Eury rrProfessor Location: Ankeny, IA, USA.
| It's not raining this morning and there is no wind, so I very excitedly went out to test it in my driveway. I'm disappointed to report that my experience is the same as everyone elses.
Spooling up, I can see it putting in full cyclic in various directions (I sat there watching it do this for about 10 seconds, so I know it was past the 5sec lockout mentioned earlier), and against my every instinct, I didn't touch the cyclic stick at all (in fact, I consciously wasn't touching it, I had my fingers just off the stick) and slowly brought the collective up. as it got light on the skids it dumped full cyclic over to the right, and I brought the stick down so it wouldn't crash. Spooled it up again, and this time popped it up quickly (again not touching the cyclic), it got to about 6 feet and was all over the place, on take off it got to within a couple of degrees of knife edge, I hit throttle hold and wrestled it back onto the skids. Stupidly, I decided to try one more time, this time taking off like normal and using a touch of cyclic to keep it steady like I would with any heli. Apparently I wasn't quick enough, because this time the tip of the blades hit the driveway, and I shut it down.
Total damage: $12 set of wood blades, and complete loss of confidence in the sk360. I went through the setup exactly according to the manual, and triple and quadruple checked that the settings were right. Everything is moving smoothly and in the correct direction, but the SK360 puts in full cyclic while its sitting on the ground. Why would it do that? It's not like it holds it either, it's like the unit is putting in random jabs in various directions.
Is there an "Instantly kill helicopter" button in the software that I accidentally clicked? Because I can't think of a more efficient way to kill a heli that to jam in full aileron as soon as it gets light on the skids.
Nick Crego Still wanted by the government, I survive as a soldier of fortune. |