6 Blade Tracking

Tony

Staff member
Tony submitted a new Article:

6 Blade Tracking


The next thing you need to do is make sure your blades are tracking correctly. When you look at the blades from the side, you should only see one blade. If you see two you need to adjust your tracking. Be sure to mark the blades so you can see the difference between the two so you know what one to adjust. I take a blue and red marker and mark the end of one blade red, and the other blue. Now, when I spin it up, I can see what blade is lower or higher. If it's purple it's perfect, lol. There is a myth you have to check your tracking in the air, while in a hover. Although this is the ideal way cause it puts pressure on the blades. As a new pilot you will more than likely not have the ability to do this. So, you will have to do the next best thing.

Set the helicopter on a large table, or better yet, on the ground. DO NOT TIE THE HELICOPTER DOWN! The natural vibration of a helicopter needs to be able to vibrate out of the helicopter. If you tie it down, it will trap that vibration and could cause damage to the heli. Every helicopter has a resonance at a certain rpm that causes shaking, even the real helis such as the Blackhawk or the Chinook. As long as it goes away when you reach the higher throttle range, it's normal.

Once you get a good place to spool up your helicopter, you will want to slowly raise the throttle until it's just to the point of lifting off the ground. Now do you see why you need a large table? It will walk around on you. Once you get to where it's at max throttle before lifting off the ground, look at the blades from the side. If you see a single blade, then you are good to go. But, if you see two, then you need to adjust them. A set of blades which do not track correctly will cause a lot of vibration. One blade will be getting more lift than the other, so the higher blade will have more force on it and going in a circle. This will create a massive vibration.

You will find out what blade was lower, and put a max of two turns on the blade grip links to raise that blade. That means that you will give it more pitch. If two full turns doesn't get it, then lower the other blade up to two turns to match them. Keep doing this until you get perfect blade tracking. It may take a while, but you will get it.

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Lee

Well-Known Member
I found that sometimes adjusting the blade grip links, i just could not get them to line up. I would get them as close as possible then adjust the mixing arm links to fine tune to perfection. Now i have the pro head you cannot adjust the blade links so my only option is the mixing arm links. I got them as close to level as i could but 1 whole turn was too much. It needed half a turn. How did i do this? By swapping the links so i could make a half turn instead of a whole turn. Worked for me :D
 
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