Ecureuil AS 350, 3 blade 1:20 scale micro heli

[DarkHorse]

Finally got the A-Star built and painted .
Now for the flying... after the cold, wind and rain maybe .

Build info and links here.

[SENECA]

Very cool!

[321]

Wow, WOW.     That heli looks great.

[Malcolm]

The AS350 (and 355) is one of my favorite helis - and that Hornet looks really sweet... looking forward to the video of the first flights

[DarkHorse]

Yes I ran across your 2002 Voyager E - Scale Project LAPD AS-350. The notes helped to persuade me to drop my preferred curved stripe colour scheme and saved me from what would have been a very frustrating time. Put some sense of reality back into my model spray painting skills (no experience).
Just waiting for some air brush king out there to do his best effort hanger queen .

Took me a while to tune the setup and knock out the vibes . I have 2 setups programmed in my Tx, one for gov with HH gyro and the other for throttle curves, rate mode gyro with REVO. Because my MS-044 is susceptible to the low frequency vibe that persists on my setup from the un-damped rotor (noticeable by touch). The Logictech 2100t HH gyro (10g) worked better but I need that on my Hornet X-3D-XL 4s . Some replacement parts are in the post (I hope) in case it's a Friday afternoon head drill or something. So I run the smoother REVO setup for now.

I lifted off indoors today with the body kit for a quick hover and at 426g it's very stable. Makes a fair bit of noise in a shell and still a bit scary indoors. Bare bone flight reports here . Video will come one day...

[DarkHorse]

Here ya go, some indoor look over video...


...MS-Ecureuil-AS350-Hovering-In-Small-Room-GE.wmv
15Mb 3.3 mins 25 fps WMV format

Info and excuses here. More to come soon...

[Malcolm]

Looks and sounds sweet - very nice !

[DarkHorse]

Sadly according to BBC News 1 died and 2 seriously injured today in a crash involving 2 full sized Ecureuil helicopters. Could be weather related but the full story details aren't known yet...

For more Full sized Ecureuil AS-350B background information see links here.

[SENECA]

That is sad.

[DarkHorse]

Got some video :


...MS-Ecureuil-AS350-FF.wmv 30Mb 3.5 mins 50fps WMV format

[LYNKKK]

Sweet!!!

[Jon]

First off I got to say, "NICE HELI!" If I hadn't known better, I would think it was a full scale heli. Anyway, I happen to own one myself and i have it in the set up phase as I speak. But I have a hurdle that I haven't been able to overcome so I was asking for some advice. As I get it light on the skids the tail starts to wag or "fishtail" uncontrolably. I first started off with a Hitec HS-55 servo with a EF Heading Lock Micro Gyro. I then went to a Hitec HS-65MG servo for a little higher speed and torque but that didn't eliminate the wagging. I am gonna try a Futaba 401 Gyro and see if this makes any difference at all. But I'm basically looking for the "secret sauce" of getting the tail rotor to function properly. Any suggestions, advice or recommendations? Thanks,
                                                    Jon

[Alias]

Nice looking heli.  

[DarkHorse]

Hi, thanks and I'm glad to report it's still in good shape . Still got a couple of little niggly vibes at some rpm ranges, though I can't be bothered to chase them down as it fly's good enough as it is.

> tail starts to wag
A big subject but for a start, I think the servo types you mentioned are just too slow and would expect to see a big slow tail wag. The HS-50 feather servo or better is recommended and stick with the Futaba 401 Gyro if your confident about the setup for micro's.
HS-50 Speed: 0.09sec/60° @ 4.8V
HS-55 Speed: 0.17sec/60° @ 4.8V
HS-65MG Speed: 0.14sec/60° @ 4.8V

If you still have a wag then 99% of the time it's probably vibrations effecting the gyro, particularly in HH mode. Then you need to tackle steel tail drive straightening, tail rotor hub symmetry seating, tail rotor balancing and main rotor 3 blade balancing (using 3 blade prop techniques) and spot on tracking.

Here's some other info I once wrote:
Make sure the yoke screws square on to the brass sleeve or you'll get odd tail rotor tracking. May have to open the holes for the blade grip pins to fit and run smoothly. I have found this area to be a bit sticky or jumpy on a fresh build causing slightly jerky tail holding.
Also note that as this is the X-3D tail assembly mounted on the other side of the boom, there is the potential for the yoke to unscrew as the rotation is reversed. I had a weak fitting yoke that did unscrew in flight and lost tail pitch control. Luckily very near the ground and immediately hit throttle kill switch without damage. The reason the yoke had a weak thread was because as usual I miss threaded the yoke and used a soldering iron to heat up the stand alone brass slider and get it to seat square in the yoke, resulting in a soft thread. CA fixed it.

Some X-3d tail setup tips here (quicker to press Ctrl+F and search for tail).
Ecuruil page here.

Have a fiddle and get back on here and we'll try and thrash out some more idea's .

[DarkHorse]

Hey Jon, what happened with that tail?

[DarkHorse]

Yep it's still in one piece so here's another one :




...MS-Ecureuil-AS350-Take2-FasterFF.wmv 38Mb 3.8 mins 50fps WMV format

[DarkHorse]

Hey Seneca, how did your Yellow AS350 micro fly in the end? (images 1 2 3 4 )

What did you use to bring out the body panel joins?

I still blow the dust off mine during still summer evenings , cruises around just fine.
A little wooly on the cyclic and standard rate gyro for stable tail.




Any more out there?

[SENECA]

It flys great for such a small heli.

I used an RC car marker to trace the panel lines in my AS350.

[toecutter]

does picsies are sweet!!  love the disc that rotor head makes

[DarkHorse]

yes, it's not a bad looking civilian heli.

> It flys great for such a small heli.
Good to here it gets some air time .