550 Bell 206

[Gravythe clown]

Well I just finished it up. Tomorrow will be the maiden with the fuse. I have flown the 550 a few times.
it’s a jet tech Bell 206. The body is super clean. I’ve been working on this for about 2 months waiting for parts and such.

i do have some patch work to do on the tail. I followed the instruction on where to drill the holes. That was my mistake. I should have measured to tail set mount screw holes and used that measurement.
after I fly it tomorrow, I’ll patch it and try to color match the green.

https://youtu.be/kX9mTcVU5aU

gravy

[PawPaw]

Nice B206, Gravy. Where did you get the lights?

[Gravythe clown]

MotionRC.

https://www.motionrc.com/collections/led-lights/products/gt-power-aircraft-lighting-system

it’s not the brightest but worked for what little room I had in both horizontals and the vertical. Also in the horizontals, the LED is buried inside. I then built up the lenses using Bondic glue.

Gravy

[PawPaw]

Thanks! Needed something simple for 6v to put in my MD 500e.

[Gravythe clown]

That’s the same kit I have in my 450 MD500.

Gravy

[Gravythe clown]

Well after weeks of building, testing and adjusting, today was the day to fly her. I was happy with the test hovers this last week.
First pack was a hover shack down. Ended up having to add high torque compensation to keep the tail straight on punch outs. Also ended up with a little high setting for gyro on heading hold than most of my other helicopters. But I was confident with it after the first pack.
second pack was flight time. Spooled her up and got into a nice comfortable hover. Things felt good. So away we went. She felt and flew good. Had a great 4 minute flight. About half way through the hand shakes were gone.

then it was as time to bring her in. Came out of a nice easy left bank / turn and started to back off collective. She did not drop much so I ended up about 8’ off the deck when I fleered. And that’s when it happed. Lost all tail control. It was over before it started, yep that fast.
two heli wrecks in to week.

not sure what happened exactly, but I know the tail was the bane of my issues over the last two week. So something wasn’t just right from the get, I just never caught it.

Gravy

[sfcfury]

Dang... sorry to hear that... :tired_face:

[Gravythe clown]

Thanks, it happens. One helicopter crashes and another shows up at the door.

Gravy

[sfcfury]

Probably hard to tell... looks like the whole tail section broke off... but any stripped gears? Any screws missing? What headspeed were you running?

[sfcfury]

Thanks, it happens. One helicopter crashes and another shows up at the door.

Gravy

Is that the 500 size cobra? I'm getting ready to sell mine... completed.

[Gravythe clown]

Yes it 500 size. Why you selling yours? What’s under the hood?

Gravy

[Gravythe clown]

Probably hard to tell... looks like the whole tail section broke off... but any stripped gears? Any screws missing? What headspeed were you running?

no missing screws, all gears except auto rotation gear had stripped teeth. Only servo the I thought was stripped was left side awash. But it ended up being the servo horn that was stripped.
when it hit, it hit hard. Boom is like a pretzel. Only thing that might be a smoking gun, is the tail rod ball connectors. The rod was pulled out of them and inside threads completely stripped. However that could have happened during the crash and not before.
head speed was around 1900 rpms.

i had a great 5 minute flight, tail was locked in, no porpoise with collective adj up and down during level forward flight. Turns felt smooth and controllable. Like I had said it felt so good about it my maiden hand shakes where gone the last minute or so of flight.
it just all went to crap when i fleered to land.
now my fleer is me normal fleer style. Come in at about 10-15 mph, pull back and kick nose to right and roll to the right, then level off to point away from me whil in front of me. So a hard stop with a twist. So maybe the torque on the tail stripped the rod out of the ball link. And that caused it. I did have the end points mapped in the FC so the servo should have stopped before over torquing. Maybe it was just the load torque.
I’ll never really know I guess.

Gravy

[sfcfury]

I have the same Cobra fuselage kit... the mechanics is a complete Align 500 DFC kit (servos, motor, esc etc). I switched it out to FBL a few years ago and put a AR7200BX in it. I actually got it half apart at the moment just doing a service and touch up paint etc.
I'm just gonna sell it and my 500 size MD500 to make room, and parts money for the 600 and 700 size ones that I'm finishing lol

[Gravythe clown]

Solid plan. I love my 700 Apache, but I’m toying with selling it just because it’s to big to move around. I’m waiting to see how I like the 500 cobra. I also have a 600 Airwolf I’m finishing up. That’s almost as long as my Apache.

Gravy

[Atmos]

Excellent. I've flown one of these in the Canary Islands. Despite its age, the helicopter flies quite smoothly and pleasantly.