500 size UH-1C Huey - 174th AHC

[Namactual]

That sucks about the hard landing, but as you said, it could have been much worse.

That Huey really does look great though.

 

[F106DeltaDart]

Thanks! Just got it all fixed up today. Got some 5/16 aluminum tube from the hobby shop, and tube bender from Lowes and whipped up a few spare skid tubes. Now all I need is for the wind to die down a bit, and for my new batteries to arrive!

 

[F106DeltaDart]

Finally got my new batteries and got in a few flights this weekend on the Huey! It needs a bit more nose weight, and some blade tracking adjustments, but otherwise flew pretty well. Once thats done Ill re attatch the rocket pods and get the interior finished up.

 

[Namactual]

That just looks downright cool!
One of these days I am going to get myself a heli.

P.S. I did not forget about the Kiowa crew, I just have been busy on other things. I plan to get back to it this week.

 

[F106DeltaDart]

That just looks downright cool!
One of these days I am going to get myself a heli.

P.S. I did not forget about the Kiowa crew, I just have been busy on other things. I plan to get back to it this week.

Thanks Nam! No problem on the Kiowa crew. I've barely had time to work on the fuselage, and at the moment, the cockpit detail is a while out from being completed.

 

[F106DeltaDart]

A few shots of the Huey in the air over BEST (Best Electrics in South Texas). Still need to add bench seats and the door gunners, but she's pretty close to finished now!

 

[F106DeltaDart]

A few more photos from flying yesterday:

 

[F106DeltaDart]

Flight video from this evening!

 

[PsyBorg]

If it wasnt for the T bar on the rotor head you wouldnt be able to tell that was a model with proper depth of field manipulation in those pictures.

Btw nice set up on the head. Not one wobble on run up. It seems it might be a touch tail heavy? With subtle lurching after a turn to get it moving again?

 

[F106DeltaDart]

If it wasnt for the T bar on the rotor head you wouldnt be able to tell that was a model with proper depth of field manipulation in those pictures.

Btw nice set up on the head. Not one wobble on run up. It seems it might be a touch tail heavy? With subtle lurching after a turn to get it moving again?

Thanks Psy! It’s actually balanced a tad nose heavy, which took a LOT of lead under the pilot seats. The lurches were more my fault, I was trying to slow up for a low speed to hovering flyby, and slowed a bit too much. That’s why some turns look smooth, and only a few having lurching. Oddly enough, although I get minimal vibes starting on our fabric runway and grass, I get a pretty nasty vibe at about 75% rpm during spoolup flying off another fields paved runway. It goes away after RPM builds past about 85%. Seems that I’m exciting a fuselage resonance mode with the stiffer feedback. One suggestion over on another forum was to add a second set of mounts to the mechanics on the top side of the airframe. This changes the boundary conditions on both the fuselage and mechanics, and will hopefully bring that natural frequency out of the normal operations.

 

[PsyBorg]

Maybe look at the landing skids when the wobbles start on hard surfaces. If they flex from the spool up torque allowing the whole airframe to do the twisty dance that could simultate a resonance.

You dont see any resonance in that same power range at idle up when flying do you. (Assuming you fly scale at 80-90% throttle)

I guess it depends if your tail rocks side to side or if it pitches up and down in the resonance phase of spooling.

 

[F106DeltaDart]

Yesterday, I put in 2 flights on the Huey and had a very close call. On the 2nd flight of the day, the tail started acting up. I got into a hover about 1-2 inches off the runway before it went into an uncontrollable yaw. I hit throttle cut, and there was no damage at all. On further inspection, the tail servo (MKS DS8910A+) was very jerky, and would randomly stick at certain spots. Guess its time for a replacement. I'm going to steal the one from the Apache so that I can have it ready for Helis Over Apache Pass this weekend.

 

[F106DeltaDart]

Thought I’d add a few photos from last weekend. Lee Ray took these at Warbirds Over JSC and I love how they turned out!

 

[PsyBorg]

Nice pics. Looks like a beautiful sunny day for flying.

 

[F106DeltaDart]

Thanks Psy, was definitely a nice sunny day! There was pretty nasty direct crosswind (~15mph) that was keeping many of the fixed wing models on the ground. The Huey took the breeze without any issues, its quickly becoming one of my favorite models to fly!

 

[F106DeltaDart]

Over the weekend, I entered a few of my helis in the Texas Scale Championships, and after 4 rounds of flying, took home 1st Place my the Huey! Added in the door gunners just before the event, and I love how they look on the Huey!

 

[PsyBorg]

Well deserved brother! You put a lot of effort into that bird and had a few hard knocks on the way. Its earned its reward in my book.

 

[F106DeltaDart]

Well deserved brother! You put a lot of effort into that bird and had a few hard knocks on the way. Its earned its reward in my book.

Thanks Psy! It’s been great now that it is all tuned and flying nicely. Had a lot of fun flying it this weekend!

 

[PsyBorg]

Cool! Hope you got the same weather we had today. Perfect flying day.

 

[F106DeltaDart]

Lee Ray from the RC Roundtable Podcast got some great footage of the Huey flying at Bomber field from a few weeks ago.