Sceadu 50 Flight Log			My orange coloured Sceadu 50
This is my flight log of my Sceadu with a new OS50 engine. My Sceadu went through an interesting but heart wrenching history. She started off with an OS 32 that always gave over heating problem. I replaced it with a Webra 52. It's tough tuning the Webra but I did learn a great deal about glow engines. Now, I have an OS 50 with Hatori muffler on my Sceadu. I shall start the flight log at the moment of getting the OS 50 engine. 8th and 9th May 2003: I'm running 5% nitro with OS #8 glow plug. Wow...tuning is no fuss and soon I'm zooming the Sceadu around. Piro hovering is great fun! 15th and 16th May 2003: Switched to Powermaster 15% nitro fuel. I can do foward flights and figure eight now. I hope to do stall turns, loop and roll soon. Many of my flying buddies are converts to Hirobo heli now. 21st and 22nd May: 1 gallon of CP5% and 1 and 1/2 gallon of PM15% through my OS50. Runs sweet as it seldom bog unless I really pump the collective hard. Average flight about 10 mins, I stop after that even there is fuel because 10 mins of hard flying is draining my brain juice fast. Did figure eight, stall turns, 540 stall turns. 5th and 6th June 2003: Attempted my first loop! Cool. 12th and 13th June 2003: Roll the Sceadu. It sort of corkscrew, but I use ailerion D/R to increase the ailerion servo movement so that the Sceadu can roll faster. 19th and 20th June 2003: Upgraded the collective pitch servo from HS5645 to S9252. Collective pitch response is much faster now. Did elevator flip and tic-tocs. Tic-tocs rocks! But the engine bogs if I pump the collective very hard. Only 1 hard landing, resulting in the replacement of clutch shaft. I'm pleased that the TT woodies held up well during hard flying. 26th June 2003 to 4th July 2003: New skills added, half loop with half roll, vertical figure eight and inverted forward flight. 4 tanks only for past 2 weekends. Haiz...I need to clock more tanks. Practice makes perfect. 12th July 2003: Did Pin Wheel, Death Spiral and Funnel. The funnel is ugly. Death Spiral and Pin Wheel will scare the audience. Cool move. 18th July 2003: There was a big crowd at Yishun. Lots of chit chat and we exchanged many pointers. Started on a new gallon of 15%PM. Flew 3 tanks. Did something new : half loop with inverted piro. 27th July 2003: Cloudy sky. Did one flight and practise funnel. 2nd August 2003: Sunny day. Flew a wonderful 4 tanks at bukit panjang. I was influenced by how the master took off their heli during 3D Masters. So I tried a tail stand launch.Arh...didn't know that the Sceadu veers to the left on inverted climbout, lost orientation and nearly crash into a lamp post. Fortunately, Sceadu was saved to fly another day. Still working on funnel.... 8th and 9th August 2003: Both days are sunny. Did 3 tanks on 8/8 and 1 tank on 9/8 with the new FZ-IV rotorhead. Wow...I like the way she rolls. Tried to show off my tail stand lauch but I was too quick and the engine bogs. Need more practise on that. I felt uneasy about flying and had a few near crash. I decided to hang up my transmitter and rest for a while. 30th and 31st August 2003: Back from 3 weeks rest. Did some simple circuits and F3C moves to warm up. 3 tanks on Saturday and 1 tank on Sunday. Yenfang, a student from Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts visited the flying field. She interviewed my flying buddies and I in order to collect materials for her project. I guess this website is making this hobby more popular! 7th Sept 2003: Did two flights at Bukit Panjang before disaster strikes. I was doing a series of piro to set the gyro gain on the newly acquired JR PCM 10X. Then on a approach path to landing pad, there was a loud breaking sound. The next thing I saw was that my Sceadu was spinning furiously out of control. I try to save it by going into throttle hold. But it was too late, the heli went onto a knife edge fall and did a chicken dance in a canal next to the field. Fortunately the water was only ankle deep. Initial crash cost estimate was around S$300. Damn.......I can no longer boast a zero crash record. On closer inspection, I guess the series of piro I did earlier cause fatigue in the tail system. Post mortem showed that the tail grip was lost in flight as it could not be found at impact point. The tail pulley was stripped bare! This heli was bought in November 2002 and I expect the usual wear and tear to cause a disaster sooner or later. Oh well, an excuse for me to overhaul the entire heli. Sceadu Reloaded! I took the opportunity to do a major overhaul of the whole heli. Now it is almost 75% Evo rather than the original Sceadu. 16th Nov 2003: Reloaded first flight. Did the usual engine tuning, trimmings, blade tracking, gyro gain setting...etc. Feels like a complete newbie again. 22th and 23th Nov 2003: Total 4 flights over the weekend. Solved blade tracking problem. Engine runs consistently after a change of glow plug. Has some problems with tail drifting. Installed a used FunTech 60 size competition muffler for the OS50. I can do better power climbouts, bigger loops and higher vertical climb now. And it amazed everyone how quiet it runs. 6th December 2003: Did 4 flights. No more tail drifting. I'm beginning to get the feel for the heli again. Average flight time is 14 minutes. OS 50 developed the dreaded lean run for the first time. May have to do the "cateye mod" the next time I go to field. 21st December 2003: Did 2 flights. Chased after a tail problem and found out later that the gyro was not held down well by the double sided tape. Anyway, I learnt the proper way of setting up the tail linkages from Mr Walter. Installed a OS 60K carb on my OS50 to solve the lean run problem. The settings are 1/2 turn out at mid and 1 1/3 out at high. Power looked good on climbout but the weather was not good and hence I did not get the chance to fly around. 24th and 26th December 2003: 8 flights total. Tried out the new CSM micro 560SL gyro. Also replaced the plastic tail blades with carbon 92mm tail blades. 29th, 30th and 31st December 2003: Total 12 flights. 4 flights each day. Finally sort out the CSM micro 560SL gyro. I moved it to the front servo tray and shorten the connection wires. I believed this will reduce glitches that may be the cause of inconsistent behaviour. Most importantly, I did autorotations! Yeh! But at the expense of a set of carbon tail blades. 1st Jan 2004: 2 flights. Did more autorotations. 10th Jan 2004: 3 flights. Practise autorotations. The wind was too strong and the Sceadu was more difficult to fly. 28th Jan 2004 : Sold.		Some settings on my Sceadu: -11 to +11 collective pitch using 40mm mixing arm rod 80% gain on GY401/S9253 HH gyro Installed governor to get better throttle curve and prevent potentially dangerous overspeeding. 1600rpm at Normal, 1800rpm at idle up 1 and 1900rpm at idle up 2. NHP 600mm blades on main rotor. Hirobo Freya tail blades. OS 50 engine using 15% CoolPower fuel. Idle needle is at factory setting. Main needle is 1 turn and 4 clicks from closed. FunTech YS61 competition muffler   My Sceadu 50 with FZ-IV head on a sideway hovering position. This was taken by Yenfang just moments before the earth came up and swallow the heli. My first chicken dance...... the tail gave up on me. A moment of silence for my beloved Sceadu who saw me grew from beginner hovering to more advanced 3D flying.