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ScottMaurer19 wrote:

bjt4888 wrote:First test flights last night with one of my teams went great! Duration is considerably higher than mentioned in other posts on this wiki to date.

Brian T.

Have you been using the rubber sent with the kits or did you source it from someplace else?

Probably with the kit. I've been doing my own testing and the heli is incredibly stable. Brian, if you don't mind sharing, what is the range of times you have been getting?

Scottmaurer and Daydreamer,

So far we are using 9/2017 tan ss since I have a couple of pounds, but I’m not sure if this is what we’ll end up using for serious competition. We are stripping rubber density that is between the two thicknesses supplied with the kit, but again, the student’s testing may lead in many possible directions. I’m sure the kit rubber is excellent, but I prefer to have my teams use rubber vintages that we have data on.

I’m sorry that I am reluctant to share my team’s exact duration results, as we are competing to win the very competitive Michigan State championships every year and I believe that over the years a number of the teams we compete against have become aware of who I am and what teams I coach and it is necessary that I keep private our testing results to a certain degree.

I will state though that my team’s goal is to exceed the national championship time from 2012.

Brian T.

bjt4888 wrote:Scottmaurer and Daydreamer,

So far we are using 9/2017 tan ss since I have a couple of pounds, but I’m not sure if this is what we’ll end up using for serious competition. We are stripping rubber density that is between the two thicknesses supplied with the kit, but again, the student’s testing may lead in many possible directions. I’m sure the kit rubber is excellent, but I prefer to have my teams use rubber vintages that we have data on.

I’m sorry that I am reluctant to share my team’s exact duration results, as we are competing to win the very competitive Michigan State championships every year and I believe that over the years a number of the teams we compete against have become aware of who I am and what teams I coach and it is necessary that I keep private our testing results to a certain degree.

I will state though that my team’s goal is to exceed the national championship time from 2012.

Brian T.

Wow, I'm still a long way off from that but given that the starting time I've gotten from the kit on my very first run, I'd say that the time is well within the sights of most competitive teams.

I am relatively new to the Helicopters event. We finished the 1st FF helicopter. It looks so fragile. How do you load two motors and launch it without breaking it?

We have not built the holding fixture at the end of the instruction yet. Is that a must to have?

Thanks.

Jan2017 wrote:I am relatively new to the Helicopters event. We finished the 1st FF helicopter. It looks so fragile. How do you load two motors and launch it without breaking it?

We have not built the holding fixture at the end of the instruction yet. Is that a must to have?

Thanks.

You do not NEED it. But it will make it so much easier.

I'm interested in starting to work on this event, a general question; how many people use kits for this event/is it possible to do well without them?

For a chopper similar to those used in the past, a kit is not an absolute necessity. For the bonus rule Sikorsky , very very few would be able to build a competitive one. For either one of them, designing a build able prop (rotor) that is competitive will involve a lot of home work or blind dumb luck.
One of the big benefits of the FF kit is all of the"how to fly it" that is part of his package.

You can certainly build without a kit.

Keep in mind that this year the substantial bonus for Chinook has been incorporated into the kit. There are designs online for various inline heli's, but I have not seen any for Chinook. Dave has performed substantial testing in his kit design, and came up with a very stable Chinook design. Since this will be widely utilized as a starting point, it raises the bar, a Chinook is almost required.

If you have build heli's already last year, than you have a good starting point for the rotors. In fact, our first attempt at a Chinook style used last year's rotors even though they were somewhat smaller than this year's. The times achieved on that device, with the bonus, would beat a non-Chinook score.

If you are truly just starting out, and looking to be competitive, I would urge starting with the kit. There is so much engineering and fixturing built into the kit, it gives a substantial head start.

That said, our team is building from scratch because our regionals are in January. We are building on prior years' work, and still we have had to build multiple devices just to get successful flights. We have been building since September.

Depending on your timeframe (when is your regional, how much time are you willing to put in, and how much money) and your existing experience, it is possible to build yourself, and very rewarding. But the kit will position you at a much better starting point. It is also likely that to be a top competitor, you will need to go beyond the kit, making mods to improve performance as you observe and test things.

Coach Chuck
AAHS

We have built the FF chinook copters but as others have stated, they are very fragile. So we decided to build a holding rig to make loading the motors easier. We used pictures from Dave's instructions to build a rig similar to his. (He didn't provide any dimensions for a rig, which is understandable considering how busy he is) I have put together a two page powerpoint showing all the dimensions we have used, in case anyone is interested. It turned out really nice, and hopefully testing later today will go more smoothly.

wx4caster wrote:We have built the FF chinook copters but as others have stated, they are very fragile. So we decided to build a holding rig to make loading the motors easier. We used pictures from Dave's instructions to build a rig similar to his. (He didn't provide any dimensions for a rig, which is understandable considering how busy he is) I have put together a two page powerpoint showing all the dimensions we have used, in case anyone is interested. It turned out really nice, and hopefully testing later today will go more smoothly.

Yes, it would be very helpful to us if you could send a link to those blueprints here.