Flight Trimming

[illusionist]

Okay, I understand it. How much weight gain have you seen from this system? (As compared to gluing it on like you would normally do)

[thewinner]

I would guess not significant, since you're actually cutting wood out.

[illusionist]

You're only cutting a tiny, tiny groove. Plus you will be adding a piece of balsa on top, and the weight of the string. There may be alternative materials though

[kjhsscioly]

what kind of string do you use? and do you glue it down before competition, after trimming?

[illusionist]

I would guess that sewing thread would work best. The way I would do it, is to trim with the string, glue down the best position, and then do a few more trim flights to double check to make sure it flies just as well without the string. lllazar's idea does seem to be clever.

[kjhsscioly]

yes, it does. I might modify it and make the grooves every two centimeters, so I have greater flexibility. thanks for the idea

[mrsteven]

I'm probably going to make myself look pretty stupid but what is flight trimming anyways?
Physically trimming off parts of the heli?
or just testing and adjusting?

edit: found the convo a page back about that sorry!!
so how areyou guys adjusting your heli?

[chia]

I don't think there's much to adjust in each individual helicopter, unless you're doing something similar to what lllazar said, or, say, adding ballast at the bottom, putting on a ceiling probe, that sort of thing. It's easier to change things from one helicopter to another rather than within an individual one.

[kjhsscioly]

It makes the event harder than wright stuff - you have to build anew everytime you want to change something.

[mrsteven]

It makes the event harder than wright stuff - you have to build anew everytime you want to change something.

yeah which is annoying... i've only built 2 but they've both worked really well

edit: well... really well is relative...

[chia]

Speaking of which, I finished my new helicopter! The rotor pitch is higher than I was aiming for - a little higher than the one of the kit I built, but much lower than that of my first attempt at a helicopter from scratch. Other changes include a longer motor stick, the fixed rotor (I went back to having one fixed rotor after the other one didn't work out so well...) raised to the level of the free one (so that they're on the exact same axis), a prop hanger made of wood (sadly not reinforced with aluminum tubing but with glue/tissue), and thicker wire for the prop hook.

So, I wound it up with 750 winds of fresh 1/8 (after a quick test flight on only 400 of old rubber just to make sure it wouldn't pulverize itself or careen around wildly when in the air) and added a little clay ballast at the bottom, and had a very successful flight (this far into the game I'm not going to say exactly how long ). Definitely at least as good as my first helicopter.

I'm afraid the hanger might be either too weak or have too much friction... we'll have to see what I can do about that. Also, the center of mass is much too high - exactly halfway between the ends, if not very slightly higher - but I don't want to add too much ballast because it's already at 4.10.

[mrsteven]

Speaking of which, I finished my new helicopter! The rotor pitch is higher than I was aiming for - a little higher than the one of the kit I built, but much lower than that of my first attempt at a helicopter from scratch. Other changes include a longer motor stick, the fixed rotor (I went back to having one fixed rotor after the other one didn't work out so well...) raised to the level of the free one (so that they're on the exact same axis), a prop hanger made of wood (sadly not reinforced with aluminum tubing but with glue/tissue), and thicker wire for the prop hook.

So, I wound it up with 750 winds of fresh 1/8 (after a quick test flight on only 400 of old rubber just to make sure it wouldn't pulverize itself or careen around wildly when in the air) and added a little clay ballast at the bottom, and had a very successful flight (this far into the game I'm not going to say exactly how long ). Definitely at least as good as my first helicopter.

I'm afraid the hanger might be either too weak or have too much friction... we'll have to see what I can do about that. Also, the center of mass is much too high - exactly halfway between the ends, if not very slightly higher - but I don't want to add too much ballast because it's already at 4.10.

niiiiice! how many have you built? And I like how you used my exact wording from a previous post (prob not on purpose) about the time haha. what rotor pitch were you aiming for?

[chia]

This one's only my fourth, if you want to count the blob I made last year (It works relatively decently for a lumpy 4.6 gram thingamabob with lopsided rotor pitches, but it would be second-tiered in competition this year because it uses an Ikara prop hanger).

Wait, I stole your wording for reals? Sorry, I tend to pick up phrases and such and not realize I took it from anyone or from where

[mrsteven]

This one's only my fourth, if you want to count the blob I made last year (It works relatively decently for a lumpy 4.6 gram thingamabob with lopsided rotor pitches, but it would be second-tiered in competition this year because it uses an Ikara prop hanger).

Wait, I stole your wording for reals? Sorry, I tend to pick up phrases and such and not realize I took it from anyone or from where

haha nice, honestly I have no clue what that is... but alrighty!

yeah i do that too, i got a good laugh out of that!

[thewinner]

Wait, you're not allowed to use Ikara prop hangars? That's weird because at my state competition most of the people were using them and nobody got
second-tiered. And in the rulebook it says :

b. MATERIALS: The functional components (rotors, rotor blades, vertical stabilizing surfaces, and motor
stick) of the helicopter must be constructed only from wood, paper, plastic film covering, and glue. The
functional components must not be constructed from rigid plastic. The functional components may
be attached to each other using tape, thread, music wire, malleable wire, paper, metal or plastic tubes,
and/or rubber bands.

Only the rotors, rotor blades, vertical stabilizing surfaces and motor stick have to be made out of wood. Everything else can be made out of plastic, including the prop hangers.