sultan68
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Posts: 43
(4/26/03 6:20 pm)
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 Flying with only a full header tank is bad
Well, today I was practicing autos for the first time EVER and Matt (XFLYER) was there helping me out. I was doing pretty good, so he said. My heli devoured the fuel I gave it and came back to refuel and recharge with the header tank remaining.
Anyways, after he left, I had to recharge my RX batt and then took to the skies again--but with only a full header tank! Oops.. I was having fun for a brief moment in time with some forward flight at about 150 feet and then it died... Yes, yours truly forgot to fill the frickin' tank.
I had two options, watch my model fall out of the sky and splatter on the dirt or try an auto from a "tad higher" than I felt was comfortable considering I just started today!!! So here my 30v2 is, falling from 150 feet. I jammed the collective full down which was about -3 on the pitch to keep that all-important headspeed up and waited...and waited...
I flare at about 10 feet and add in the collective and to my surprise it worked! Almost... The heli was quite far away from me (about 200 feet laterally) so my perspective wasn't the greatest but it went behind a rise north of the field and I lost sight of it so I couldn't watch it all the way to the ground and somehow it tipped over but all I lost was ONE blade which struck the boom, a cracked horiz. fin, a dented tail boom and slightly bent flybar rod...
No other damage was apparent! It didn't even break the flimsy wiretie I was using on the right rear skid to keep it attached to the frame since I broke that part of the frame in a crash a while back. So in my assessment, the impact and attitude at which it touched down was normal, but I was unable to watch it pop around in the grass and therefore wasn't able to keep the rotor disk completely level it would seem. Something I was doing fine when I could SEE it near the ground earlier.. 
All in all, I'm impressed. It could have been alot worse and considering I just started these adrenalin boosters today, I was feeling pretty good about it overall! Although in the near future I will try it at less than 150 feet! 
Matt, I guess the answer to my question about whether or not it was truly ready for a full auto was YES! Thanks, Matt!
Edited by: sultan68 at: 4/26/03 7:02:16 pm
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