jimmyhua Veteran Location: Guam
| Day 2Okay, I'm on Day 2 of Building the Falcon. Please remember that this is the first heli kit I have ever built.
What I have found is, I suck at building helis, I should stick with airplanes and wood
Step 21 turned out to be a real frustrating experience. The upper frames don't really fit the lower frames w/out bending a little. The engine shroud refused to fit into the shroud of the upper frame.
After playing with it for a good 30 minutes or so. I finally just force fitted everything together and bolted it on. Looking at my handi-work, I was in sheer horror. The engine shroud was rubbing against the head of the engine with quite a bit of force, and the frame was slightly warped. So, I took it apart, and tried it again, and again and again.
I found the source of the problem was that the OS50 is too big for the frame, and the engine shroud was getting in the way. Also worth noting, where the shroud was at, it also partially blocked access to the exhaust.
Finally, I gave in to my old rc airplane building habits (if it don't fit, MAKE IT so that it does FIT). and got out the good old Hack Saw, and dremel tool.
I first tried to trim away small parts of the engine shroud that got in the way of the lower metal frames. After a while, I got really carried away and pretty much chopped the whole thing in half. It still wouldn't fit .
Finally, I made the discovery, that I should have noticed before I got the heavy artillery out. Which was, that the reason for the bad fit, was that the upper frame shroud was rounded at the bottom, while the engine shroud itself was actually squared.
So, all I had to do was cut off a right angle at the upper frame engine shroud to match the engine shroud itself. It worked perfectly for what was left of the engine shroud, except for the fact that it still butted up against the engine head.
So, then I drilled a new set of mounting holes (quite far away from the original holes, I should have just widened the holes or something) for the plastic shroud, and that fixed that problem.
And then, it came time to mate the servo frame assembly with the upper and lower frames. Umm, It doesn't fit. The holes in the upper frames are too far recessed, and my little engine shroud modification killed the fit to the lower frame.
Out with the dremel again, and took a little plastic off the upper frame, and then more plastic off of the lower Rx tray.
Alrighty, at least the upper/lower frames & landing gear has been bashed together.
Then came the Tail pitch plate assembly, where they recommended you JB Weld the thing to keep it from coming loose. Oh yeah, I JB Welded it good alright. It wouldn't spin anymore. Out with the hobby knife, and pried the thing so it was loose again, it's a bit notchy, but at least it spins around now.
Putting together the Tail Rotor Grip assembly was amazingly smooth. There were some notes about putting in a washer with the larger Inner Diamater first. It took a while, but I finally figured out they were referring to the thrust BB race tracks. Although they may look identical, one of them is smaller than the other one!!! The only way I could tell the difference was by putting it together completely and seeing if it was smooth. If it wasn't smooth, I had it backwards. (No dial caliper, Note to self: I need to get a dial caliper).
Finally worth noting is, that the tail rotor hardly binds. The tail pitch slider will go practically from one end to the other w/out hitting bell-crank. This is unlike my old Hawk SE.
I think I'm so far off the beaten track here. It would be unfair for me to review the flight performance of this heli.
To Summarize, the fit between upper frame and engine shroud needs to improve. Also, the engine shroud needs to be a little bigger to accommodate the OS50SX. All the other stuff mentioned above, is just fodder from this, as all the heli components fit rather tightly in the frame. There's no room for error in this frame set-up.
I think I'm almost done. I wish my servos and replacement Muscle Pipe will come in soon.
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