Today is the day. We finished up the last bit of safety wiring on the rotor head then pushed it outside into the sun. Advanced the throttle, pushed the starter and ...... it would barely turn over. Borrrowed some jumper cables from the FBO. Try again varooom. Fired right up and idled perfectly.
Of course it blew spoke like James Bond's Aston Martin. All the preservative oil etc went all over the tail. I have a lot of cleaning up to do. Found a fuel leak and tightened the fitting.
Photo one shows the balance strobe mounted on the frame. I need to make a bracket for mine. The lead/lag had shifted on one blade. So back into the hanger for another try on that. The tracking went very well, only had about 1/2 turn of adjustment necessary.
Balancing was a piece of cake. The imbalance fell right on the "grip weight line" so we were able to walk it down to about .03 ips. Smooth as glass.
Bad news is that many of my engine gauges (engine rpm, rotor rpm, oil pressure, compass, fuel flow, fuel level, oil temp and trans temp)n were not working. All testing was done using the rpm from the balancer.
Because it is not FAA signed off we could not fly it. It is possible that Bobby accidently hovered it for a while and I got in and may have accidently hovered it. But we all know that is not possible without the paper from the FAA. SMOOTH AS GLASS.
