Blog Entries

Experiences using a Governor on a Aistar Mongose - Part 3

david@dacosta.us — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:00:00 +0100

Yesterday I test flew the Mongoose with the Futaba GV-1 governor in place and experienced similar problems to the CSM Revlock.

After disconnecting the Governor, the problem still existed and turned out to be engine tuning related and after a few adjustment I got the engine dialed in and re-activated the GV-1 which performed fine.

My next test is to re-install the CSM Revlock and see if it now works.

Stay tuned!

Experiences using a Governor on a Airstar Mongoose - Part 2

david@dacosta.us — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 08:00:00 +0100

So today I fitted a Futaba GV-1 governor that I had on my Align Trex 600 Nitro and did a breif test hover in my back yard. The governor appears to be working fine which I will confirm next week with a more comprehensive flight test.

Experiences using a Governor on a Airstar Mongoose

david@dacosta.us — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 08:00:00 +0100

Having just installed a CSM Revlock and Stator Gator Governor on my Airstar Mongoose (see Workbench), I have just got back from my test flight with the Mongoose and unfortunately it was not successful.

I have programmed the Revlock as per the instructions and everything is responding as expected in terms of the LED including passing the sensor test.

However, when trying to fly it for the first time, the Revlock holds the RPM at idle. I disengaged the re [...]

How to add braided sleeving to RC Helicopter wiring

dacostad@mac.com — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 08:00:00 +0100

A good way to protect your cables when installing the electronics into a RC Helicopter is to add braided sleeving. This also gives a nice professional looking installation.

Here I show how I do this.

So in this example I am using an antenna extention for my Spektrum radio.

The braided sleeving I use comes from http://cableorganizer.com.

The first step is to thread [...]

Tip on RC Helicopter wiring

dacostad@mac.com — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 08:00:00 +0100

How do you tie cables to the helicopter frame when you only have one hole.

You could go through the hole and over the side of the frame, but this would not be very neat or often practicle.

So here is what I do. Imagine the piece of plywood with the hole in it shown below is the the helicopter frame.

The first thing I do is take a cable tie and tie it around the cable in qu [...]

JR 12x Radio - my second impressions

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:00:00 +0100

Well after yesterdays experience with fades and dropouts, I rebinded the 12x to my Airstar Mongoose R921 receiver and went back to the flying field today.

I have to say my experience was totaly different to yesterday with minimal, if any antenna fades or frame losses. I am very happy with it's performance! Not sure what happened yesterda, but after 3 20 minute flights [...]

My first impressions of the new JR 12x radio

dacostad@mac.com — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 08:00:00 +0100

So I received my new JR 12x radio this week and tried it yesterday on my Airstar Mongoose.

I was already using the JR X9303 2.4 Ghz radio with this helicopter so all I had to do was rebind the JR R921 receiver with the 12x.

The first thing that I noticed that was different to the 9303 was the way the throttle trim works. On the 9303, you c [...]

What is it like to fly a turbine powered R/C Helicopter.

dacostad@mac.com — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:00:00 +0100

I have been asked on many occasions since I started flying the Airstar Jetcopter SX, "What is like to fly it?" and "How does it compare to an electric or nitro powered R/C helicopter?".
I'll preface my answer by saying that so far I have only a dozen flights on my Jetcopter so I'm am far from being an [...]

Learn from my mistake!

dacostad@mac.com — Thu, 08 May 2008 08:00:00 +0100

While preparing for the maiden flight of my Hirobo Super Cobra, I could not get the engine started. After checking everything, I brought it back to my workshop for further investigation.

Even after removing the mechanics from the fuselage my investigations yielded no results. Eventually I decided to remove the engine from the mechanics start the naked engine on a test stand.