Setting Up – Tuning and Test (T&T)

From the last post, I just have one flight session, testing up the new throttle curve and familiarizing with the head speed. One new important finding is I need bigger space for me to learn and to familiarize me with the flying behavior of this Raven TR3707. The field at the park near my house is not big enough, only sufficient for hover testing, slow and small figure 8. I won't have much space to recover from my mistake in faster figure 8 or others. Well the space at high altitude is big, but I need to make sure I do not over flown buildings and pedestrians – I guess I don't have to elaborate further on that.

Still, I am not satisfied with few things in current TR3703 setup. I need to do more tuning and test sessions to improve them.

These are few things in my mind that need to do for me to proceed with other maneuvers:

• Setup and test throttle curve to get good head speed for normal mode/scale and sport flying
  
  • This is quite tricky, after few changes, I found at one time the head speed is too slow, giving me slow response and at other time the speed is too high, and the engine is screaming during descend.
    
  • Here are various configuration I have tried (only on normal mode, the ST1 and ST2 just follow accordingly but I have not really test it in flight)
    
    
    • Setup 1
      

Mode		Throttle	Pitch
Normal		0 33.5 39.0 45 70	32 32 52 inh 95
ST1		25 60 45 60 85	32 32 52 inh 95
ST2		90 60 45 60.5 90	1 inh 52 inh 100

This Normal mode setup gives me slow response, I guess because it just give barely enough lift.

• Setup 2
  

Mode	Throttle	Pitch
Normal	0 33.5 45.0 52.5 80	32 32 52 inh 95
ST1	25 60 45 60 85	32 32 52 inh 95
ST2	90 60 45 60.5 90	1 inh 52 inh 100

This one is better, higher speed, more response. Still need some more tweaking.

 

• Move the fly bar weight to inner position to ensure more responsive cyclic control
  
  • So far still using stock fly bar weight at the end of fly bar near the paddle, in theory this make the Raven nimble and slow cyclic response. I need faster response for fast forward flight and figure 8 and many to come, but I yet to experience how much different it is.
    
  • Hopefully it won't be too much and I will still able to handle it.
    
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• Fine tuning the gyro
  
  • On my previous flight, I noticed that the tail was drifting to the right. I need to push the rudder a bit right to correct it.
    
  • I have reconfigured by gyro setup in DX7, now instead of using Gear->Gear, I am using Gear->Gyro at the "System Model" setup, with [Gyro Sense] Rate at 85 and 90 at the "Normal Setup".
    
  • I noticed with this configuration, the Gear Switch is not usable to select the Gyro mode any more but I able to configure the sense as above. I wonder if I will be able to assign other function for the Gear Switch, or it will be totally useless.
    

    
     

• Change the main rotor blade!
  
  • Ha, I am still using the original 'training' white wooden blade I got since day one. After a good test flight to ensure I able to fly it with setup of 1, 2 and 3 above, I'll swap the blade with the Hurricane 600mm Fiber Reinforced Blade which come with the original Raven Kit. I don't want to swap this right away to avoid adding to much variable. I need to make sure I can handle the above first since setup 2 and 3 will give major impact to the flight characteristic.
    
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Today (Saturday), my time already fully booked for family. Will need to hold my passion on this Heli. Remember, Family is always the First Priority!