CP upgrade??

When you buy the aerobatic enhancement kit are the blades still made of wood? I sure doesn't take much of a touch to destroy the factory blades . This thing is fun though. Is there any battery charger out there for the original battery the will charge it faster?

fire306,

Yes, they are still wood. I only used 1 set of these and switched to CF because the wood ones only lasted about 10 minutes! I of course did the aerobatic upgrade at the same time. I have used up 2 sets of carbon fibre - but it would have been about 8 or 10 wood sets. I did have to replace one frame because of a tail strike but learned a lot about the Blade from the experience :0) I am still using the 2nd frame- I got smart and wrapped a 3" section of the clear heavy-duty plastic shipping tape around the boom in the strike zone. The interesting thing about the CF's is I have broken 1 blade from each of the sets and now use the remaining blades for the 3rd set - they are balanced perfectly and I suspect that most others would also because the quality is much higher for the CF.

Good luck flying!

Catfight, did you switch to li-po's also. Is it possible to fly the Blade with the Carbon Blades and the factory motor set up? When you say tail strike, you mean the rotor blades hit the boom? I have ordered the aerobatics kit and the CF blades. Can't wait till they get here.

fire306,

I did switch to lipos (1320 mah) because I wanted longer practice time! So I did Aerobatic kit first (destroyed blades) then went right to CF - much better!There are a few other things besides a boom strike (you are correct about that by the way) that are a problem for me. I fly on grass (helps reduce whacks on heli) so I built a set of simulated "floats" out of Noodleboard and added tubing to the tail rest- this raises the clearances, adds a little ballast and replaced the training gear - works great even on concrete! I wrapped the boom with clear plastic (heavy duty) tape about 3" long in the strike zone (just 2 turns around boom)- this has saved a lot of blades and booms :0) The next mod I am going to do is replace the shear pin from steel to brass (.032) as suggested by Brett on this forum to slow down destruction of main gear. Another mod will be to replace the landing struts with 2mm stock and extend them 1 1/2" as also suggested by someon on this forum - looks nice and will replace the "floats" although I kind of like the floats :0)

Catfight, where do you get the 2mm stock? I am assuming that this is the material that goes down to the skids from the body. I found out that if the blades are out of balance it is very difficult to fly. I stripped the blades of the plastic coating, smoothed out the edges and coated the entire blade with epoxy, weighed and balanced the weight of the two blades. I reinstalled them and the heli spins up totally vibration free. I was able to get in a very controlled hover now Give this a try with some of your wooden blades. Do you have any pictures of your Blade?

fire306,

I heard at your LHS for the 2mm material (I don't have one- but traveling to D.C. Tuesday- will get it then). You are correct - attaches skids to body. I won't ever go back to wood blades the CF are fine to fly and durable. I son't know if CF so soon is for everybody - but I am happy about it. I have also built and installed a LIPO alarm by Jimsky (on this board) for protection of valuable battery resources!

Photo is with "floats"

Sorry- tried to attach photo but says I have "Exceeded limits" although I have never posted attachments on this site. I wonder what is up with that?

What is LHS?
Just flew another flight, starting to get the hang of the hovering. Didn't break anything this time Do you know if the CF Blades will work with the factory battery? Is it normal that you have to trim the rudder control more and more right as the battery wears down?

fire306

LHS is local hobby shop. I have heard you could use NiMH batteries but will produce very low power. It is normal to have to retrim as the battery weakens. Hae you been to www.rcgroups.com? There is a Blade thread there that has a lot of info (actually several threads). Here's one for Blade setup and configuration that I used to learn a lot about it.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_31...tm.htm#3131294)