Mayday Mayday

Posted on January 17, 2014

helicopterCrashed
I remember my father saying that his medivac took some setting up and that it didn’t like the wind.  Mindful of those wise words  I spent the first battery charge in the garage getting it all trimmed up. Lots of scooting around on the floor finally managing to get it to stop pulling left and almost hovering before the batteries gave up.

Happy that the basics were set up correctly and thinking maybe the oval across the road might be a softer landing patch than the concrete of the driveway I patiently awaited the next charge. Checking the leaves and branches, barely a twitch. Perfect. Or so I thought. Barely a twitch is still too much breeze apparently, plus grass isn’t such a great surface for taking off on. Once I was up the thing drifted off and was much harder to control than when on the driveway. I persisted but only with the inevitable crash that saw rotor blades flying off in different directions.

Fun over, I retreated back to the work bench to fish out a couple of spares that were in the box. Disappointed I retuned to the ‘helipad’ outside the garage and returned to the now familiar scooting around a couple of three feet of the ground. I think my longest flight so far is around 10 seconds. Further practice is obviously required as weather permits.