Logo 500 Maiden Flight

On Saturday morning, in between patches of rain and with wind gusting to 20 knots I took my Logo's to NSMAC for a fly. I had the field to myself as it's mostly a plank field, and they avoid wind like the plague.

I've had some problems getting the Helicommand trimmed, which meant that I had to fly with 16 clicks of back elevator and 8 clicks of right elevator trim. I need to go through the setup software and see if I can't figure out what's up with it. Apart from that the Logo 500 flies like nothing I have ever seen before even with 6S packs that are dated August 2006! The Helicommand (at least the way I've got it setup) isn't as stable in the wind as the VBar, but it's a hell of a lot easier to get up and flying and has none of the oscillation problems I've been having with the VBar.

I'm using K&B 85mm tail blades on both machines, and they are noticeably more authoritative on the 500 (hardly surprising, they're marginally too small on the 600). The piro rate, even with a GY401 and only 100% ATV on the rudder are fantastic. As is usual for the GY401 the stops are sloppy and the holding in the wind, especially going backwards isn't so great. When the dust settles around here I'd like to look at either a Spartan DS760 and 9256 or a JR770 and 8900 gyro and servo for this machine to really bring the tail into line.

In terms of cyclic and collective performance, even on 5V the machine is easily as manoeuvrable as the VBar on the Logo 600 although I can see that it's not quite as axial as the VBar during flips and rolls - although considering the smaller blades and 20 knot winds I found it acceptable.

I'm using the Rotortech 550's on it and was very impressed, although I haven't had enough time on them to really form an opinion yet.

The Tango 45-10 produces gobs of power for my sort of flying, which consists mostly of big fast manoeuvres and aerobatics and comes down cold to the touch. The Jazz 55 was only slightly above ambient temperature and the pack was warm, but nowhere near as warm as it gets on the Logo 10 with the Neu 1910/1Y. This is my first Jazz controller and I'm extremely impressed, especially with the quality of the governor which holds the headspeed rock solid through everything I threw at it.

I'm still not happy with my VBar setup on the 600, so I'm going to talk to Bobby some more about it and see if he can help me with it. The elevator oscillations during forward flight are gone, but now there is a lot of strikeback on elevator and aileron stops. Also the Hacker motor consistently comes down with the smell of electronic death, even from just hovering. Not sure what that's about.

That's all for now, I should be working...

Ready for maiden

My Logo 500 is built and ready for it's maiden flight. I gave it a test-hop in the driveway this afternoon, and it seemed okay. It looked like the Helicommand needs trimming out as I needed a lot of back elevator to keep it hovering, but I'm sure I can get it worked out.

My impression of the helicommand is that it's not as nice a unit as the VBar and the flybarless stabilisation is definately an add-on but the setup software is much nicer to use, at the cost of the behind-the-scenes tweakability.

I'm looking forward to the maiden, but I have a family thing tomorrow and the weather has gone to pack. I hope it will be some time next week.

Build frenzy

I spent Tuesday night with my brother building his T-Rex 450, we got most of the frame finished, but we've still got a lot of work to do on it. The 450 has come a long way since I sold mine, and the quality of the machining and anodizing is fantastic. Their plastic is still sub-par though and suffered from the usual egg-shaped maingear problems.
My Logo 500 is going together well too, I spent a few hours yesterday fiddling with it and I have to say again how much I love these new Logo's. Getting the frame together is a dream to do and the vbar head is quick and easy to build. The only real problems I've had with it have been about very tight tolerances on shafts and bearings, where I had to gently sand the tail shaft to get it into the bearings in the tail housing.

Two big boxes...

Two rather large and interesting looking boxes arrived on my doorstep at 8am this morning. My brother is coming over tonight to get stuck into building his T-Rex, so I have to work on my will power to keep from working on the Logo 500.

I've got some reading to do on the helicommand rigid anyway.