Well, I final finished my build last week (Easter weekend) and the maiden flight was this last Tuesday! The build went rather quick while I was collecting the rest of the items needed...motor, ESC, FBL controller, LiPo's, blades...the usual stuff. The build was flawless, for me. Everything fit perfectly as you would expect, and the directions...great.
One thing I did find that was, or seemed missing, was the mention of the clear heat shrink tubing that goes on the tail control rod for the eyelets. And the only problem that I had was the 2mm bolts that hold the tail rod in place, they broke, both of them. I tightened the bolts just enough to hold the guilds in place, but I must have tightened them too much...oops! The bolts broke off almost flush with the block were the threads start. The other end had passed through enough that I was able to twist them out.
With the maiden possibly being held up by these two bolts, I used some electrical tape to temporarily hold them in place...until I can find some replacements or... So on with the maiden!
Tuesday, here in the Midwest, was sunny and fairly warm. I plugged the battery in for the flight system, which is hiding behind the left side panel, and waited for the controller to power up. I did a quick run through the controls double checking everything, all systems go! Then I plugged in the LiPo packs, the ESC armed and was ready...
I advanced the throttle and the blades started spooling, boy I wished Mark was here! The rpms came up to speed and my 766 gracefully lifted off the ground, straight and true! I barely needed to touch the sticks to keep the heli in a perfect hover, it seemed to hover itself! Smooth and very quiet! I switched into idle 1, about 1700 rpm's, and the controls became tighter and more responsive! So now it is time to test the controls and get a feeling for this new heli.
I checked the response of the tail...ok, need to increase the rotation speed and drop the expo some, for my likes. The cyclic response was a bit slow, and that's ok for now. I turned the nose perpendicular to me, pushed forward into the cyclic and added collective pitch. The 766 took off gracefully and with authority. It tracked very well. All I could say was WOW, out loud! I did several laps around the field and was amazed at how well it was flying.
I started in with a few gentle aerobatics to see how the 766 would respond...very crisp and clean, I felt like a pro. The timer went off on my transmitter and I quickly climbed up high to try the first [of many to come] auto. I am currently running Switch 756mm blades as I couldn't find a single 766mm Rail blade anywhere. So being 10mm shorter, the 766 autoed for some time. I did a faster than normal auto as I wasn't sure how it would react and I didn't want to stall it short and have my first crash on a maiden flight.
By the time I started on the 4th pack, I was in idle 2 (about 1800-1900 rpm) and having a blast performing all the 3D maneuver I could do. I still have some tweaking to do in the controller, but nothing to stop me from having fun with it. I even tried some piro-flips! The 766 ,made me look like I was doing them perfectly for years!
I wanted to put in another flight, but my charger was acting up, so I put in 4 flight on my N5 and then called it a good day! Once home, I was able to do a store charge on 3 of the 4 flight packs, and then my charger just refused to do anymore. I ordered the PowerLab 8 charger and balance board in hopes that is the problem and not my new pack...time will tell.
All in all, I'm very happy with my 766, and I'm looking forward to trying the Rail 766 blades to see what 10mm makes!
Awesome job Matt!
