Trex 450 Sport Training Gear

If you've built a Trex 450 or any 450 class RC helicopter and have never flown a collective pitch heli before, it will be a wise idea to get build yourself a set of training gear. The set I built consist of a couple of 1/4" wooden dowels about 2" longer than the diameter of the rotors. For the Trex Sport I made mine 30" long. Attached to the ends of these rods are standard size ping pong balls.

To start with, I cut the dowels to a 30" length. Then I marked each dowel at the 15" center line. This gave me a center on each dowel to align when I attaching them to the heli so that they would balance.

To attach the balls to the dowels I started by heating up my Radio Shack soldering iron which the main tip happens to be 1/4" in diameter. I simply took the point of my hot iron and pressed it into the ball to make a perfect sized hole. I started on the visible seam of the ball so I could keep the opposite hole symmetrical. Once the first hole was burned, I pushed the end of the rod through to the opposite side of the ball again aligning it with the seam. Then viewing from the outside, I marked the spot where the rod had landed with the tip of the soldering iron. I then removed the rod and proceeded to burn a hole at the marked location. Now I was able to slide the dowel all the way through the center of the ball. I repeated this procedure three more times so that I would have a ball on the end of each dowel.

I aligned each ball so that the dowel protruded about 1/16 of a inch out of the side. Then I secured the balls to the dowels by mixing up a batch of 5 minute epoxy and coating the area where the dowels pass through the balls.

To attach the gear to the heli, I pass each dowel through the middle of the landing gear skids and align them in a cris cross fashion with the center marks over each other. I then use nylon tie wraps to secure the middle of the dowels as well as to the skids at the four intersecting locations. To finish up, I cut the excess off the tie wraps and was ready to fly.

The training gear will serve you well during your first few batteries. Get used to taking off and slowly setting your bird back down. Once you have gotten comfortable taking off,landing and using throttle hold you should remove the gear as your bird will be more stable without them.

Good luck!