Bell Bloke
Veteran
Location: England
| I have to say guys that there is a lot of horsepoo talked about Turbines. Before I owned one I found that the Turbine people I spoke to made it sound like running one was complicated and expensive and that they were hard to fly and set up.
Well I am sorry to destroy the myth folks but........
Turbines are easy to fly, easy to operate and cheap to run.
The only bad thing about them is that they are expensive to buy.....
But once you have one the rest is easy though.
I have always likened running one to running an electric heli because although they burn fuel, they don't get all oily, I mean even after several weeks of flying in the season they are no more grimey than my electric helis.
Also they are very easy to set up because they have so much damn raw power. All you do is set your desired head speed through the pitch range, but don't go too crazy because these engines will pull just about anything and you don't want to destroy your Predator.
Next is starting and running the engine.
Well that's easy because with modern electronics you just hit the start switch and.........well.....it starts...every time!!!
There is no tuneing no mixtures no lean running...it just works
rain, snow or shine.
Then there is the maintainance.
Well with the Wren unit that I run the bearing service is every 60-70 hours, this you can do yourself for about 250 dollars. This may sound complicted but it's not. To be honest there's not much inside one of these engines and a 4 stroke petrol engine is way harder to service than this Wren unit. What's even better is that Wren actually encourage you to do it yourself and give you manuals to show you how. It's so simple infact that I let my dog do the last sevice on my Wren.
So basically you don't really touch the engine between services, just fuel and forget. Don't however forget to keep an eye on your Predator because it is the thing that's keeping your lovely engine in the air.
And finally............
What happens if you crash it........?
Well as you can see I'm not afraid to fly mine anywhwere and like anybody I have done some stupid things with it and a couple of times it has hit the ground. But in my two crashes the engine has always been fine, the helicopter on the otherhand has been written off!
Well Folks, the reason why I am writing this is because 2 years ago I was thinking about buying a turbine and a bloke who owned one tried to put me off the idea.
Well, I am happy to say that I did not take his advice and it's the best bit of advice that I ever didn't take.
This is because everytime I fly this heli everyone stops to watch listen and smell it, and even better is that it makes me look like a much better pilot than I actually am because it's so smooth and easy to fly.
If only they knew...............
The other thing is the power, its' just unbelievable, it's smooth and relentless, it never fades and never tires, it's like a V12 engine compared to a 2 cylender motor. Amazing!!
Whats more is when you really want to scare people you can shoot flames out of it, now that's fun.
All the best Bell Bloke. |
