Stakabo's Blade CP flight Journal

Flight No 31

2006-08-24T19:51:00.000-04:00

Nice flight tonight.

wind was calm. i only I'm getting better and better at this. this time i only touch down once... To change batteries.

hope to fly again tomorrow !

Flight No 30

2006-08-18T19:38:00.000-04:00

I took a second this morning to fly. i did not really had time because i had to work, but still ... A flight is only 10-20 minutes max ... So why not.

it was a nice flight. I'm starting to impress my neighbor. When he first saw my Blade CP, he was kinda disappointed that i would not make it fly more then a few inch off the ground and that i would not lift off for more then 5-10 second at the time. He taught that you would just put some throttle and the heli would lift off and be "stable" in the air. He did not get the point of having to put so much practice time to fly those things ... Today he saw me fly for 5 minutes without touching the ground or loosing control, he got the point.

it would not be that fun if you just flip a switch and the thing would Hoover magically at 5 feet. i know it's frustrating the first time you fly and you realize that you can't do much. But all the time invested in this is really worth it. Trust me.

Flight No 28, 29

2006-08-17T20:57:00.000-04:00

Nice long flights today.

Almost no wind today. Before driving the kid to kinder garden, i drained both batteries. The kid loves it so much ! But he his super "safe" with the heli. He always stay close to me or really far away. He doesn't try to catch it or something ....

After super, i drained both batteries again. On the second battery i only touch ground twice!! :) I'll try to film my progress soon.

Now batteries are charging and i have work to do.

Flight No 27

2006-08-14T18:49:00.000-04:00

Wind almost completely stop this afternoon, so i got out to fly.

battery 1 was a nice long flight.

at then end of battery 2, the wind came back and made my Blade CP crash. No real damage .. Just the training landing skid to put back. But it was then end of flight 27.

I'm starting to have some real controls over the heli and it's nice to fly !

hope the wind calm down soon !

Flight No 26

2006-08-13T20:07:00.000-04:00

The wind finally took a break for 5 minutes and i had time for a nice flight. I spent a lot of time adjust my Blade CP. Change a few things and set the trim pot just like it was before .. Or almost

it was strange to fly my bird after almost one month without touching it... But it all comes back pretty quick ...

hope to fly again real soon !

Will start again soon !

2006-08-03T23:30:00.000-04:00

i have been real busy with work and vacation.

now that it's back to normal i will fox my Blade CP, set the trim ok and start flying again.

i hope to have control by the end of the summer ...

Flight No 25

2006-07-16T23:07:00.000-04:00

Nice flight at my wife's mom. Drained both battery.

i have to say that my bird is less stable then it used to be ... i have to fight with the tail now ... And it has this tendency to over compensate when the heli move around... Maybe too much gyro gain ? I'll have to watch those instruction video on how to set it up properly ... http://www.funscale.com/

Flight No 24

2006-07-15T21:39:00.000-04:00

Today i changed the main blades, lubricated the rotor head and also readjusted the trim pot. i took all of my 2 battery to adjust My blade CP properly but now it fly super stable. Maybe more adjustment on the Gyro gain ... Not sure but I'll see next time...

The weather was nice. No wind (are almost). i hope that tomorrow will be like today. We are going at my wife's mom for her birth day. I'll bring the bird and hope it's not windy ...

Flight No 23

2006-07-11T21:17:00.000-04:00

Beautiful weather tonight. No wind. Just perfect to fly !

drain both battery and made a 5 minute Hover. So now that i can keep my heli in the air, I'll start practicing Hover over the same location. i bought some chuck to make a big target on the ground (as you can see in picture in the previous post).

hope the weather will be nice to fly tomorrow !

Flight No 22

2006-07-11T10:53:00.000-04:00

The wind stop for a second. i got the bird ready, went out, got ready to fly and lift off.

then the wind came back.

i had a couple of minute hover ... But nothing much.

i did not even drain a full battery.

hope the wind will calm down tonight !

Flight No 21

2006-07-10T21:21:00.000-04:00

Nice flight tonight. Drain both battery. I'm trying to hover on the same location for a long time. It's hard. Special that there was a little wind.

i guess practice make perfect !

video shot by my wife.

(no my kid is not too close. The camera angle does not show that he is a good 20 feet away.)

Flight No 20

2006-07-05T21:42:00.000-04:00

Blade change

Hard flight. A little wind tonight. My Blade CP is very hard to control when it windy, even if it's a only a little wind.

about 1/2 half on the battery, it started raining again and that was the end of Flight No 20.

i hope the weather will improve. So far summer is rainy and windy here. Nothing like last year

Flight No 19

2006-07-02T00:53:00.000-04:00

Quick flight with the Beau frere just before the night and the rain. i had a couple of hard landing. i was on grass. i used to landing on hard surfaces. Make a big difference when landing/taking off.

i think i will change the blades now. They are the same set from flight No 6. They makes the heli shakes a lot and it makes it harder to control.

Flight No 18

2006-06-28T17:49:00.000-04:00

Weather is not too nice these day. But wind almost completely stop for about 1 hour.

quick flight while dinner is cooking. Nice longer hover even if the wind made it super hard.

I'll have to draw target on the ground and practice hover over one location.

Flight No 17

2006-06-27T21:22:00.000-04:00

Nice flight just before the rain. No wind tonight. Hover for about minutes now. The heli only touch the ground 7 time on a 2 battery flight.

Flight No 16

2006-06-24T18:58:00.000-04:00

Nice long flight in st-donat. getting really close to the 1 minute hover.

Flight No 15

2006-06-24T01:08:00.000-04:00

nice long flight at St-Donat on the old tenis court. drain 2 bateri and made some nice long hover. i have some video to show it.

video !

video @

video #

video %

Flight No 14

2006-06-23T13:03:00.000-04:00

Quick flight at my parent's house in rimouski.

indoor : first floor living room. some quick hover. noting much.

Flight No 13

2006-06-23T11:09:00.000-04:00

Quick flight at my parent's house in rimouski.

indoor : first floor living room. some quick hover. noting much.

Flight No 12

2006-06-21T21:15:00.000-04:00

Tonight was a no wind night. Wonderful !

i drain both of my battery and hover for solid 15 second pretty stable. The more i fly and the more i gain control over my heli, and more i want to fly. i can't wait for that 10 minutes hover. i know i have to practice much much more before i can achieve that.

every time i fly i get better and it motivate me to fly even more !

I'll have to buy 4-5 new battery so i can fly for hours at the time.

if I'm too sleepy in 2.5 hours, I'll go fly again. And next time I'll try to make a small movie of my progress.

Flight No 11

2006-06-20T22:05:00.000-04:00

Nice outside flight at night. No wind. i only wish a battery would last 2 hours. This time i hover about 10 second at 2 feet. Landing was hard but no damage.

Flight No 10

2006-06-20T19:14:00.000-04:00

What a great flight . Again !

i hover for about 10 second this time. It was really exiting has most often my Blade CP only lift for about 2-3 second before i lose it and i have to bring it down. i can only imagine all the fun this must be once you have control over the heli. i can't wait ! But in the mean time, I'll have to practice much much more.

time to put all the furniture back in the kitchen. My wife should be here any minutes now.

Flight No 9

2006-06-20T16:31:00.000-04:00

Today my wife went away for the day with the kid. As it is pretty stormy out, i decided to push all the furniture from kitchen in the living room. This give me a 15 X 20 feet area i can fly in.

that was a lot of fun. I'm starting to get the feel of it. i drain my 2 battery and i only hope i have time charge them before my wife get back !

Flight No 8

2006-06-18T20:09:00.000-04:00

Today is father's day. We had some guess over for dinner and i made quick flight to show what the heli. Didn't really hover. i just wanted to show what it looked like at full throttle. i hope the weather will be nice for flight tomorrow !

Flight No 7

2006-06-15T20:35:00.000-04:00

I'm starting to hover a little (about 5 seconds). The weather is not very nice lately so i fly in our apartement building's entrance. It's kinda small witch make learning harder. i was taking to a friend witch knows a LOT about flying machine (all of them, plane, heli, rocket ...) and he told me about the rotor wash. i guess i will need to find a bigger place to fly my Blade CP.

Flight No 6

2006-06-12T19:19:00.000-04:00

My parts came in today.(yeah !)

i took me a good 3 hours to set my heli. i did a couple of modification that i saw from the web.

this web site is most useful. Lots of photos
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_3131294/mpage_1/key_blade/tm.htm

there seam to be a error in the factory assembly of the blade grip. i corrected that. Took the info from a web site i can't found anymore. I'll be sure to post the link when i find it.

then i decided that i should adjust the trim pot before starting to fly again. So flight No 6 was more of a test flight then anything else. i was not trying to hover but only to setup the mix and the gain properly. Now it seams to be setup good.
again, this guy's video are wonderful !
http://www.funscale.com/

i hope the weather will be nice for flight tomorrow !

Trying to find a good sim

2006-06-07T09:55:00.000-04:00

i have been looking all over the web to find a good sim. So far i have 3 options:

RealFlight G3
Pre-Flight
RC Helicopter Simulator and USB Interface Cable

i don't really know witch one to get. i have tried them all. i would really love to get the last option. Having only Mac at home, this would be the best. I do have an old PC laptop (1 GHz) but i don't think it would run Flight sim well. i don't know how accurate the Mac sim is.

i guess I'll play some more on the demo with my USB gamepad and see what i like.

i can't wait to get the parts i ordered and fly the real thing again.

Flight No 5

2006-06-05T19:27:00.000-04:00

i notice a strange vibration when the main rotor would get to full speed. i decided to see what it was. Maybe my blade needed to be track. Power up the transmitter, plug the battery. The blade do need to be track. So i put back the bird on the table and has i grab the wires to unplug the battery the little fuck attacked me ! With out any warning it just went full speed and headed straight for me. It was the first time i fell off my chair !

the Blade CP hit another chair and the blades got stuck in the tail. i took a second or 2 before i got to it and some smoke was coming out of the canopy.

i burnt the engine, main shaft was bended main rotor blade are broken...

I'll have to wait a couple a days before flying again. i have to order new parts to fix it.

ho well, I'll just try to find a good sim and practice on it until i get the bird ready to fly again.

Flight No 4

2006-06-05T18:18:00.000-04:00

I'm just trying to get the Blade CP to hover. So far i have no control over it. They say it's been test flight at the factory but those guy are used to fly them. Even if the heli is not super fine tune, they still can fly them pretty easy. But I'm new to this ...

here is a video of my longest flight so far (except for the crash in earlier post ...)
http://monstrebiscuit.org/blogger/long_fly.mov

i think I'll just go watch those excellent videos (http://www.funscale.com/) and try to set it up perfectly. It can't be worst then what it is right now !

Flight No 3

2006-06-02T12:11:00.000-04:00

After yesterday's crash, I put a new set of blades and got out to fly. It was around 10 am and there was no kids and no wind.

it did not really fly that much. I tried to hover about 6 inch of the ground. 15 minutes of lift off, loose control, land, go replace the heli and lift off again ...

I realize that flying heli is really hard. But I guess once you can do it, it's all worth the time and effort put into it.

Flight No 2

2006-06-01T22:22:00.000-04:00

I really wanted to see my blade CP fly...
The wind was calm (actually .. there was no wind), I decided to go out and try it again...

Soon has I got out, all the kids in the street ran up to see what was that little yellow thing. I had to go over safety instructions for about 5 minutes and 15 minutes of show and tell before I could put the bird on the ground and plug the battery. I started slowly, trying to hover and for 3 second the heli was stable. To show off for the kids I decided to put more throttle. Bad idea... The Blade CP started to spin out of control and headed straight for a huge tree. I cut the throttle but it hit the tree and the ground at the same time.. Lucky me, I only broke the main rotor blades (thank god they include a few spare part in the box) and the tail rotor and right landing skid dismantle. The fact that almost every thing on this heli is held in place by small piece of fuel line makes is great. In most crash stuff will just dismantle instead of breaking. Save a lot of $$ on part.

Flight No 2 last about 15 seconds. The kids all seam to like the crash and help me find the pieces in the grass.

It's now time for my fist blade change...

Flight No 1

2006-06-01T17:21:00.000-04:00

Today i received my blade CP. I took it out of the box and looked at it for 2 hours. I looked in details every part to see how it was built and stuff. I have to say they are pretty nice little machine.

After much examination i put the battery in the transmitter, installed the training gear and took it out for a spin. I never flown heli before so i knew i couldn't do much with it, but i was under the impression that it would just lift off and hoover by it self. I was wrong... the little thing lifted about 3 feet in the air and started to spin out of control. I then pull the throttle down and it slammed into the ground. No damage, lucky me.

From then i decided to just let the main rotor spin just enough so it would not leave the ground to discharge the battery (like it say in the manual).

charged the battery for 2.5 hours while i was surfing the web to find any tips and trick to help my fly my new toy.

I found a couple of very useful post in different RC forum.

http://www.runryder.com/helicopter/t244675p1/

This guy made some very nice instruction video on how to setup your Blade CP before flying it
http://www.funscale.com/

If you have a Blade CP, add yourself to this ... I'm the one in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec (Canada)
http://www.frappr.com/bladecphoneybeecp2bladecx

now i think i will have to find a good sim ...