Jeff Hoy, American » helicopter

Not a bad price…

Jeff Hoy — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:01:00 +0000

XHeli.com dropped their price on the Esky Honey Bee King 2 heli. It’s a 3D ready micro-electric heli. The King 2 comes with everything you need to fly it right out of the box for only $129.95. If you want to get into r/c helis and the Axe CPv3 is a little too expensive, check this one out.

More iPhone/RC hybridization…

Jeff Hoy — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:01:00 +0000

Previously some crazy foreigners controlled their r/c trucks with a WiiMote and iPhone. Now some crazy American decided to control his r/c helicopter with his iPhone. Seems to be an effective method for basic controls. I’d hate to try and do some crazy 3D stuff with that though.

Check the video:

h/t: Zero RC

Another flight, another crash…

Jeff Hoy — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:01:00 +0000

…and this time I had an audience to witness it. I took my Axe CPv3 to a small park in the old family neighborhood. My dad went along to take some pictures and my grandfather went to watch. There was also the usual gaggle of kids and their guardians that populate the park. The kids were particularly taken with the cool toy.

It was my first real attempt at forward flight and things were going ok, until about my 10th or 12th turn. I rolled it too much, lost lift, and down she went. I almost got it righted in time, but the tail smacked the ground and the tail rotor snapped. I shut her down and called it a day.

I have a replacement tail rotor on hand, I should have taken it with me. I could have done a quick field repair and been in the air again in less than five minutes. Oh well, live and learn.

Here’s some pics:

And we have lift-off.

Yeah, I’m still using the training gear, what of it?

I think I’m getting it…

Jeff Hoy — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:01:00 +0000

I had a few more successful flights with my Axe CPv3. I’m starting to get the hang of this thing and I think I’ve got the kinks worked out. I’m not flying it in a huge area, just in my backyard with some trees, wood fences, and a couple overhead wires. The environment is teaching me good control because I can make only small movements. I should have hovering down pretty well in a short time.

I did have a couple minor crashes, resulting in two broken blade grips. Not nearly as much damage as other crashes that I’ve had.

Flight #4

Jeff Hoy — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 06:01:00 +0000

I’ve been busy the last couple weeks and haven’t really had time to try flying my Axe CPv3. That changed today as I took it out this evening just before sundown and managed to get about 10 minutes of stick time in. I’m happy to say that it was actually very successful. I didn’t really crash or break any parts. It’s the first time I went out with a fully charged battery and came in with a fully dead battery and nothing broken. I did have one close call when the main blades struck the ground, but I managed to recover and not cause any significant damage.

I managed to actually fly my heli around a little bit, nothing fancy because it was in my backyard, but it was off the ground and I was somewhat in control. Overall I’m going to call this flight a success and I’m looking forward to trying again tomorrow.

Flight #3

Jeff Hoy — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 06:01:00 +0000

Crash #3. I actually started flying my Axe CPv3 around a bit and lost control. Nobody to blame but myself. Another $30 spent to replace yet another blade grip, the seesaw, part of the swash plate assembly, and a flybar link. The main blades seemed to come through fine though. This is getting ridiculous, I may have to shelf the heli for a while. I really don’t want to though, I really, really want to learn how to fly my rc helicopter.

Take 2…

Jeff Hoy — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:01:00 +0000

I finally received all the replacement parts for my Axe CPv3 to get her flying again. Putting it back together was actually pretty easy. The only troubling parts were getting the O-rings stuffed back in the the center hub and making sure the main blades and fly-bar were tracking properly. Getting a helicopter properly setup from the beginning is the key to it flying nice. It only took me about an hour or so to fix everything.

So with my helicopter ready to fly again I grabbed my transmitter and headed out to my large driveway. I got it “light” on it’s skids to check all my trims and make sure it didn’t want to do too much dancing around. Confident that I had it where it should be I applied a little more throttle and got it up about four feet off the ground and hovered it nicely for about 30 seconds. I then landed it somewhat smoothly. I was pretty pumped about executing my first real take-off and landing. So after that accomplishment I decided to take it easy for the rest of the time and just stay light on the skids to practice maneuvering. It was going pretty well as I was walking my heli around, keeping decent control over it.

But then…

While practicing some sideways movements the training skids caught on something and over she went. Blades striking hard against the ground before I could power down, pieces of plastic flying in every direction. I panicked less this time than I did last, but that didn’t save me. I have yet to do a full inspection but besides the main blades being trashed it looks like I’ve broken both blade grips, lost a linkage, and shattered the tail rotor into a million pieces.

The total cost for repairs on the first crash was $27.66. This second one will be around $30 again. $30 per flight… I don’t know how long I can keep this up.

Oh, the humanity!

Jeff Hoy — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 06:01:00 +0000

The maiden flight of my new r/c helicopter, which I have named “The Spirit of St. Louie Anderson” because I feel that if Louie Anderson were a machine, he’d be a helicopter, didn’t fair too well. In fact, it was an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions. I managed to have it floating about four inches off the ground for about 15 seconds before it tipped to the left, clipped a blade on the ground, I panicked, and the heli proceeded to tear itself to bits.

I’m exaggerating a bit. It didn’t tear itself completely to pieces. I ended up with a broken blade grip, center hub, and some useless main blades. Total cost for repairs, about $20. Not too bad considering it could have been much more expensive.

All the advice I got before buying a heli was that I should get a simulator and practice, practice, practice, before I tried the real thing. Well, I did that, for about two years I’ve been practicing on RealFlight G3.5. G3.5 has an Axe CP in it, and that’s what I’ve been practicing with almost the whole time. I racked up countless hours in the simulator. It didn’t help me for shit. A simulated helicopter is going to be ideally setup, no trims will need to be dramatically adjusted, the controller is calibrated, the fake helicopter is perfect in every way. You can’t say that with a fresh out of the box real helicopter.

I’m sure as hell not giving up this easy though. I’m stubborn, I’ll learn to fly this thing yet.

R/C Helicopters are the…

Jeff Hoy — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:01:00 +0000

…exclusive domain of the most elite r/c hobbyists. They take years of practice usually starting with airplanes and becoming extremely proficient with 3D spatial visualization.

So what happens when somebody who’s never flown any type of r/c aircraft decides he wants to start with helicopters? Can somebody, who’s greatest claim to r/c fame is being one of the very few people in his family to actually be into the hobby, convert his land experience to air? We’ll find out soon.

My latest r/c purchase is a Heli-Max Axe CPv3. Surely not a top of the line model, but definitely something above your Wal-Mart special $39.99 toys. This model is 3D capable meaning it’ll do loops and spins and hover upside-down and all that cool stuff. But first I have to see if I can even make the thing hover normally.

So the big question is why? Why would I think I could pilot a r/c helicopter when I have no experience at all in r/c aircraft? Because I’m stubborn and think I can do anything. It’ll be here shortly after the new year. I’ll let you know how I do after my first couple attempts.