Sergio Salvi

New job, new home, not much flying

Sergio — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 21:47:21 +0000

It’s been a while since my last RC flight, but for a good reason: I’ve relocated to California, got an exciting new job and haven’t settled down completely yet. I hope to find a nice RC club and get back to flying soon!

Helicopter autorotations

Sergio — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 04:26:18 +0000

In simple words, autorotation is the ability to land a helicopter with the engine powered off. See Wikipedia for a better explanation

Here are lots of autorotation practices on a full size helicopter: (bah! can’t embed)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2a9H8Xw8Mo

The same can be done on RC helis! This is from a guy in Denmark flying a T-Rex 600ESP:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KyCMG7FOEE

Me? Well, I’ve been busy with non-RC stuff and haven’t flown for a while. I should get back on track in 2 months or so.

Yet another day of heli flying

Sergio — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 05:22:41 +0000

Excellent pictures by: Michael R. and Andy H.

So-so flying by: myself

T-Rex 500 ready to fly!

Sergio — Mon, 31 May 2010 13:16:19 +0000

Maiden flight will happen in a few days!

PS: Build log still to be written here.

AXN Floater (Clouds Fly) with an onboard camera

Sergio — Tue, 18 May 2010 12:12:13 +0000

Sunday was a nice sunny day and I had a couple of flights with my AXN Floater Jet (AKA Clouds Fly, glider, etc) over our field (TEMAC). The good old $14 camera is still working wonders!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeR5MuXWyV4

Heli Flight School by Chadrg.com – Learning to hover

Sergio — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 19:56:32 +0000

Chad from chadrg.com has some great heli training videos that I’ve been using for a while. It all starts with hovering:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc9ZMKK1gIo

I like how he moves on to inverted hovering right on the second lesson, as opposed to other training guides that suggest you should learn inverted flight only later on.

I’ll try Chad’s method first, and if everything fails, I’ll go back to upright flying

Make sure to visit Chad’s Heli Flight School for the rest.

Yet another heli: Align T-Rex 500 ESP

Sergio — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 05:42:26 +0000

This is what happens when the wife is far away on a business trip…

I’ve just got a brand new Align T-Rex 500 ESP kit: new frame design (2010), Torque Tube, 500M motor, 60A ESC, 3x DS510 cyclic, DS520 tail, GP780 gyro.

More info and build log to come!

MyRCLog.com – logbook for RC

Sergio — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 22:44:25 +0000

I’ve come across a website called MyRCLog.com — it’s a logbook for RC planes, helis and cars.

For each flight you record, it lets you enter what pre-flight changes were done to your model (such as “changed gyro gain to 76%”), what you’ve accomplished on that flight (such as “first time flying inverted!”) and some notes (“blade tracking still off, must measure linkages again”).

It also keeps track of your battery usage, flying fields, flight durations, etc.

I’ve just started using it and here are some screenshots:

First outdoor flight!

Sergio — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 01:47:09 +0000

I’ve got the heli rebuilt and ready for the maiden flight!

Drove the usual 70km to the indoor gym on Sunday only to find out it was closed (err… I forgot it was Easter!). Then I see a nice park right besides the school, empty and with some nice soft grass, but it was very windy. Hmm… what the heck, I drove all the way here so I’ve got to fly it!

Training gear installed (thanks Andy for lending mine, I mean, his training gear) and off it went!

Blade tracking was bad with the stock CopterX woodies. I’ve replaced them with the $18 Carbon Fibre blades from Hobbyking and tracking improved immediately! I don’t think I’m going back to woodies, unless I’m just hovering.

Shiny $9 fibreglass UK canopy also provided by my beloved Asian hobby store

The tail slider was squeaking a lot and sometimes the tail would blow out when doing hard pumps on the collective (i.e., flying the heli upwards very quickly at full power).

I’ll have to add more grease to see if that solves it. It was squeaking more or less like this kitten:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuIedVG_45E

In summary, flying outdoors was really nice! Good thing the gym was closed!

Second crash!

Sergio — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 03:28:02 +0000

It’s been a month or so that I crashed my heli and since then haven’t had time to rebuild it.

On that day, I was practicing figure 8 circuits and was doing well for almost 4 hours. During my last flight, when no one else was flying (it was closing time), I decided to use the whole gym for my figure 8 circuits… well, overconfidence kicked in and I lost orientation — oops

So now it’s time to rebuild! I’m building my three additional CopterX kits at the same time, but only two will be ready-to-fly with all electronics installed. Heli #3 and #4 (the crashed one) will be used for spares