miss it!
Dan Williams called me from Toledo, Ohio, and first told me that I was missing a great Weak Signals' trade show and then asked if I was interested in a column about it. His call couldn't have come at a better time. Thanks, Dan, and take it away!
Dan's Toledo Report: I'm back! Well, at least for this month. Ray helped me with several columns in the past, and since I was going to Toledo, we thought it would be appropriate for me to write this month. Actually, Ray is occupied with extracurricular activities at the moment, so I'm sure he was glad to have my help.
The Toledo Show has become the push I need to put away the winter toys and get out the summer items. The Weak Signals' Toledo Expo has always been the show for launching new products. Electric-powered models were everywhere. The little foamie airplanes are being introduced at a faster rate than anyone can keep up with. Indoor RC is taking off like crazy. I attended the second annual Electric Tournament of Champions (E-TOC) Friday night. It beat sitting in the hotel room watching movies.
The E-TOC is an indoor invitational-only event at which the best hotshot pilots come and fly new foam-board electric models to music. Even though the only helicopter flown at the event was one that Horizon Hobby demonstrated, seeing what has happened between last year's event and this year's is unbelievable.
Someone has developed the tail-rotor system from our helicopters into a variable-pitch propeller system for these airplanes. Watching a model stop a vertical, nose-down descent in midair and travel up going backward in a spiral blew me away. It also made me feel good that it had its roots in helicopters.
In a debut at the show, Horizon introduced the first in a new line of small, indoor, electric helicopters. E-flite's RTF Blade CP is a full-collective-head helicopter with Cyclic Collective Pitch Mixing (CCPM). Ron Osinski flew two versions of the model, the first of which was the stock, out-of-the-box version. It comes complete with a whole radio system installed, a six-channel transmitter with CCPM mixing, and NiMH battery pack with charger.
The Blade CP is completely set up for flying right out of the box: charge the batteries and it's ready. The tail rotor uses another small electric motor for drive. In stock form the helicopter is capable of mild aerobatics, including loops and rolls. Every Blade CP has been factory flown to ensure proper setup and reliable flight. The blades are foam/composite construction. The stock motor is a 370.
An upgrade kit is available that consists of wooden symmetrical blades, a 370 motor with a different pinion, and heat sinks for the main motor and tail motor. Add a Li-Poly battery pack and it's ready to rock and roll.
The second demo Ron flew was with an upgraded Blade CP. After a couple of circuits, he rolled it for some inverted flight. It looked much more stable than most of the small electric helicopters that I've seen, even in some adverse conditions.
They opened the main doors to the gym during the demo to let the excess heat out. The cold came in and mixed with the heat to make its own weather system for Ron to attempt aerobatics in. He kept it mild to keep things under control. There's nothing worse than planting a helicopter during a demo. I heard that on Saturday night he did a blade scuff.
Awhile ago I made the dive into electric-helicopter flying. Unless I was willing to throw a great deal of money at the thing, anything more than hovering and forward flight was beyond the machine's capabilities. I've seen several other small electric helicopters fly, but most are way too fragile for anything but simple forward flight. I saw Curtis Youngblood fly a small electric in 3-D, but it had massive upgrades.
I have to wait until my local hobby shop gets its first Blade CP into the shop, but as soon as it does I'll be doing a full checkout. I'm enthused about this machine. You can find the E-flite Blade CP and the other E-flite models at www.eflite.com.
The second helicopter making its debut at the Toledo Show was the Tiger 50. It is being distributed by Genesis Hobby Distributors. It is a ground-up, 50-size design consisting of reinforced molded nylon side frames. It has wire clips molded in and a fuel cutoff. Nice touch.
Normally it's an incredible pain to figure out a nice, reliable way to run tail servo and rear-mounted gyro wiring up front to the receiver. There is a boss drilled for mounting auxiliary tanks.
It is a CCPM-mixed design. The tail-rotor servo has a rearward mounting position for better tail-rotor control than front-mounted designs. The mixing arms have multiple positions available for basic hovering and flight or 3-D aerobatics; they are adjustable between 1:1 Bell-Hiller mix and 0.7:1.
There are swashplate ball extensions for more throw. There are several blade-dampening rubber durometers available for precision hovering and stiff control for wild aerobatics. The stock flybar paddles come with removable weights for people who are starting out. There are KSJ 3-D paddles available as well.
The ARF helicopter comes with woodie blades in the kit. There's also a training-gear kit available. The Tiger 50 comes stock with a constant-drive, belt-drive tail.
This machine is supposed to have a street price of roughly $300, but the nice thing is the cost of replacement items. Replacement tailbooms are $8! The main shaft and feathering shaft are reasonable. That means we can beat this machine into the ground trying new maneuvers and not cry like we would with our 90 machines.
There was a video playing during the show of the Tiger 50. The machine shown had more than 400 flights, nine crash rebuilds, and it was the helicopter on display! That's my kind of model.
For those of you who like bling, there's bling available. I know; I can't resist sometimes either. For more information about the Tiger 50, go to www.audacitymodels.com.
Hirobo has finally come out with a new 90-size machine, called the Eagle Freya 90 EVO. It's basically designed around the Eagle 3 mechanics design and the successful EVO head design. There was only one of these models in the country, and it was at Toledo. Jeff Green from Model Rectifier Corporation (MRC) gave me the quick tour. The MRC staff was incredibly busy during the show with people wanting to fly the new Reflex simulator.
As I get more information about the EVO 90, I'll forward it to you in the column. For more information, go to www.modelrectifier.com.
Well, that's it for me. Back to you, Ray.
Thanks, Dan! My Blade CP is on order. It should go well with my Trex, Shogun, and Hornet II.
Tom McCoy, owner of Performance Hobbies (www.performance-hobbies.com) in Webster, New York, called me with some fantastic news. JR has finally come out with a synthesized transmitter module for its line of transmitters! I can't tell you how happy I am to know that.
I currently carry approximately six different modules in my transmitter case. I like having my models on different frequencies so I can always count on one of the channels being open. Now all I need to carry is the synthesized module. I just dial up the appropriate channel and go fly!
The competition has had this for a while. I am glad that JR finally got on board. I understand that JR will also have synthesized receivers. Now you can set your transmitter and receiver for any open channel. Way cool!
I had an interesting telephone conversation with Bob Hunt, who is MA's aeromodeling editor. Bob is aware of the helicopter community's concern about what may appear to be minimal helicopter coverage in the AMA magazine. I believe the magazine does a great job of covering all aspects of the hobby.
One thing that Bob and I completely agree on is that if you would like to see more articles about helicopters, write something! Submit it to AMA. It stands a good chance of being printed.
By the time you read this, my son and I will have attended the helicopter Extreme Flight Championships in Troy, Ohio. I look forward to sharing many pictures and pilot comments with you.
See ya next month! MA
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
