Specifications

half-inch (1.25cm) below the chassis (67360). This absorbs most of the landing stress that

would normally pop the landing skid struts off the frame.

• The Piccolo tends to lose the bearings on the hub (67566) on hard crashes. You may want

to purchase an aftermarket aluminum hub or carefully thick CA the bearings to the stock

hub to avoid losing the bearings. Beware when purchasing an aluminum hub; some of them

appear to be made from soft aluminum and will bend easily. I do not recommend J's alu-

minum hubs for this reason. The Precision Model Products hubs are of much better quality.

10.4. Specific tips for fixed pitch Piccolo (ECO/Fun) only

• The stock Piccolo FP has excessive play in the control mechanism. Specifically, the swash-

plate wobbles around too much. There are two mods which are required to fix this: the ball-

in-swash mod and the Chris Rigoleth antirotation strap. These will make your initial hover

attempts somewhat easier.

• The older FP Piccolo kits had a anti-rotation link (67366) with only a single hinge rather

than the newer double hinges. If you receive a one of these single hinge anti-rotation links,

they do not work well, and I recommend you replace it with a newer double-hinge one.

10.5. Specific tips for collective pitch Piccolo (CP upgrade/

Pro) only

• The pitch case (68211) will usually be too tight on the main rotor shaft (68203). This will

cause drag on the motor. To fix this, put a 3mm drill bit into Dremel, then put the pitch case

onto the drill bit, then run the Dremel at low speed for about five minutes. Hold the pitch

case very gently to prevent it from spinning around. After this, lubricate the inside of the

pitch case with some graphite to further reduce friction.

• The M2x6 screw which holds in the pitch bellcranks (68212) will usually rub against the fly-

bar control levers (68209). To fix this problem, put the M2x6 screws into a drill and hold the

head of the screw against a metal file to shave down the screw head. This will prevent the

screw head from rubbing against the flybar control lever.

• Some CP upgrade kits include an older style flybar (68208) which is not very good. The

older style flybar is completely smooth and does not have the grooves stamped into the fly-

bar to prevent the control arms (68209) and flybar paddle (67371) from slipping. If you have

one of these flybars, you should replace it, because it will be almost impossible to prevent

the control arms from slipping on the older flybar even if you roughen the flybar.

• The Piccolo CP/Pro head has some cyclic interaction. For example, when you apply for-

ward cyclic, it tends to go forward and left, and back tends to go back and right. Therefore,

you will need to use aileron/elevator and elevator/aileron mixing to compensate for this

problem.

10.6. Specific tips for the MS Composit Hornet II

This is a very difficult kit to build. There are many tiny nearly invisible parts, so please be care-

ful not to lose any parts! There are some parts which are too tight on the Hornet II. This is an

explanation of the "enlarging the hole" trick used in many of the following Hornet II steps:

• Put a 2mm drill bit on a drill

Helicopter Construction