The Pitchbrother Society

Duncan Osbournes flights at 3DM 2007 with his flybarless Synergy made me want to try out a flybarless system. I am not sure if it was the english beer, or Duncans great flying - but it started some thoughts in my head.

Back then Vbar was very expensive - and Csm´s 3 box solution just didn´t do the job for me, so I decided to put my plans on hold.

Earlier this summer I tried a friend's Trex 700 with Vbar. Later on he fitted a SK360 to the same heli and I tried it again. I don`t recall any big difference between the 2 systems, and since I am happy with my CSM 720 tail gyro I decided to try the SK360.

The investment isn´t to bad, well $280 is a lot of money for a box on the Size of a match box, but every now and then your heli need some new stuff.

I bought a Kasama Cyber head and mounted it on my Knight 50 3D. Compassmodel has now released a Flybarless head, I may try it when we see it here in Denmark.

Some pics of my setup.

I recieved the head quite a bit before the Digital Flybar - so I installed the head and setup everything so the heli could fly - a very very old danish F3C pilot KIL once asked "Why do you guys fly with paddels? You don´t need them the way you fly" So I thought hmm the weather is perfect, I need to fly, fuck it lets try it out. The heli flew ok - Collective changes made the nose of the heli pitch up and down, I could make BIG rainbows without using the right stick  (It flew pretty close to the flybarless Dominion in Realflight G4,5)  I didn´t push my luck with FFF.

The setup of the SK360 is straight forward - I followed the instructions. Loaded the basic 3D setting for starting. I am here at the moment.

I felt confident with the flybarless Knight right away. This flight is the 5th or so.

I found 2 bad things so far: Death spirals takes a lot of power, it is kind of strange since collective is neutral, but I guess the cyclic does the job. The second thing is that my heli can´t crack it should help to increase the bell gain. Mac and I had some fun doing some adjustings. Enjoy the video

I just found this SK360 tuning quick reference some nice info, it looks like I need to turn the Hiller Decay back down.

The Knight flew great with the flybar, and it still flies great with the SK360.

The cyclic takes less power and the heli can be very fast without loosing its stability.

Pitch it very fast and crisp, thanks to the Kasama head.

The setup of the Digital Flybar is straight forward. I like that you can do some adjustments on the field without a laptop, but you have to prepare yourself for some trips to the field to get the right setup if you like me don´t own a laptop.

I will keep you up to date on the "CRaCkHUnTinG"