Blade msr advanced settings

The E-Flite Blade msr is a fun experience for both the beginner who want to try the challenge with a r/c heli and for the more advanced pilots who want a small and fun heli to relax with during the dark winter months, or at least I believe so. To clarify my current position on the beginner-advanced-scale I have an overweight to the beginner side. That much said I am now about to show how to set up the Blade msr in "advanced" mode.The heli comes with the "beginner" settings as default. This setting is shown as "A" above. The two different possible settings achieved through switching the lower rotor head links (connected at "A" in the picture above) between the two sets of swashplate control balls. There are one set with shorter shafts and one set with longer shafts. The ones with the longer shafts are used for the advanced settings. When I switched between the two settings I used a small flat screwdriver to pull the links from the swashplate control balls. Then gently attached them on the swashplate control balls with the longer shafts - "B" in the above picture. The first link is the trickiest to attach. Just be gentle and patient and you will work this out.

After finishing this adjustment you have set the heli in the more aggressive advanced setup and you will find your heli much more responsive on pitch and roll.

After I made these adjustments to get my heli into "advanced" mode I experienced that the heli started to wobble when hovering. It was as if it wasn't as stable any more, although I didn't do any input. I didn't like this behaviour so I switched back to the "beginner" mode and I am happy with that. Try it out and see which setting suites you the best! Maybe the swashplate calibration tool could have solved this?

(This procedure is also explained in the Blade msr manual on page 33)

/MidnightSunRC

Useful Blade msr link

Here is a useful troubleshooting guide posted at helifreak.com by the nick briangp:

Unofficial Blade msr Troubleshooting Guide

/MidnightSunRC

Easy Star crash

Noooo, I crashed my Easy Star! The body broke at the end of the "cockpit". This was what happened. I turned on my DX6i and made sure that I had selected the right model. Then I plugged in the battery and waited until binding finished. Throttled up and threw the airplane into the air. Now I applied some elevator to gain som hight, but here is where the error occurred. When I applied up elevator the plane went straight down into the ground. What was wrong. Well obviously for some reason my servos were reversed. But I had used this model before with this radio! What was wrong? Then I remembered that when I added the Blade msr to the DX6i I accidentally started to edit my Easy Star. During the excitement to get the Blade msr into the air I didn't make sure that I had the Easy Star model setup correctly in the transmitter again.

Lesson learned: Always check that your servos are moving as intended before flying your aircraft!

As a note the Easy Star will be easy to fix with some hot glue and toothpicks.

/MidnightSunRC

Trouble with Blade msr rudder trim

I have noticed that every time I plug in a new battery into my Blade msr I have to trim the rudder. It always starts with a counter-clockwise rotation on a fresh battery. After a while I have to trim it back a few ticks. I have only seen a few posts on forums where this issue is mentioned. Is it something wrong with my heli?

/MidnightSunRC

E-Flite Blade msr for beginners?

As a proud owner a E-Flite Blade msr and a beginner at r/c heli I thought I should write something about this heli. OK I have some r/c heli experience but that stops at 4ch co-ax helis. I've had much fun with my co-ax Lama v3 and I think that I got some basic understanding of maneuvering a 4ch heli from that.

But now back to the Blade msr. I have the bind-and-fly version of this 4ch fixed pitch heli with main rotor and tail rotor, it is not a co-ax. I use my own drm2 compatible transmitter, the Spektrum DX6i.

First of all this heli is really palm-size so there is no problem flying in your livingroom. Second the heli is really durable. I lost control and flew into a wall and dropped to the floor and the heli was ok afterwards. Third, the heli is really stable. When you got it trimmed and in a hover you can (almost) leave it there without any input. And as a last thing it is possible to do some adjustments to the swashplate in order to make the heli more responsive. This could be fun once you've learnt how to handle the heli and want something more challenging.

I would say that the E-Flite Blade msr is suitable for a beginner at r/c heli who want something durable and small to start with. I don't know if it is the best beginners r/c heli out there but it is fun and has good qualities. Some r/c simulator is always good before starting with a real heli just to get the touch of how the heli reacts to your input.

/MidnightSunRC

Blade msr nose-in training

With r/c planes I have almost no problem flying towards myself but with a heli it's a completely different story. I find it very hard. Partly I believe it's due to the fact that I am flying in my livingroom next to my new TV but that does not explain it all. I have to learn this so I thought that I should dedicate this week for nose-in flying, more precisely hovering nose-in. Hovering tail-in is ok since I have practised this pretty much.

Tonight was lesson one. The heli was my new Blade msr 4ch fixed pitch micro heli and I flew through my two lipos (about 8 minutes each). I saw some improvements but still I can't switch my brain from tail-in to nose-in. Am I moving to fast forward? Are there other steps that I should practice first?

Here's what I did. I started to hover tail-in and when I was stable I rotated 180 degrees. In this position (nose-in) I tried to maintain a hover. Pretty soon I lost it and had to cut the throttle. This is where I'm glad that the Blade msr are really durable! The exercise with these steps repeated for about 16 minutes. Now the lipos are charging and I'm writing a post and trying to figure out if there is a better way to learn this or if it is just exercise exercise exercise.

Do you have some links to good information about learning to fly a helicopter please post them here. I'm only flying a 4ch micro heli at the moment but my goal is a 6ch 3D heli.

Happy flying,
MidnightSunRC

My new r/c gear

It's been a while since I did any updates now and a lot of stuff has happened since the last time.

In an earlier post I described some r/c gear that I was looking at and here is the outcome:

Transmitter: Spektrum dx6i with AR6200

Plane: Multiplex Easy Star

Heli: E-Flite Blade msr (bnf)

Below are som quick comments:

The Spektrum dx6i transmitter will cover all my needs considering planes and helis. This transmitter fits me just right :)

I'm really glad that I bought the Easy Star because that plane is a true beginner. I find it so easy to fly and it can take some bad landings as well. The kit I got was a ARF kit with servos, speed control and motor included. I just had to glue the tail parts in place, insert my receiver and go out flying. All in all it took me about two hours or so from unwrapping the box til I was out on the maiden flight. In a later post I will do a review of the Easy Star.

My latest purchase is the E-Flite Blade msr bnf. bnf is the bind-and-fly version where you are supposed to have a drm2 compatible radio, which by the way my nice new radio is :)

In upcoming posts I will review my new gear.

/MidnightSunRC