500 Size AH-64A Apache build

[DCORSAIR]

It does look great, don’t it? I was trying to shame sfcfury into going pro with his painting skills but he not having any part of it. My new tactic will be to send him a pic of one of my mangy dog paint jobs to see if he has a conscience. 🤣

yeah it works, once Gravy seen how I paint things or do repairs, he wasn't having it, so I said okay, have at it..........

[Gravythe clown]

yeah like doing the dishes at home. It only takes a couple bad washes before th wife says, "Never mind, I'll wash them myself".

Gravy

[PawPaw]

Buhaha! Truer words was never spoke.

[Gravythe clown]

She will kill!
Flew her today. Put her through the paces. Man was she sweet, very uneventful flight even with the 10mph winds. Only issue I had was I broke the wire cutters off the struts when I loaded her back in the car to come hone. 😡

she looked so good in the air. I’ll be getting plenty of time in the sticks with her now.

now to get my cobra back in the air.

Gravy

[Gravythe clown]

Duplicate

[PawPaw]

Great news! Congrats

[F106DeltaDart]

She will kill!
Flew her today. Put her through the paces. Man was she sweet, very uneventful flight even with the 10mph winds. Only issue I had was I broke the wire cutters off the struts when I loaded her back in the car to come hone. 😡

she looked so good in the air. I’ll be getting plenty of time in the sticks with her now.

now to get my cobra back in the air.

Gravy

Nice! Glad to hear its performing well. Any idea what the all up weight is?

[Gravythe clown]

AUW is 3322 gr or 7.3 lbs.

Gravy

[F106DeltaDart]

AUW is 3322 gr or 7.3 lbs.

Gravy

Interesting. Mine is only about .4 lbs heavier. Only real difference between our models is the rotation direction, and side the tail is on, which should equal out. I’m surprised that you’ve had ample tail authority with a 2 blade, when I continue to have issues even with the custom cascade tail. Hopefully I can get it out flying again for some further testing.

[Gravythe clown]

Yeah I had nothing but issues with my 4 blade tail rotor. Same tail set as on my cobra which flies great. But that two blade setup is awesome.
I was so nervous flying her today, just waiting for the tail to give me issues. I mean I had the shakes and sweaty palms going the whole flight. But it was smooth and did everything I asked. I flew figure 8’s, clockwise and counterclockwise patters, I did some high speed yank and banks and the coup de grace was the come in from the right at speed followed by a hard bank to the right to do a dead stop facing away from me to then bring her down to a landing.
never faulted, not once. It was really good to get that flight on the books. I didn’t do video as I really wasn’t expecting that great of a flight. But next flight will be recorded for sure.

Gravy

[F106DeltaDart]

Yeah I had nothing but issues with my 4 blade tail rotor. Same tail set as on my cobra which flies great. But that two blade setup is awesome.
I was so nervous flying her today, just waiting for the tail to give me issues. I mean I had the shakes and sweaty palms going the whole flight. But it was smooth and did everything I asked. I flew figure 8’s, clockwise and counterclockwise patters, I did some high speed yank and banks and the coup de grace was the come in from the right at speed followed by a hard bank to the right to do a dead stop facing away from me to then bring her down to a landing.
never faulted, not once. It was really good to get that flight on the books. I didn’t do video as I really wasn’t expecting that great of a flight. But next flight will be recorded for sure.

Gravy

Glad it’s working well! The 2 blade would never work on mine unfortunately, it’s just not enough. I may try swapping out the blades for some larger chord ones to get some more efficiency. That should help bring down the torque load. How has your main drive gear held up? Any signs of the plastic wearing? I swear mine ate up the nylon gears in just a few flights..

[Gravythe clown]

They looked good last time I checked, that was before today’s flight and 1 hover ago. So about 4 hovers flights and one let it loose flights on this set. I change out fir new set when I figured out all my issues and put it all back in the fuse. The least set is still really good with a little revers belling due to the old pinion gear not sitting right on the shaft. I’ll get a picture of the gear tomorrow and post it, the one in the Heli currently. But ever since I freed up my tail drive system she don’t seam to put to much load on it. I’m also running higher Kv but lower RPM’s then yours.
I'm using the 1210kv with 16T pinion on 4s. I’m somewhere in the 1850-1900 rpm range. I run simple governor and use no throttle curve with a long slope spool up.

Gravy

[Gravythe clown]

Ok got a video of today’s flight.

https://youtu.be/JerNTuN0OXc

I used a 5000mah 4s and had 45% left after flight.
also took picture of main gear after flight.

Gravy

[PawPaw]

Awesome.....great video!

[Gravythe clown]

Went flying today at DCORSAIR’s place. We got the boys together.
my 500 AH-64 flew great. I got my dialed in after the 1st quick flight which I’ll post later along with his 700 AH-64.

or mine I added 3 clicks of forward stick trim to the microbeast and she flew on rails.
I got three more flights in her or a total of 12 minutes. 1st flight was quick make adj then send her.
after that it was flown hard and put away wet.
gears still look good, I’m not seeing any signs of wear yet.
looks like we might have figured out my shake issue on my cobra. I’ll know for sure after some adjustments and post in that thread.

good day to fly the Apaches though.

Gravy.

[DCORSAIR]

Wow, nice pics of them together, next time we might get someone to record a flight together in the air, glad you came over and you got that 500 Apache dialed in nicely, not one vibe what so ever, your hardworking building skills and 3D printing skills are really showing off in that Apache, and that Cobra looks awesome as well, it's still my favorite, I did notice you kept a close eye on it when I was touching her and adjusting those blades.

[Gravythe clown]

Well the restraining order is very clear on what you can and can’t do while in a supervised visit.

it’s going to take some time to get that video of yours done. Got some great slomo stuff to slice and add. Even the sound in the slomo is great.

Gravy

[F106DeltaDart]

Glad to hear everything is flying well Gravy! I’ll have to admit I’m a bit jealous 😁. No more tail issues and no shredding gears is great news. I took my Apache out again on Saturday, this time fitted with a brass pinion and the aluminum main gear. Results were good and showed no real signs of wear. The tail performance though, is unchanged. A 6 mph winds had me at full tail rotor inputs multiple times to stop the tail from blowing out entirely. It has to be due to some combination of my higher weight and changing the tail to the other side. I’m going to do some more tweaks to headspeed and I might try changing out the blades as well. I can’t help but wonder if the gearing of the belt drive was a bit better than my torque tube setup. Wish I could be there to see an apples to apples comparison of both Apaches.

[Gravythe clown]

I wasn’t going to add this video as it was a quick up and down. I forgot to do my (need trim test) first, turns out 3 clicks of forward into the microbeast plus was the magic number. We didn’t recorded them but the next two flight were locked in.

https://youtu.be/UsoDerFVEwg

I too am trying to figure out why you are having issues with the main gear stripping, so I’ll just post my info again.
1210kb scorpion
16T pinion
4s power
1900rpms
10 second spool up from off to 50% of its way to 1900
another 10 spool up from 50% to its resting point around 1900rpm.
I’m using the simple governor setup in the castle creations

maybe somewhere in all that is the answer.

Gravy

[F106DeltaDart]

I wasn’t going to add this video as it was a quick up and down. I forgot to do my (need trim test) first, turns out 3 clicks of forward into the microbeast plus was the magic number. We didn’t recorded them but the next two flight were locked in.

https://youtu.be/UsoDerFVEwg

I too am trying to figure out why you are having issues with the main gear stripping, so I’ll just post my info again.
1210kb scorpion
16T pinion
4s power
1900rpms
10 second spool up from off to 50% of its way to 1900
another 10 spool up from 50% to its resting point around 1900rpm.
I’m using the simple governor setup in the castle creations

maybe somewhere in all that is the answer.

Gravy

Interesting. I'm using:

900kv Scorpion
14T pinion
6S Power
1900 rpm
25 sec slow spool
Set RPM mode (castle talon 90)

The only thing I can thing of for the gears stripping, is the torque tube conversion. The torque tube instantly transmits higher torque loads directly to the drive gears when it has transient loads. The belt drive has a bit of give, and can absorb those impulse torques. Would certainly explain why the gear stripped completely the last 2 times that I tried to do a stall turn. I'm pretty convinced that my model is heavier as well. Between the torque tube conversion, all the nose weight to balance it, the 3D printed cockpit, and servos for the tail, TADS, and gun, its got to be heavier than the stock model.