RunRyder - R60 tweaks for begining F3C?

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Aerobatic FAI F3C Contest > R60 tweaks for begining F3C?

cyclic fever
Senior Heliman
Location: Seymour Indiana

Well, I've be givin the opportunity to rebuild my R60

I've got a ton of ?'s on how to rebuild it with learning to fly F3C in mind. I'm able to fly as much as I do because I stay behind the "Trendy" curve and some older items are so undervalued that I'm able to take advantange and spend more on fuel. I've just picked up a OS 61sx,non-WC, NIB and I'm trying to find a good match in a muffler. I've seen 3 CY Muscle pipe version 1's on ebay in recent weeks and wonder if this was ment to be used in the F3C or 3D scene.
Also boom and drive tube is trashed, how bout pushing the tail back with 90 parts? Will this make it more or less stable in the wind? Blades. Given that I'm going with the OS 61 on 20% WC fuel, how would I look at blade design? fully sym or semi sym blade? Would think that the semi blade might offer a bit more vertical and speed in FFF on my power over the fully sym. but I'm in the dark here. Cant afford two or three of anything to experiment.

Mike

10-14-2007 02:17 AM

ErichF
Key Veteran
Location: Odessa, FL 33556 (Tampa Area)

Since you are beginning, you need to look at what class you intend to fly. I will assume you will be flying AMA class 1. Here, you need a good setup that hovers very well, and doesn't have any bad tendencies in moderate FFF. The Class 1 forward flight manuevers aren't power or speed hungry, but you do need to get moving for at least the Cobra Vee to make it look good.

Class 1 now has a roll in it. For this reason, I think you may have a better time flying with symmetrical blades. For me, at least, they provide a more linear reaction when executing the inverted portion of the roll. Semis tend to make you bury the collective or bring the nose up. It's not unlike rolling an airplane with a semi or flat-bottom airfoil - hard to keep straight.

I don't see an issue for extending the boom, but you may want to keep using 680mm blades for the engine's sake. A side effect of shorter blades is a higher disc loading, which calms the heli down in winds. In fact, for class 1, you can even use the TT woodies, if you can keep them tracked and balanced well.

Consider heavy paddles, with a set of flybar weights. An in-expensive solution for good FAI paddles are the Hirobo Freya paddles with both weights installed.

The R60 head isn't really adjustable, so you get what you get there. About the only thing you can do really is install nice soft dampers. Rick's used to sell a conversion kit that converts the R60 head to use O-ring style dampers. I say used to, because I just learned they were closed down. Anyways, that damper kit makes the R60 head fly this stuff a lot better.

If you want some in-depth tips and descriptions of the Class 1 manuevers, visit either the Freak site or the RC Heli Mag forums. I have written a thorough posting with diagrams covering Class 1 in detail.

Cheers,

Erich

Team Kyosho Regional Field Representative

10-14-2007 02:53 AM

cyclic fever
Senior Heliman
Location: Seymour Indiana

Thanks Erich and yes I'll be working with class 1. On adjustabilty of the head, where can I find some real reading on the machanics and design of rotor heads to learn why they built the way thay are? I hear the word Delta kicked around and I havent a clue what that is and need to fix that.

10-14-2007 03:12 AM

RCHelicopterGuy
Veteran
Location: Michigan

I can share what I'm finding so far, in my own setup experiments with my R90.

For exhaust, I'd call Len Sabato at Advantage Hobby and order a Zimmerman 2630L. Not because I have tons of experience with it, but because Len recommended it to me once when I was building an Intrepid 60 that got sold before I flew it. The finish on that Zimmerman was like a work of art. As I understand it, it's designed with lower nitro in mind, and may suit your 20% pretty well.

Incidentally, I have a brand new 60 SX-H WC that has never seen a drop of fuel, sitting in a Ziploc baggie looking for a home. The 60B carb was once used on an O.S. .50 of mine (and is now back with the 60), but other than that the engine itself has never seen airtime. If you're interested, I'd be willing to horse trade you some stuff. It's just sitting on my shelf and may never be used.

For paddles, just stick with the stock TT blacks for now. They weigh in at about 50 grams I believe, and have a pretty fat airfoil with a blunt leading edge. Another option would be the TT blue 30 gram paddles with some flybar weights. that way, you could play around with the tuning a bit, and the TT paddles are inexpensive. I think they fly pretty well, but I don't have a ton of experience with other paddles (only Hirobo, KSJ, and V-Paddles), so I'm not the definitive opinion.

Stay with the 1:1 Bell-Hiller ratio on the seesaw. It's the one that puts the mixer arm furthest out from the center of the rotor head. On my 90 with 710mm blades, I'm finding that I need a little longer flybar than the stock one, which I believe is around 475mm. I'd like to try a 500mm flybar and see how it goes. I don't know if your 60 with shorter blades will need that long a flybar or not. My guess is no, but just keep it in mind.

Use the blue dampers instead of the red ones. When I used the reds, I started to see a little mast bumping at lower hovering headspeeds (like around 1450). I like a softer feel, though, so maybe that was part of it for me.

I found that with the black paddles, my roll rate with 6 degrees of cyclic was on the slow side (for my tastes, at least) with 1850 rpm on the head. Since I changed the gearing to 7.91 and raised my headspeed to 1970, I got some of the cyclic control back. The rolls weren't bad, but I really had to time my collective well. A big part of it is that I'm not all that good, but it is slow nonetleless. The upside is, it forces you to learn collective management. It may actually be an asset for you at this point. I know it is for me, because I'm better at axial rolls now than I was 2 months ago. I don't know what kind of headspeed you can realistically expect with a .61 engine. Maybe some of the veterans can shed light on that.

Let me know if you're interested in that WC.

10-14-2007 03:16 AM

RCHelicopterGuy
Veteran
Location: Michigan

Quote
The R60 head isn't really adjustable

I'm pretty sure I don't agree with that, and am wondering how you came to that conclusion?

Off the top of my head, I know that it can be built for either leading or trailing edge pitch arms, Enough Delta in either direction to "hang yourself several times over" (to use Ben's words), can be built in either center-pivot or full-floating axle configurations, can use either 1:1 or .75:1 B/H ratios on the stock seesaw (needs different flybar cage for .75, though), the metal versions have adjustable phasing, there are two different durometer dampers from TT and options from aftermarket sources, the flybar control arms have two different pickup points... sounds adjustable to me.

10-14-2007 03:17 AM

ErichF
Key Veteran
Location: Odessa, FL 33556 (Tampa Area)

OK, not in the sense that some others are, I should qualify the statement.

You could do things like add spacers and flip the grips, true.

Erich

Team Kyosho Regional Field Representative

10-14-2007 03:26 AM

RCHelicopterGuy
Veteran
Location: Michigan

Explain "the sense that some others are", then, because this sounds like pretty standard fare to me. I'll admit, though, that I just don't know.

What have you found on your Caliber or your X-Spec?

10-14-2007 03:28 AM

ErichF
Key Veteran
Location: Odessa, FL 33556 (Tampa Area)

Well, let's use the X-Spec with EVO head for example.

There's three mixer pivot positions on the flybar carrier. There's four hiller/bell positions on the mixers themselves. There's two positions on the washout arms. You can add/remove spacers on the blade pitch arms to adjust Delta. You can flip the grips for major Delta changes. You can shim the dampers to fine tune head damping.

That makes for a possible 24 different configurations of the same head, not counting the infinite damping or Delta settings.

Many of the same adjustments are available on the Tempest head from Miniature, the Sylphide from JR, and the Caliber from Kyosho. Infact, the Caliber and Sylphide have adjustable squish rings that allow you to adjust damping without any tools and taking anything apart.

Erich

Team Kyosho Regional Field Representative

10-14-2007 03:35 AM

RCHelicopterGuy
Veteran
Location: Michigan

Then maybe a better phrase is "it doesn't have the number of possible configurations in it's stock form".

Although, I could open up the same number of possibilities with my SE head with just a few minor tweaks. With just a drill press, I can put 2 more adjustments in the mixer arms. That alone would give me nearly the same number of adjustability options of your Evo head, except for 1 less point on the flybar carrier.

Not trying to start a fight or anything, honest. My point is that it's not true to say that it "isn't really adjustable", because it actually is quite adjustable. In fact, the more I play with my SE, the more I'm starting to think that in some ways, it's kind of the overlooked, red-headed stepchild of F3C. I'm not going to make any grandiose claims like "It's the best" (a highly subjective claim), but I will say that I think it gets a bad rap and is often overlooked. It really is a decent machine, especially for the price (kits are now around $850, I think.). More and more, I'm thinking that you could do worse. I was going to sell it this winter and buy an Evo 90, but I think I changed my mind when I switched the gearing to 7.91. It made a world of difference, and suddenly started acting and sounding like the machine I wanted it to be. It's Shigetada Taya's brainchild, and he's not exactly ignorant about F3C.

Like Bugs Bunny said, "One man's meat is another man's poison."

10-14-2007 03:50 AM

ErichF
Key Veteran
Location: Odessa, FL 33556 (Tampa Area)

OK, sure you break out the drill press and even the mill and you can do all kinds of wonders

Also, keep in context the version of Raptor this post was originally regarding: the standard, R60 plastic head. Of course the metal upgraded SE head has more options, but I wasn't talking to that.

Tim Diperi has done a remarkable job modifying the Predator head into the solid performer it is.

Erich

Team Kyosho Regional Field Representative

10-14-2007 03:55 AM

RCHelicopterGuy
Veteran
Location: Michigan

The only difference between the standard R60 head (assuming his is stock) and the SE head is that the head block itself is plastic instead of metal, the blade grips are plastic (which I don't consider a detriment, looking at the number of pilots using plastic grips as a tuning aid... can you get plastic grips for a Caliber?), and the washout base is plastic. It has the same number of adjustment options as the SE head. In fact, the full-floating/center pivot swap is a trick that your Hirobo doesn't have.

My only point about the drill press was to say that with a modification so simple that a trained monkey could do it, I have nearly the same number of options that you do except for the seesaw, and I'm not including that because you'd have to drill and tap it (the B/H arms only require a small hole, since they're plastic). Again, the point is to illustrate that there's more adjustability than you give it credit for. You're confusing it wih the Raptor 30/50 series, which I will agree lock you into fewer options.

I suspect that if you were to sit down and take a close look at an SE head, you may find more there than you realized. Not blowing a manufacturer's horn, just stating an opinion.

10-14-2007 04:07 AM

cyclic fever
Senior Heliman
Location: Seymour Indiana

Quote
Enough Delta in either direction to "hang yourself several times over" (to use Ben's words),

ARGH! theres that word again, Delta! what the heck is it and how do you use it?

10-14-2007 06:57 AM

RCHelicopterGuy
Veteran
Location: Michigan

For entry-level purposes, I'd say don't worry about it. You'll have enough on your hands getting your basic setup dialed in.

But to answer your question specifically, "Delta" refers to the position of the ball link on the blade grip pitch arm, relative to the center of the head axle (looking at the head from the side).

The short definition is - moving that pickup point/ball link closer to the blade grip or further away (and thus changing the relationship of the ball link relative to the center of the head axle) will cause the blades to react to the flapping of the rotor head in different ways. If you have correcting Delta, as the blades flap up, they'll be forced to decrease pitch, which will try to return them back to a neutral state. If you have non-correcting Delta, the blade flapping will cause them to have the pitch increased, which will tend to increase the action.

At least that's my basic understanding of it.

If I got my terms wrong, I hope someone will correct me. Maybe one of the senior guys around here will chime in and shed some light for both of us.

But like I said, I wouldn't worry about it right now. I haven't even played with my own settings yet. Some of the top pilots in the world use zero Delta. It's just another tool at your disposal.

10-14-2007 02:41 PM

cyclic fever
Senior Heliman
Location: Seymour Indiana

I see now! Thats the kind'a stuff I want to get my mind around, but you are so right about how I have no need to worry about it yet. The only heli I have up right now is the trusty Caliber 30. I doubled the the weight of the stock brass weight in the paddle, knocked down the throws and stomped on the expo and spent the afternoon boring the guys at the field working on nose it 8's and pyro 8's. Man did they hate how slow the 30's go thru a tank, lol. I'm finding all sorts of things that I've moved past without stoping to learn it first in reguards to by hovering game. Got alot of backtracking to do for awhile as I rebuild the R60.

10-15-2007 12:42 AM

chris-fry
Senior Heliman
Location: I guess it is called Ohio???

Where could one such as myself see the schedule for Class 1??? Explanations and all that.....

Thanks!

Auto practice is when you have a problem!!! XFC Pilot '05 A/C

12-06-2007 05:21 AM

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Aerobatic FAI F3C Contest > R60 tweaks for begining F3C?

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