Saturday 13 September 2003
Weather: Steady South West Breeze, 24degC
Yet another
glorious day! Warm sunshine, a steady breeze (fantastic for autos that just went
on and on).
After
quite a few months I have finally repaired my Futura, the one which was in my
JetRanger and which had a disagreement with the ground - and lost! Today was the
day to get it into the air, which happened without any fuss whatsoever. However,
it seemed very noisy - far more so than I remembered when it was in its body.
Andy Harrison,
who is rapidly becoming the clubs Trouble Shooter bent over and had a waggle of
the Zimmerman Silencer - hang about that shouldn't waggle!!! Closer inspection
showed why (see left). Andy immediately offered to take it home, silver solder
it for me and bring it back the next day. True to his word next day (Sunday)
there it was all polished and fixed - with what looked like to me a slightly
more substantial fixing than the original (see right). A fantastic job - and the
Futura's sound level was back to something much more acceptable. Thanks very
much Andy!
Andy's Eagle eye spotted something else today - which should be a salutary
lesson to us all. One of our members is getting his latest 60 sized heli (I
can't remember the type) ready for proper flight. Because he couldn't find a
"proper" set of bolts for the main blades, and in his innocence and
because
he was only doing a spot of simple hovering tests, he used "ordinary" mild steel
bolts. Andy spotted this and suggested they it wasn't a good idea to continue
any flying with them in place. I went off to my flight box and found a set of
bolts that could be used in their stead. We proceeded to remove the offending
bolts and to our horror found the original bolts in the state shown in the
picture on the left at the top. Another flight and the bolts could have failed
with fatal results for the heli and possibly for anyone standing nearby! The
bolts shown at the bottom of the picture are the ones that should be used - note
that they are not only hardened steel, but that there is a shank to the bolt
which is unthreaded. The threaded portion should start just short of the bottom
of the blade grip. This in turn means that there is as much shank , or
unthreaded portion, as possible within the blade grip without affecting the
ability to tighten the bolts appropriately - usually enough to stop the blades
rotating in the blade grip when the heli is turned on its side. The reason is
that the thread itself creates stress points within the bolt, which weaken it
and are the place where it is likely to fail should it do so.
So beware and use the right bolts, especially where high loads are
involved!
After
quite a few months I have finally repaired my Futura, the one which was in my
JetRanger and which had a disagreement with the ground - and lost! Today was the
day to get it into the air, which happened without any fuss whatsoever. However,
it seemed very noisy - far more so than I remembered when it was in its body.
Andy Harrison,
who is rapidly becoming the clubs Trouble Shooter bent over and had a waggle of
the Zimmerman Silencer - hang about that shouldn't waggle!!! Closer inspection
showed why (see left). Andy immediately offered to take it home, silver solder
it for me and bring it back the next day. True to his word next day (Sunday)
there it was all polished and fixed - with what looked like to me a slightly
more substantial fixing than the original (see right). A fantastic job - and the
Futura's sound level was back to something much more acceptable. Thanks very
much Andy!