01/19/2001 Friday - Purchase
Today I ordered a ModelSport Hornet from Aero Hobbies in Texas.  It's being shipped 3-Day so it should be here next Wednesday or Thursday.

01/25/2001 Thursday - Arrival & Assembly
UPS delivered the Hornet today and I started assembly.  I was really surprised at the size of the box.  I was expecting a little bit larger of a box.  It was even more of a surprise to see that the contents inside the box only filled it about 1/3rd.  After work I dug right in and began assembly.  The only mistake I made was in the tail box.  I put the wrong bearing in the end of the carbon fiber tail boom.  Unfortunately I didn't discover my mistake until after I glued the gears to the end of the tail drive shaft.  In frustration I decided to just yank it apart and order what ever parts I break.  Turns out it didn't break anything and I was able to continue assembly.  I got through about 90% of the assembly process

01/26/2001 Friday - More assembly, First flight (accidental)
On my lunch hour I went home and continued assembly.  I put the battery on the charger and went to work routing wires and installing the ESC (Electronic Speed Control).  After everything was assembled I decided the battery had enough charge and I installed it in the Hornet.  I turned everything on and checked servo directions and throws.  The only one I couldn't really check was the throttle, since it doesn't run on a servo.  I put the heli on the garage floor and thought I'd advance the throttle a little to see the head spin.  Well, the throttle didn't seem to do anything at all.  Then, all of the sudden it jumped to life and started flying like crazy.  I got control of cyclic and rudder, but I had NO control of the throttle.  I could swear in my panic I tried moving the throttle stick back and forth, but I can't be sure of that.  Well, the Hornet smacked into the ceiling and fell 8 feet to the concrete garage floor.  Things shifted around, like the tail boom and legs, but I couldn't find anything broken.  Then I tried to rotate the head and heard the clicking of gears.  Turns out I stripped teeth off the motor pinion gear.  I was planning on flying this little heli around the house this weekend since it's raining outside, but I guess my plans have changed.  I called AeroHobbies when I got back to work and ordered new gears.  I went ahead and ordered the pinion gear for the tail drive and the main big gear.  They should be here by next Wednesday or Thursday. 

I also talked to Andy at AeroHobbies about what happened.  He thinks that I have the throttle servo backwards.  He said that the ESC won't throttle up the engine if it's started in anything except idle.  Then, when I tried to advance the throttle, I actually brought it down to idle.  When I pulled the stick back, I actually throttled up full.  As I mentioned above, I thought I tried advancing the throttle during my panic unscheduled flight, but I can't be sure.  Andy's reasoning sounds good to me.  Tonight, I'm going to bench mount the engine and see if I can get the bugs worked out.

Later Friday night I verified that channel 3 needed to be reversed...  Hindsight!  It would have been nice if the assembly instructions said "Don't install the motor until you verify if channel 3 needs to be reversed."  Oh well, lesson learned!

02/01/2001 Thursday - No parts
I called AeroHobbies to find out where my parts are.  Unfortunately they had not shipped yet.  Andy felt real bad and said he'd send them "Next Day" on Friday.  I should see them Monday

02/05/2001 Monday - Parts arrive, First real flights
The parts arrived just as Andy promised.  He also did not charge me anything for shipping and I appreciate that.  I installed the pinion gear on the motor, placed some last minute CA on the tail boom and support legs.  I then modified the radio settings to add in +15% exponential (makes center stick more sensitive). I put the heli on the garage floor and spooled it up.  At first it jumped around a bit, then everything balanced out and looked great.  I took off and hovered around a bit. The controls were still really sloppy so I landed and upped the exponential to +25%.  On the next hover I realized that the tail was now a little too sensitive, so I landed and reduced the expo on ch4 to 20%.  This should work out OK while I get use to flying this little bugger.  Later, I'll remove the flybar weights and reduce the exponential for more linear control.

After I charged up the battery again, I moved inside and flew off my table tennis/pool table.  This was fun flying inside the house.  I like taking off and landing on smooth surfaces as opposed to carpet since the smooth surface is a little more forgiving when the heli drifts.  The ground effect is more severe on a smooth surface however and there's a big difference between hovering at 6 inches and hovering at 3 feet elevation.  On the carpet I'd imaging that the ground effect is less noticeable.  Ground effect can be fun though when the battery is just about dead.  Gives a little more hover time. :)  Overall it was a good day for the Hornet since I didn't crash at all.

02/06/2001 Tuesday - Short Flight
I flew the Hornet about 10 seconds with the RUD ATV set to 40%.  I read some posts on http://www.hornet-heli.com that suggested 40%.  I had no rudder authority at 40% so I set it back to 100%.  Then we went to my wife's parents house and I was going to fly the Hornet for them over there.  While showing them the heli, I discovered that the Anti-Rotation Arm had come loose from the main shaft.  They didn't have any super glue and I didn't bring my CA so I was grounded for the night.

02/07/2001 Wednesday - Broken main shaft
I had been suspecting the main shat was split because I can rotate the head about 90 degrees while holding the main gear.  I took off from the Ping-Pong table and hovered at about 1 foot.  The power seemed very low.  The heli drifted off the side of the table and fell out of ground effect.  Then the heli headed for the carpet.  After the legs bounced off the ground once, the heli tipped and the main blades hit the carpet.  Immediately, the main shaft snapped in two below the swash plate.  Done for the night.

04/29/2001 Sunday - Fixed main shaft, broke boom
I decided to finally fix the broken main shaft in my MS Hornet. I made the repair, charged the battery and took it for a flight. Control was difficult, mostly because I hadn't flown it since early February. Well I ended up dumping it on the carpet and broke the tail boom right in the middle. I was really surprised at this break because carbon fiber is supposed to be so strong. I hadn't broken the carbon fiber drive wire inside the boom, so I glued the boom back together with CA and went for another flight. Yeah, I know that's not the strongest fix, but what the heck. Another dump into the carpet and I broke the boom in the same place (no big surprise) and I broke the CF drive wire this time. It's back on the shelf awaiting repairs once again.