Building the Synergy N9 - Page 4
Simon Lockington

Tail box with tail hub fitted

Torque tube hex adapter with plastic sleeve fitted.

Tail drive bevel gear.

Tail drive bevel gear with hex adapter fitted

Torque tube hex adapter. This is a really well thought out implementation.

Gear box with torque tube fitted.

Tail gear box fitted to boom.

The finished product!

FITTING THE CANOPY
Luckily I got a canopy a few months back so was able to get the guy who paints my canopies (Dale Worthington - Thanks again Dale!) onto the job well before the machine got here which was handy as he got it finished just as the kit arrived!

I generally hate attaching canopies. There’s always a REAL high chance for screw ups, you’ll drill the hole in the wrong place and all sorts of nightmares.

On the Synergy, like a number of other machines, there’s a very defined area for the holes to be drilled which makes it a lot easier. Luckily, these holes lined up with the canopy mounts!

Provided in the kits are large thumb screws that thread onto the canopy bolts so you technically don’t need a hex driver to get the canopy on and off.

There are also large canopy grommets which should help isolate the vibrations from the frames.

Everything clears the frames nicely and the large main gear fits nicely in the allocated area for it in the canopy.

REMOVING THE ENGINE
Removing the engine is a very straight forward process, and is certainly quicker than I expected having studied the diagrams in the instruction manual.

To remove the engine you complete the following steps:

1. Remove the hex starter adapter with one grub screw.
2. Remove the pinion bearing block and governor sensor mount (4 bolts, 2 each side).
3. On the left hand side of the helicopter, remove the exhaust.
4. Slightly loosen the long bolts that go through the plastic mount and into the nyloc nuts. This is so that you can free the button head bolts, you need not remove the long bolts altogether (2 bolts).
5. Remove the button head bolts from the left hand side engine mount (4 bolts).
6. Remove the fan shroud bolts (4 bolts, 2 on each side).
7. Totally remove the long engine bolts from the right hand side engine mount (2 bolts).
8. Wiggle the engine out.

Only takes a few minutes if that.

ELECTRONICS INSTALLATION
The Synergy's plastic radio tray has a good amount of room to store your electronics (gyro, governor, regulator system etc). The switch is fitted just below the right hand CCPM servo easily accessible by reacing under the canopy.

As earlier stated, the gyro sensor sits on the plastic platform at the rear of the frames. As with all frame sets like this, you must be careful to prevent chafing of wires and connectors on the sharp corners of the frames.

SUMMARY
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with the machining quality of this machine, in my opinion the quality of the parts appears to be top notch.

I had been expecting the machine to be a bit of a tractor, in that I knew it was going to be very heavy duty, however it wasn’t. For all the ‘big’ parts on it, the machine still feels quite light. Certainly it doesn’t feel any heavier than my Vigor. The machine isn’t over engineered, there’s not fat on it where there doesn’t need to be fat which is nice.

I have commented that if this thing ever hits a tree, I’d hate to be the tree, and I think that’s pretty true. There’s been talk of how Jason Krause wiped a machine during a high speed maneuver at the XFC, and all the comments I ever heard was how well the machine stood up to it. After building one, I can totally believe that.

People have commented on the fact that using G10 frames is a bit of a disappointment when they were expecting carbon. Maybe, but in my opinion who cares? The frames certainly seem strong enough to me and if I had to do a back to back blind fold test, I’d never be able to tell you the flying difference between a machine with G10, Carbon or even Aluminium frames. As long as they’re strong and cheap, I don’t care.

The 5mm flybar? Well that thing sure has some mass to it. I sure hope to hell it never wraps itself around the head!

I’m very much looking forward to flying this machine. As I’ve said, I’ve already flown two Synergy’s, one was a real early prototype that I couldn’t adjust to my liking, the other was Jason Krause’s which as you’d expect, flew real nice. I’m really looking forward to setting one up how I like it and giving it a thrashing.

Will fly a lot better than a Raptor, Vibe, Avant or Stratus? Probably not, if so, it won’t be by much I imagine. All the machines on the market today fly much better than I will ever be able to fly them. What I’m looking for is something that’s strong, easy to work on, cheap to fix and fly well. It looks like the Synergy may fit that bill.

Will it be better than the Mighty Yellow Vigor that I’ve done thousands and thousands of flights with? That’s a big call, but we’ll know very soon!

The Synergy is due for public release on July 28th.

Page Three