Over the last few days I have taken the TDR2 to the local parks and football ovals to tune hover, but was struggling a bit with only two sets of flight packs.
Must have gotten about 3 test hovers with the fixed skids, and gotten no-where with tuning, so Retssaf was kind enough to give me his values despite him using different size blades.
Well I managed to try his settings with two test hover/circuit flights on the local football oval yesterday and there was immediate improvement - now it was about fine-tuning instead of "get flying you bastard!"
And I had chucked on the retracts for these new settings, which is another mind-bending thing to worry about

Today was time to head to the local club for another two flights, and managed to get this one on film. With a crowd of pensioner plankers watching, I became a bit nervous, plus by the time I managed to get a flight in among the geriatric plankers - I had to wake up and recover from DVT

Warning, extremely average flying video Unfortunately I cannot refund you the 5 minutes you'll never get back....

If your wanting a stripe on the boom like mine, just get yourself a Banshee and apply the canopy stripes to the TDR2 boom

 

one tail blade is on the wrong way on the TDR2 dude.

 

In the second pic

 

Hey what you smoking

 

Looking at the tail rotor, the direction is clock wise on the TDR2

 

ahh my bad. Sorry dude, just felt your heart skip a beat hehe

 

Lol very funny!

I'll let you off on this time, I know you wouldn't be used to seeing so much carbon fiber weave not just on the blades Oooooo LOL

 

Perfect build.

 

What a high tec solid piece of heli engineering the TDR2 is. Very smooth - and looks like it could go VERY fast if needed. The video was great - nothing like actually being there however. Very nice indeed.

 

Actually did this way back during the build, but didn't post the pic due to thinking I'd get slammed for my messy gluing efforts... But anyway, more info and ideas posted the better

Glued in 10x5x5 N42 rare earth magnets to the canopy back top edges to keep the meeting point closed during flight. Glue used was "JB Weld". Sand the faces of the magnets and CF canopy to be glued to ensure good contact. Fiddly work but helps with the application of the canopy.

 

The added yellow stripe to the boom is from the Banshee canopy decals. Just trying to get bit more visability

 

Nice.
I thought I heard a bit of gain induced tail jitter at one point.
How did the old plankers respond to that TDR?

 

Yep, head and tail gains need further tuning. Will iron out this weekend.

"Goes alright", "helicopters aren't meant to do that!" - are the responses from the pensioner-planker brigade

 

They probably think of helicopters in "scale" terms.

 

Took the TDR2 to a new club today, one that will be closer to my future residence. Turned out to be a mostly plank club, and of the pensioner variety - but it was so much better than the club I'd been going to down south here. People where allot more welcoming, and accommodating to me flying in between plank flights. In fact they all grabbed a chair and watched as I threw the Dune around like I stole it, and ripped some speed with the banshee. This new club is DAMS (Dardanup), and if you're ever in south west WA come check it out.
Also another chance to put me two flight packs thru the TDR2. Really need to get a generator so I can really work on the new bird, but so far it's growing on me. Becoming a bit more confident with the narrow profile, and the tail is better now on reduced gains - just need to tweak the expert tail settings to get it stopping crisp in both directions

Am now weighing up what to do with the TDR2. It begs for speed, so I could chuck in my higher kV scorpion and set it up for 2600rpm speed flying. But, reports are that on Rotortech 760 blades it is a great 3D and big air graceful flyer, and I have these blades on order.
3D on 716 blades at the moment is good but not great, a bit of a heavy pig. So, too many choices and not sure the way to go.
If I speed the TDR2, perhaps I could change the banshee to 3D, but the banshee is a bit of a happy animal at the moment
Looks like I'll be dicking around mixing up different setups.... First world problems aye

Pics at new club today



New digs in the middle of bum-fark south west farm land

 

I cant help but admire your heli @ChopsyWA . Truly one sweet piece of technology. And you think the TDR2 is a bit heavy for 3d? With 760s i would think that problem would be resolved providing the motor doesn't bog. But you have some great choices there - i wish i had that problem! I have seen both the TDR and Banshees fly. They can carry big power and when they do, they are exceptionally fast and while i have never seen one personally performing piroflips (mainly straight line basic 3d stuff), there used to be one guy who flew occasionally down our club - Michael (aka fasster) and his helis were top of the line power houses - TDRs, Banshees. He used to buy only top of the line stuff and MAN those helis moved.....

 

High parts count, all strong design - makes it heavy, but it will swing up to 800 blades. Drive train should handle 16kW, so a much higher power handling than the old soft TDR.

Not sure how Michael would feel about being called fasster, or how Andrew would be about being referred to as Michael.... But both guys are fast
(Michael aka Helicraze).

Glad you like the TDR2. After another two flights this morning the heli is edging up the ranks of my best/favorite heli list.

 

LOL I had the aliases mixed up. And i brought Andrews goblin quite a few years ago... I still have it. Michael has put helis on hold for a while last I heard - he will be back one day... im sure of it. But in the mean time you are carrying the TDR/Banshe torch @ChopsyWA ! and it is really interesting to see!

 

Yep, the return of Helicraze is not a question of IF but a question of WHEN I'm sure

Fair amount of credit has to go to HC and Fasster, especially Fasster for Banshee and TDR2 fbl settings and general suggestions/guidance. My Banshee wouldn't be the animal it is without the trials these boys have done with theirs over the last few years

 

No doubt Michael and Andrew were the pioneers of high quality, high powered speed helis. Michael gave me one of his batteries that he claimed was no good for speed flying because it was starting to show signs of depleting. I still have that battery in use today and it still smaks ok...