Brian Weekley
Senior Heliman
Location: Victoria, BC Canada
| Five flights ... initial thoughts.In my mind the question is not whether the world needs another .90 sized helicopter but rather what I am going to do with all of my other machines now that I have built and flown the Synergy N9.
By way of background I have been flying RC for 47 years, helis for the last 5. For most of my RC career I flew pattern. I retired 9 years ago and took up helis 5 years ago. Business was kind to me and RC is my passion. I am not budget limited and at last count I had well over 30 helis in my fleet. I have built every X-Cell made have multiples of most of them. I have also build a few Hirobos and one Vario (yuck!).
Nobody will stop what they are doing and watch when I fly but I hold my own, progress slowly and have a big sh*t eating grin on my face when I carry my heli back to the pits. I have attended two of Todd and Jason's schools, am a compulsive instruction follower and keep my mouth shut about helis unless I have personally owned and flown them. I am not sponsored by anybody, am nobodies team pilot and the older I get the less I feel the need to suck up to people. I happily pay for everything that I fly.
I must admit that I leaned on Todd and Jason to get a Synergy. I spent the last week building it and put in five flights on it today.
Here are my thoughts.
The kit is well presented and extremely well packaged.
The instructions are excellent. Read EVERY word on EVERY page and you will have a flyable heli when you reach page 29. By comparison my Stratus manual is 79 pages long. One page that I very much appreciated was page 30 which deals with engine removal and clutch fine tuning. It's not that I can't remove an engine after assembly but its nice to have the procedure laid out in detail.
On page A2 my only comment was that I believed the 100-210 M2 x 10 bolts that are use to assemble the fan shroud would be better if they were 12 or 14 mm bolts.
On page A3 I believe that the 110-146 steel crown gear hub is superior to the MA aluminum equivalent and much cheaper to replace if necessary.
On page A8 I noted that that the composite engine mount went together extremely well and appear to me to be superior to the metal engine mounts that I am used to.
On page A10 I noted that I had to reduce elevator servo low pitch ATV's to keep the swash plate level in the full negative pitch position. I also used my Dremel tool with a tapered stone to recess one side of the 110-217 cyclic pivot support to allow easier assembly of the 108-470 flanged bearings.
On page A14 I used the Futaba supplied servo sheet metal screws rather than the M2 x 10 socket head screws to mount the Throttle and Rudder servos.
On page A19 I noted that I would have preferred to use 4 mm x 14 button head bolts to mount the 120 - 116 bell mixers rather than the 12 mm bolts supplied.
On page A23 I noted that one of the 108-511 thrust bearings was missing a ball. I put it together anyway. I also CA'd the 106-813 tail slider lock ring per MA practice for no better reason than I have done it this was when building over 20 helicopters over the past few years. I also noted that the 106-921 tail pin was a tight fit to the 115-321 tail pitch plate. I assembled it successfully but patience is in order for this step.
Perhaps the biggest issue occurred on page A25 in which I substituted a 22 mm shanked bolt for the 100-320 M3 x 20 socket head bolt in the tail rotor bell crank. The 20 mm bolt did not adequately engage the lock nut which could result in the loss of tail rotor control if it came undone.
On page A26 the kit was missing one 106-95 tail pushrod sleeve. I replaced it with one of my MA spares. I also felt that the clearance between the 115-111 tail control tube and the 115-115 tail control bushing was a little more that I would like to see. I'll service it by adding CA if it gets to be an issue.
On page A26 I felt that 15 mm of the 107-035 control rod should extend out of the control rod rather than the 8 mm specified.
The "C" clips were a non-issue to me but then again I've built more than 20 X-Cells. The clutch runout took a little work but a couple of hours got it to within .005 total runout measured at the top of the fan hub. The only fuel foaming can be attributed to a very rich and poorly running new YS 91.
Dudes ... that it!!! Thats all I could come up with from a self proclaimed anal retentive who has built a lot of helis. Most items I have listed fall into the "personal preference" category. Only two items .. a short bolt and a missing ball in my thrust bearing fall into the consequential category. This is from a first production run NEW design kit.
Of course having attended Todd and Jason's schools I am not surprised that the first run kit has less issues associated with it by a considerable margin than any of the other mature production run/design kits that I have built.
Enough of the negative ... lets talk about the good stuff. I am very impressed with the overall design. It is much more substantial and beefy than any of the other kits I have built apart from the Vario which is built like a tractor. The sense I have is that the N9 is designed to be the beginning of an upward evolution in helis whereas my Furies have already overstretched their design parameters and need to be replaced (which I am sure is what the talented folks at MA are already doing).
I love the fuel tank, the landing gear assembly, the engine/clutch assembly, the main gear and crown gear assemblies, the main shaft and assembly, the entire beefy mainframe concept, the servo tray assembly, the radio tray design, the easy to build swashplate assembly, the rotor head and blade grip assembly, the 5mm flybar arm, the tail gearbox assembly, and the torque tube assembly.
In my opinion there is a lot of Jason in the design of the Synergy. Everything is functional. The design is very robust and without compromise yet the parts count has been kept to a minimum. Jason is the Steve Nash of helicopter design. Not to underestimate Todd's input. Were it not for Todd I think that Jason would still be tinkering with the design. Now the biggest thing to me is that the N9 is a very beefy heli. It has big balls ... litterally and figuratively. It weighs 10 lbs 9 ozs ready to fly sans fuel. My X-Spec weighs more than that ... my Tempests weigh more than that and my Extreme's are on a par yet they are much less robust. Are there compromises with the N9. There has to be and I am looking forward to the learning and upgrade process. I think that the Fury and Freya's will need a complete re-design to fly in the same league as the Synergy. Thats just my opinion and I can't speak about any other helis because I haven't built and flown any of them.
I got five flights in today. Most were spent coaxing a new YS 91 to run smoothly and resolving GV1 issues related to my calcifying brain.
The most important issue that I learned today is that the N9 flies STRAIGHT. No pitching up on power descents or strange twisting motions when I poured on the collective. Oh yeah ... when I wanted some clarification of the function of the sprague bearing I called Todd. I got straight through to him and he answered my question in about six seconds. I couldn't even get through voice mail at other manufacturers in that length of time.
For what its worth here is my Synergy setup as flown today.
Synergy N9
Wide SAB 710 3D blades 185 gms.
YS 91, no header tank.
3 Futaba 9351 on cyclics.
GY 611/9256 on rudder.
Futaba 9202 on throttle.
GV1.
Futaba R149DP receiver.
Duralite 2S2P 3000mAh Li-poly pack w/ HD 6V regulator, smart switch and step down regulator to the rudder servo.
More tomorrow.
Brian |
I want to hear as many views on the model's flight characteristics as I can! Look forward to your mini-review.
and there was me expecting a MINI review 
Great stuff, thanks for the info.
