| Raptor flight log |
| 12-9-01 Well, I'm out of the build stage now and into flight test. I did manage to get two tanks through it today. I switched to the 15% Cool Power. The engine started right up. The rubber skid stops helped on spool up and I can definitely say the performance was improved from where I left her on Friday evening. She took right off into a stable hover. This bird has power, I can well imagine what it will be like when the engine is fully broken in. I hovered around in the cul-de-sac in front of the house and did some manuevering around there. All the controls are positve and work with authority. The engine was also running very cool (you could put you finger on it right after shut down and keep it there) For the second flight I put on the canopy since I was done tweaking things for the time being. I did experiment with the revolution mixing. I still haven't gotten it yet but I'm closing in on the proper percentages. I was very happy with the performance this morning. 12-10-01 I managed to get in 3 tanks of fuel today. The bird is flying fine (well, hovering actually). I haven't adjusted the needles yet. I'm letting it run rich for the next few tanks. At times it takes a while for the engine speed to catch up with the throttle stick position but that's because of it being rich. Just hovering gives me about 8 minutes from the tank. I expect the time will increase as I go to forward flight and lean out the needles more. The engine was very cool to the touch after each shut down with lots of oil present from the exhaust. Just exactly as should be. Since it was cool (about 45 deg F) the engine needed to warm up a bit. I finally got the GY-240 gyro so that will be installed in the next few days. All bolts and linkages were still tight. I'm ready now to apply the graphics to the canopy and tail feathers. So far I am very pleased with the Raptor. 12-12-01 Last night I put the graphics on, installed a Voltwatch battery power indicatior and today I did some gyro tests. I installed my other G-154 gyro and verified it does work. I now have 2 working G-154 mechanical gyros. I also installed the GY-240 gyro and tested it. The weather was very crappy out (rain, rain and more rain) so I did all the hover tests in my garage. The machine hovered fine. Lots of exhaust smoke in there. I'll fine tune the gyro once I get into forward flight with the machine. All in all I got one more tank run through the engine. I think I'll be ready to start leaning the mixtures a little bit and start some forward flight this weekend. Having the voltwatch is nice too. I plan on getting another one of these for my Nexus. I also added a picture here of my home-made blade holder. It's a 3-ply lay-up of cardboard sheets. I took some basic measurements of the height of the blades off the boom and the blade widths then started cutting. Once the glue was dry the total time to make it was less than 30 minutes. Cheap and simple. I may paint it but we'll see how ambitious I am about that. |
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| 12-14-01 Finally got into forward flight with the R60!!!! What a rush! This machine can move. It was cloudy and cool out with just a light breeze. I thought I might have some trouble with orientation due to the overcast but it wasn't a problem. At first I was going to adjust the carb mixtures but I decided to go for it after a few minutes hovering. The Raptor 60 really tracks straight in FFF. Almost no rudder input was needed in the turns. Approaches to land really need to be thought out in advance. I overshot my intended stopping point twice. It's not like a 30 sized machine. But Oh the power you have. I also did some quick power lifts as well. From a hover i would nail the T/C and she would shoot straight up. The tail was solid too. The new gyro and revolution mix rates seem right on. There was a bit of tail hunting in FF but I can dial down the gyro sensitivity for that. The machine has a real nice sound in the air, the motor purrs right along on that Weston pipe and you can hear the wop-wop-wop of the blades. I ran two tanks trhough her today and I was very happy after packing up and heading home. 12-15-01 More forward flight today. The weather was worse than yesterday; winds around 15mph, overcast sky and cold. But the Raptor flew great. That rotor head was really singing. Plenty of rotor speed. I did notice that as I would approach to land and reduce collective the nose would pitch down. I would have to add some aft cyclic as I reduced collective. Not a big deal once I was used to it but the first time was a bit of a surprise. Turns were great, almost pure cyclic with the heli on its side through them. I also did a few stall turns. This baby wants to do aerobatics. High power climb outs are fun too. I don't think there's a thing she won't do as long as the head speed stays constant. The motor was running great as well. I did turn in the high speed needle a few clicks and noticed the RPM's drop at hover. The motor is loading up a bit from idle to mid stick. Once I turned the high speed needle back to where it was everything was fine. I need to lean the idle mixture and I think everything will be set. The motor was nice and cool at set down. Got three more tanks through the engine today. I am one happy camper!! 12-18-01 I was finally able to get back in the air after several days of rain here. The machine was flying great. I did some basic stuff; circuits, figure 8's, stall turns, immelmans, FFF and a bit of hovering. I am slowly pushing the envelope with this machine. I tried some pirouettes but they were very slow since I haven't turned the gyro gain down yet. I flew two tanks in the air. On the third tank I started to adjust the needle settings. Transition from idle to mid range is much better now with no loading up when I advance the T/C stick. 12-21-01 I installed the Aeromaster blades last night and turned down the guro gain to 50%. I needed to make some shim spacers from .020" sheet styrene since the blade grips were 14mm and not 16mm like the stock blades. The blade spacers furnisded with the kit wouldn't work since they were designed for blades having a 12mm root thickness. I could definitely notice a performance improvement with these new blades. The head speed was a bit higher and the heli seemed smoother in general. In forward flight it was just as fast as ever and responsive. I like these blades! On the first flight I did a loop. At first I was going to do just a stall turn but I kept going, added negative pitch at the top (idle up 1 was on), it hung there for the briefest of seconds then continued on around addin postive on the T/C stick. This machine makes a tight loop. I'll have to work on getting the radius larger. On the second flight things were going OK until I noticed the engine was really racing. I brought her in and I couldn't get the throttle back down. I was worried now. I thought the radio must be screwing up or a servo. I checked to make sure that the idle up switch was off and my trims were correct but everything was where it should be. Now I was really concerned. The heli was sitting there on the ground at about 3/4 throttle with the stick all the way down. Good thing it has about 5 deg negative at low stick. I knew I had to do something. I was worried if the radio was screwed up that it might go full collective or anything and things would get very bad, very fast. What I did was probably not the smartest thing but it seemed the best and only solution at the time. My buddy was there with me and I motioned him to come over. I told him I needed him to pull the fuel line while I held the tail of the heli and lifted it up so he could belly in there and get the line. It worked! It was probably the scariest and craziest thing I have ever had to do. Post incident investigation revealed the set screw for the carb had loosened and allowed the carb to move forward out of the crankcase and thereby causing the upper part of the throttle arm to jam against the cooling shroud. I will now make a habit of checking to see that the carb set screw is tight for every flight. I was very lucky today and I owe my bud a great big thanks. After getting every thing back into shape I flew a half a tank to make sure all was well and it was. The remaining two flights were awesome. I did a little tweaking to the carb during the thrid flight and on the fourth flight I really let loose. This Raptor can tear up the sky!!! I was doing loops, stall turns, tight nose in turns about a point, high speed passes, high power vertical climb outs. This machine has the POWER! After I landed on that fourth flight I had the biggest grin on my face. It was a total blast. I am now almost through my second gallon of fuel on this machine and i could not be happier. 12-27-01 Two words describe today's flying: windy and cold! There was a pretty good breeze blowing (over 20mph) but I got two flights in. The raptor handles the wind nicely. I didn't do anything wild. I had my heavy flying gloves on and my fingertips were going numb. Just did some hovering and circuits. Engine was running very well but typically harder to start due to the colder weather. Once running and warmed up it was fine. 12-31-01 Another cold day at the field. I took two flights and ran a total of one tank through her today. Nothing fancy today just flying around. 1-1-02 New Year's Day! It was a really nice day and calm winds for a change. At the field I set up and fuled the heli, started her up, carried her out to the runway but on the way the motor died. I tried to restart but no joy then the motor locked up again and I couldn't turn it. At first I thought hydraulic lock but that proved untrue. Since it would still not turn when the starter was applied I thought there had to be something not lined up. So I dropped the engine, tried to realign everything but still no joy. I was baffled. Then I noticed the fan was not seated against the front of the crankcase like it should have been. Sure enough the propnut has allowed the fan to spin loose. I tightened everything back up and reinstalled the motor. I had a buddy spin the motor with the starter and it turned. After getting everything in place and trying to start it again the same thing happened. Bind up. So the starter must have spun the nut again and the fan moved. I took everything apart again and decided I was going to really torque that nut down. Here's where I really screwed up; I used the handle of my needle nose pliers (padded, of course) and put it in the exhaust opening to keep the piston from moving. DUMB! DUMB! DUMB! in my over zealousness in tightening the piston crunched up against the pliers and deformed the metal causing the engine to seize. I now had a scored piston and liner. Can you say idiot? I took the motor apart now to asses the damage. Mind you it's about 28 degrees out and I'm in my cold weather gear disassembling an OS61 on a picnic table. I am thinking here I damaged the most expensive parts to the whole engine (bsides the carb). The piston would not even get past the exhaust ports now. Fortunately the OS61 is a ringed engine. I could probably get away with 'dressing' out the damage. I packed everything up and dejectedly headed home. How ironic. The one nice day and i can't fly and show off my new machine to my flying buddies there. I have a cylinder hone for brake wheel cylinders and that made short work of the cylinder. A few revolutions on the drill with some oil and it was good as new. The piston needed some attention with 400 grit sandpaper and a fine file. I cleaned up the parts, oiled and reassembled them and everything worked smoothly. I installed the engine, adjusted the gear lash and took her outside for a test rund. Everything ran perfect. I hovered half a tank in the cul-de-sac out front. All I can say is I got lucky. Damn lucky. Once I was home the whole repair took less than a half hour until it was back in the air, after fiddling at the field for 3 hours. 1-3-02 Time to redeem myself for my previos bone-headeness. I went out after work and got two flights in. the motor is running fine but it seems a bit on the rich side. First flight was just some basic 8's, stall turns and hovering. One the second flight I did more. Worked on loops. They are getting rounder and more defined. I love looping this heli. Ran a total of two tanks through before giving into the cold and setting sun. 1-4-02 Another great day. I got three flights in. My buddy Brandon showed up after my first flight with his video camera. Time to show off!I ripped her around the sky doing loops, stall turns, FFF and just some wild stuff. Unfortunatley Brandon's camera wasn't set right. Gosh darn it I'll have to fly again. Like I was disappointed....NOT. The third flight was more of the same except he got it on video. Brandon really likes that little bit of inverted 'hang-time' I give at the top of the loop. The Raptor looks good when you watch it fly on the tape. I need to get a copy from him. Summary: It's been just about a month now that I've had the R60. I've gotten about 27 flights and burned over 2 1/2 gallons of fuel through her. There have been some issues but nothing that is proven to be a fault of the design or fault of the machine. Everything so far is normal occurence for flying R/C. I am very happy with the Raptor 60. It is a very fine flying machine. Each time I land from a flight I'm happy with its performance. I definitely feel I made the right choice when I bought it. Hopefully in the coming months I can put many more hours on her and improve my flying skills. I know the machine is capable but the pilot needs some work. I'll post an update every few months to let you know how it's going. Flight Update 3-14-02 The machine has been through a lot. Most notable is the incident with the 'Jesus' bolt breaking. That really caught me by surprise. It was certainly not something I expected. I also replaced the Tx with a Hitec Eclipse 7. The Futaba 9VHP I was using developed a problem with the rudder control. I was only getting rudder travel in one direction. The problem wasn't confined to just the heli, it happened to the planes I use this radio on as well. I've also added a Futaba GV-1 govenor. Prior to the head bolt shearing the heli was flying very well. It's still doing OK but always after a rebuild you end up trying to get back to that 'sweet spot' your were at before when everything was working right. That and the new radio with new pitch curves have added some little nagging issues. The heli still flies great but it's not quite yet where I want it. I do have a new set of TT carbon fiber blades to try out. I installed them last night. They balanced right out of the box. So very nice. I am sure they will add a new dimension to flying. The govenor is still very new and I am working on the settings for that. Probably the problem is too many new things at once. I am confident they all will get sorted out. I try to fly the Raptor every chance I get. But she now has to compete with a Hirobo Sceadu 46 that I just finished. I think the two helis will compliment each other very well. I also experienced my first auto with the Raptor. I had been flying around and was knowing full well I should land because my fuel was low when the engine just died. I was already heading into the wind so I lowered the collective and kept moving forward. I was worried I might land on top of a fence at our field so I gave aft cyclic to slow the forward movement and as the heli descended I added full collective. She settled with a slight thump onto the gras. PERFECT! Nothing damaged. I was quite happy. (Autos are not my strong point as you might be able to tell) As a side note about Ace Hobby's customer service: it's marginal at best. It took the better part of two weeks before I could get anyone there to listen about the head bolt shearing. They finally agreed to replace the damaged parts but as of yet I still haven't seen them. The Raptor is a very nice heli but Ace Hobby leaves much to be desired. Ace seems to have a lot of excuses; their move to a new faciltity, a poor telecommunications set up, the customer rep for helis is always out, no one to answer the phones. That's pretty poor business practice to blame things like that. But that's my educated opinion. So, if you get a TT product don't hold your breath waiting for Ace to be right there to help you out. |
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| Thoughts on the Raptor 60 as of 11-27-02 I've been flying this machine for almost a year now. In the last two months I've had three crashes. One was my own fault for having the Tx on the wrong model. The other two were clearly issues with the R60. I had just gotten the machine repaired from my 'brain fade' fiasco with the wrong model being selected and I had the machine all dialed in when I lost the T/R. The Raptor was spinning madly around in the sky and I for some unknown reason went to full throttle and collective. In short I ended up hitting the ground tail first. it got ugly real fast from there. The battery had come loose and disconnected so I couldn't use the Tx to shut the engine down. The motor was HOWLING at full throttle and no load on it except for the clutch shous. By the time I got there to rip the fuel line off I had melted and fused metal. The clutch beel was gone and lots of liner dust was everywhere. Post mortem investigation revealed the small 2mm pin that holds the counter gear to the T/R gear shaft was missing. The set screw was still loctited in place securely so i can only assume the pin broke in two where it came in contact with the set screw. With no pin there is no tail drive. This was verified by the fact the gears in the T/R gear box were nice and chip free and ready to go again. Time for another rebuild....... I'm getting good at this. The next failure occured not more than 2 weeks later. Again the machine is dialed in and flying fine when all of a sudden in a circuit it starts getting real pitchy for and aft. At first i thought ...radio hit... so I set up to land. At about 20ft high the heli pitches nose up, on to its back and WHAM! into the ground. The damage this time was contained to the main blades, spindle shaft and canopy. All indications were radio hit. In the pits everything worked great. Then I noticed it. The small screw that connects the two cylic pitch pushrods on the center pivot arm had sheard right at the point where it entered the plastic. I never had a chance. The two links fell away and I lost all fore/aft cyclic control. Two crashes now. Each caused by 60 cent parts. I am not enammoured of the Raptor at this point in time. These were material failures that should not have happened. Look back to the Jesus bolt incident as well. To say I am a bit gun-shy of the R60 is a bit of an understatement. I am wondering what else could break or go wrong. Any of the parts that broke which resulted in a crash could not have been detected in pre-flight checks. My only guess is the material TT uses is sub-par. In all the other helis I have flown over the years I have not had any problems like this where parts break (espcially key hardware) resulting in an uncontrollable heli. Where I am going to go from here remains unclear. I really liked the R60. It was a great value and flew very well. However, I don't want to fly a machine I can't trust and the R60 I have has lost that trust. I have had excellent experiences with my Hirobo Sceadu so I am leaning towards Sceadu's big brother, the Freya. Ironically I chose the Raptor 60 over the Freya due to cost. That seems a moot point now. If anyone out there reading this is trying to decide what heli to choose all I can say is that I am nuetral on the R60. The enthusiasm I once had for this machine is gone. If you get one you may be happy for a while but sooner or later there will be something on it that will bite you. I don't endorse buying an R60 then having to replace all the hardware. A consumer should not have to do that. You purchase a heli, in good faith, thinking the manufacturer has done all they could to insure a good product. I don't think TT has done that. Am I being too harsh? I don't think so. 60 sized helis have been around for a long time now so the rigors they go through are not unknown. And in my opinion it's not the design that's flawed, it's the materials used. As always, feel free to contact me directly with questions or comments. |