Helicopters C

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_deltaV
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Re: Helicopters C

Post by _deltaV »

Just to give some perspective, teams were breaking 2:30 at Cornell. At MIT, one team in the time block before me broke something like 2:30 and another team seemed really excited about that. My time of :58 didn't break the top 30 and 1:17 from our B team didn't break the top 20. I think at Nationals this year we're going to see at least one or two teams breaking 3:45. IMHO, at this point 2:00 is the minimum time needed to stay competitive when teams are breaking 2:30 this early in the season
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_deltaV
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Re: Helicopters C

Post by _deltaV »

Has anybody else with the kit had problems where the ribs just don't reach the bottom spar assembly, and things just don't line up in the way they should? When I built the top rotor I ended up having to cut 1/16" shims from the wood the ribs came on to make sure that the bottom inner spars reached the central rib. Also has anybody else's carbon fiber come severely warped? When I put mine on the jig sometimes it ends up a full centimeter forward/backward/upward of the outer radius of the jig.
Boca Raton High School
- Helicopters - Microbe Mission
- Chem Lab - Experimental Design

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Re: Helicopters C

Post by bjt4888 »

by_DeltaV,

.020" carbon rod is typically not perfectly straight as a raw material. However, after constructing using jigs as supplied in the Freedom Flight kits, everything should be aligned correctly and straight.

I am coaching four high schools in the Helicopter event and my students have constructed ten Freedom Flight kit helicopters so far and all went together great and all fly great.

As stated in the FF kit instructions, the jigs will align certain parts pretty close and a little "finessing" will be needed to bring things together. I wouldn't add material to the ribs. Our procedure has been to bond the center rib of each rotor blade to the .020" leading edge first, be sure that the rib is then resting against (or taped to) the jig rib support, and then loosen the tape that locates the .020" trailing edge and gently move the TE with a toothpick till it contacts the TE tip of the rib and glue. With fresh CA glue, carbon to balsa joints bond almost instantaneously. Same procedure for the end rib. As recommended in the instructions, we attach the inner rib using Duco Cement, pregluing the .020" LE and TE and the rib tips and then gluing in. This procedure works well for the inner rib as it is so small and it is difficult to see both the LE and TE joint when installing. Duco is slower drying than CA allowing a little time to reposition the small inner rib to get the joints perfect.

My students have won two of the State of Michigan Invitationals so far with slightly modified Freedom Flight Helicopters, so I definitely recommend them.

Good Luck and keep building and testing,

Brian T.
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Re: Helicopters C

Post by Goose »

Hey guys

I am having a bit of trouble getting the dimensions of the wings correct for my helicopter. What are you guys using?

Thanks
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Re: Helicopters C

Post by Bluejet1179 »

Goose wrote:Hey guys

I am having a bit of trouble getting the dimensions of the wings correct for my helicopter. What are you guys using?

Thanks
I'm just using freedom flight models jigs that came with the 2017 kit.
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Re: Helicopters C

Post by Bluejet1179 »

_deltaV wrote:Just to give some perspective, teams were breaking 2:30 at Cornell. At MIT, one team in the time block before me broke something like 2:30 and another team seemed really excited about that. My time of :58 didn't break the top 30 and 1:17 from our B team didn't break the top 20. I think at Nationals this year we're going to see at least one or two teams breaking 3:45. IMHO, at this point 2:00 is the minimum time needed to stay competitive when teams are breaking 2:30 this early in the season
Did you have logs at MIT? I competed at MIT and got 8th with a time of 1:05 and completed logs. Is there really a 20 place gap for 7 seconds?
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Re: Helicopters C

Post by Bazinga+ »

Bluejet1179 wrote:
_deltaV wrote:Just to give some perspective, teams were breaking 2:30 at Cornell. At MIT, one team in the time block before me broke something like 2:30 and another team seemed really excited about that. My time of :58 didn't break the top 30 and 1:17 from our B team didn't break the top 20. I think at Nationals this year we're going to see at least one or two teams breaking 3:45. IMHO, at this point 2:00 is the minimum time needed to stay competitive when teams are breaking 2:30 this early in the season
Did you have logs at MIT? I competed at MIT and got 8th with a time of 1:05 and completed logs. Is there really a 20 place gap for 7 seconds?
Weird, we got 9th with around 1:35 with logs no bonus.
Innovation =/= success
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Re: Helicopters C

Post by RJohnson »

Was at a competition this past weekend. First place was recorded as 230 seconds, second place as 142. Not sure if first was a mistake or an incredible flight. Don't know about bonus on either one.
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Re: Helicopters C

Post by P2P »

Are you sure it's not 2:30?

3 minutes 50 seconds is a really long time...
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Re: Helicopters C

Post by dhdarren »

RJohnson wrote:Was at a competition this past weekend. First place was recorded as 230 seconds, second place as 142. Not sure if first was a mistake or an incredible flight. Don't know about bonus on either one.
Could I ask which competition this was? And I agree with P2P, 2:30 seems much more likely than 230 seconds.
2015:
R | S
Bridge: 1 | 8
AirTraj: 5 | 26
WS: 12 | 9
Scrambler: 6 | 17
DP: 7 | X

2016:
Bridge: 2 | 15
AirTraj: 2 | 6
WS: 3 | 11
DP: 4 | 15
GeoMap: 4 | 25

2017:
Heli: 1 | 1
Hover: 1 | 4
Towers: 2 | 15
DP: 1 | 6
Wind: 2 | 8
2018:
R | S
Heli:
Hover:
Towers:
DP:
Eco:
MV:[/b]
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