Silverlit Atlas - Mini indoor Toyheli

After my other indoor heli - the Silverlit Tandem-Z finaly quit its service (after one crash too much) I occasionally found this little thing. I was curious how such an easy heli would fly.
The short: it goes were it wants too and you can try to countersteer :-)
The "leaning forward" option is made via two pushbuttons - if you press them - the heli will go forward a bit. With the two joysticks you can change motor and tail rotor. So up/down and spinning is no problem, but going straight in one direction can be quite difficult. My next indoor heli will be the Blade mcx - a koax microheli which looks quite promising.

Greetings,
RCSchim

e-Savage FPV Edition

Due to bad flying conditions I took some FPV training on wheels :-)



Because I had no limitation on size and weight I was able to use a big servo for camera pan. I found it best to set up a mix on my transmitter that moves the cam 50% in the direction of the steering - so the FPV truck looks "into" the curve.


HPI e-Savage FPV Fun

3D Heli-flying with a REAL heli!

This thing does rolls and flips like a RC Heli!!!

Youtube Special: RCSuperpowers

I found this funny guys on youtube. They're advertising but they do that in a funny way: Youtube - RCSuperpowers.com

RC helicopter used after Hurricane Katrina

So there are also serious applications for our "toys":

New Cam-Mount

This time I had to find a way to mount the IF OSC flightcam and the Lumix fx35 for recording HD. First I thought about an safebox with foam for protection and vibration dampening but then I came to this design:

Von Ablagebox

It should have less air drag and when using foam under the "feet" of the tripod I should eliminate vibrations.

Twinstar with Landing gear

Here I tried out my custom landing gear. It weights about 150g wich can be a CoG issue. If mounted too far in the forward section - noose-heavy flight; too far backwards and you'll see yourself rubbing your plane's nose in the grass :-)

A thrid wheel would be a possible solution - but that also means additional weight. To small would make a hook of it...

For takeoff it helped giving some extra elevator; takeoff distance is quite short for grass (5-7m?).


Twinstar with Landing gear from Mario Schimanko on Vimeo.

Technical specs:
Motors: 2x MPX Permax 480 7,2v
Props: Graupner CamSpeed 5,5/4,3
Battery: Lipo 3s Kokam 2400H5 (30c)
ESC: Jeti 30+

My conclusion: nice optics, cool feeling on the start, diffcult landings (material consuming), not safe for FPV so far - no extra benefit - I'll stay without wheels for FPV.

PS: did you recognize the music?
It's from this Spencer/Hill movie "Plane cracy" / "Zwei Himmelhunde auf dem Weg zur Hölle"

Twinstar FPV: Huyck-Field

This were a few great rounds above my hometown - above the company I work in to be exact.
I did two flights but on one the jaytech stopped recording (no guess why) - so only one landing.

Twinstar FPV: Huyck-Field from Mario Schimanko on Vimeo.
If you look close you can see the oakmountain-field (behind the castle) and down the city you see the big white building again (chockolate factory with my airfield behind).

Oakmountain flight (external Cam)

I wanted to show some extra material beautifully captured by my girlfriend. You'll also get to see some behind the scenes material :-)

Oakmountain flight (external) from Mario Schimanko on Vimeo.
Unconventional audience, great soundtrack and simply a great day "high above the mucky-muck".

Oakmountain FPV with great sunlight

Yesterday I had to FPV a few rounds over the "oakmountain" - the light was fantastic. This time you'll see footage from the JayModCam again, unfortunatly it was pointed up a bit to high...


Oakmountain FPV with great sunlight from Mario Schimanko on Vimeo.
(If you pause at 00:39 you can see a bright withe building in the background - this is the Lindt & Sprüngli Chocolate Factory and the "Airfield" from the lase vid!)

The mic was covered with foam this time (to prevent heavy noise) - so the air-speed-sound gives you an impression of the actual flyingspeed and motor usage.

I scaled to 640x360 to have smooth vid with 30fps (the old story). I'm still not satisfied with the tele of the jaytech - wide-angle would make a much better overview.