Yesterday I noticed that my blades were going seriously out of track during FF and 3D manouvers. On the bench and on hover are tracking perfectly but when I doing FF and some soft 3D they are going out of track. When I am hovering they are coming on track again.

Initially I thought that I had install the thrust bearings the wrong way (heli was crashed 1 month ago but everything is replaced with new parts like spindle, main shaft, etc.) When I dismantled the heli I found out that one thrust bearing was bad (one ball was missing) so I replaced the TB with a new set but the problem persists.

What do you think it might cause this problem?

Sotiris
myhelis.com Flying Team

Hi SPB,

If you have already replaced both thrust bearings, I would check / replace all 4 radial blade grip bearings.

Russ.

It could be any number of things... but at our field, the number one contributor to Raptor "woofing" was too high a head speed (i.e. > 2000rpm for a raptor 50). This was occurring during 3D or FFF if we were already pushing the limit and then the head was unloaded suddenly during a manuver. Check your headspeed with a tach and then see if the problem occurs when going from a loaded to unloaded head.

John

OUT TRACKING BLADES

That same thing was hapening to a friend of mine it was flying fine but when he will do any 3D one blade will go out of tracking, one of the radial ball bearing in one of the blade grip was bad, replaced the bearing and problem solved

Mario

Thank you guys. I will check all what you sugested. I will order today a set of new radial bearings.

Hohn my head speed is as you said >2000 rpm (maybe 2100) cause that's the HS OS Hyper likes. What do you suggest if that's the case? Lower the HS?

Sotiris
myhelis.com Flying Team

Yes, try lowering the HS, especially if you don't have a rev limiter such as the TJ RevMax. The problem is not that you are turning 2000rpm, it's that you are probably jumping up to 2200+ when you unload the head. I use a RevMax on all my helis (50's and 90's) for just this reason. On the 50's I set the limit to 2000rpm (90's, 1850rpm) and don't worry about unloading anymore.

Let us know how this works out.

John

Blade tracking

Hi Sotiris,

Did you check your flybar paddle alignment? If they are not correctly aligned with the swashplate level the blades will not track properly.

Check out my homepage under swashplate leveling tool. I know I sent you a tool but may not have included the up to date instructions contained on my homepage. It also talks about the flybar paddle alignment and the tool I use to check it.

Good to hear you are putting those heli's through their paces.

Be Safe.

Your Friend,

John

OC Bob's Gathering #2 was a Premiere Event. Pictures in my Gallery

Bearings, flybar paddles alignment and all these suggestions are fine.....

BUT did you check your ball links after the crash? Some TT ball links strip inside the plastic and make you lose the settings you had on the linkages. They will look fine, but as soon as you apply pressure, they move on you.

Cheaper than a new set of bearings as so many people are suggesting.

Rafael

Keep your feet on the ground, but your eyes on the sky.
Team Heliproz.com

bent parts

Rafael23cc

You are correct. I have also seen bent screws that the balls mount on cause tracking issues.

OC Bob's Gathering #2 was a Premiere Event. Pictures in my Gallery

Hey guys thanks for all the help. I'll have plenty of thinks to check tonight

John it's always a pleasure to hear from you buddy. Your gauge is the first think I am using when setting up my heli but you are right I haven't check your latest instructions. I will do it right now.

Sotiris
myhelis.com Flying Team

Rap 50 flying out of track

Unforunately I have the same problem with blade tracking.

In a hover and flying figure of 8's no problem, but during hard loops or rolls, the blades go severely out of track. Its so intermittent though, hard to pinpoint. I transition back to a hover and the fluttering most of the time stops.

Would be nice if someone could pinpoint the problem down to the part. Until then, I am going to try a new set of dampeners, thrustbearings, radial bearings, blades, etc. one at a time and find what it could be exactly. I use a handheld tachometer and tach no higher than 1950 in Idle up 2, but then again, probably exceeds that during the maneuver. I have a throttle jockey governor still in the box, maybe I will try that. We will see.....

I've had this problem, for awhile it was doing fine around 2050 RPM and then it started doing it again. I'm flying around 1950 now, with no governor and it has yet to do it again...

Make sure there's no slop in your collective servo anywhere. Either in mounting or gear-train.

Problem solved

I managed to find some time this weekend and check everything.

There was no issue for overspeeding since GV1 is taking care of this.
There was no slope anywhere and all links were OK. Paddles perfectly aligned and thrust bearings just replaced.

So it was either the feathering beraings or (and yes that it was) the dampeners. A new set of red dampeners and everything is back in order

Thanks all of you for the great help.

Sotiris
myhelis.com Flying Team

Good Deal

Hi Sotiris,

Glad to hear you got it all sorted out and are back having a ton of fun.

There are alot of parts in the helicopters and most of them are moving at some pretty high speeds. Any one part can cause issues and it is nice that you shared your experience with us so we can keep that solution in mind if it ever happens to us.

Keep having fun with that 3D.

Your Friend,

John

OC Bob's Gathering #2 was a Premiere Event. Pictures in my Gallery

woodies?

Mine happend with the woodies???

the covering needed to be heated up and tightened......

fed up with that and buying carbons today!! LOL

just lettin ya know...

I hope the culprit are the dampeners. I changed mine out for a new set (blue for blue) the other night. Havent flown it yet. I will plan to fly mine Tuesday. I did notice the new pair were several millimeters smaller in diameter than the used dampeners I pulled off the Raptor 50. Maybe that can make a difference. We will see tomorrow!

Greg

I met a friend from New Zealand this week in Vegas. His Raptor 50 did it yesterday in fast fwd flight. This is the second time I seen this, the first time we couldn't figure it out. On the first one we took the complete assembly out of Alan's, including the main shaft and put in the one that was having the problem. Flew it and it was still going out of track. Put the one we pulled out of the problem child and put it in Alan's and it flew fine. We thought it could be the servos. Now on my friend yesterday we noticed a lot of slop in the collective servo. I wish I knew the number of the Futaba servo he had but I cant remember it. I had a spare Airtronics 757 which we put in and the problem went away. So now I say check for play in the collective servo.

I find that really weird that something below the swash could have anything to do with the blade tracking. You'd think anything going on below the swash would effect both blades the same.

I happen to be experiencing the same problem on my eccpm micro-electric (H2) right now though. Aggressive flips and such causes the blades to flutter out of track so bad it loses lift for moment until the blades settle back into track. If I'm smooth and gentle through manuevers then the blades track fine.

I'm using it for an excuse to do a major upgrade to my head from servo mounts all the way up (including new servos). I'm pretty sure this problem will be gone in a few days. . But I suspect the funky 2 piece feathering spindels that have the bearings on the bolts rather than the spindels and linkage slop to be my culprit.

Sorry for the worthless post. But the servo culprit theory intrigues and baffles me. So does the paddle alignment theory. Seems to me both of these influence both blades at once equally. My logic steers me towards something above the swash that is bent worn or flexing.

collective servo play

I've been experiencing the same situation with head speeds of about 1850 to 1950. I tried TT and Helimax blades and they both did it. I learned through other posts here on runryder that it may be due to collective servo play. I checked it out and sure enough, I had play at the output shaft. I replaced the gears and output shaft on my Futaba 9252 and got rid of the play. Fired it up and the problem had gone away. I flew it about 3 more tanks full, problem did not come back. I would say that play in the collective servo could have most likely caused that ever so unwanted 'flutter'

Ejay,

That would be great if it is just a collective servo!!! I am still not totally convinced yet that 5, 10, or X number of pilots are all having flutter problems with their Raptor 50s due to all having sloppy collective servos. I am currently using a Hitec digital and assume its fine, but I will certainly not rule it out after reading about this.

I did fly today after changing a set of dampeners and have ruled them out as being a potential culprit, continued to flutter! Tomorrow though, the next flight will be with blade grips, bearings, and thrust bearings from my Raptor 30 to see if these same parts on my 50 are bad.....

After that, a different collective servo will be used. I'm determined to get this solved.