Synergy Follow Up - Page Two

Simon Lockington

The scuffed up starter shaft that has caused me more than it's fair share of stress.  Notice all the scratches in it?  Yes, it really IS that soft.  Notice I've rounded off the top of the shaft to try and minimise the burring that makes it nigh impossible to remove the hex starter. Also note the discolouration of the top of the pinion, this was just after the pinion had fused itself into the bearings causing more problems.  I cleaned this up with some fine sandpaper.

Synergy in action doing what it does best, fast, snappy maneuvers

ENGINE WOES
I should have known when I got this engine and pulled it out of it’s box to find it riddled with machining swarf that I should have sent it back. However, keen to get the machine going, I stripped it down and cleaned it out and installed it.

However after about three or four flights, the engine would just not run properly, it would go mega lean, but any minute adjustment to richen it up would see it cough and die.No matter what I did, the engine just would not run smoothly.

After checking all the usuals (debris in engine, filters, plug etc), I gave up and sent the engine back to YS.

While the YS was away, I pulled the OS out of the Vigor and put it into the Synergy so I could continue to fly it.

MORE FLYING
Given the OS engine was fully run in already, it was time to give the Synergy a good working out.

Flying the Synergy is much like flying the 3DMP, very nimble and kinda like playing a video game.

The thing is so very precise on the cyclics, one thing I really like doing with it is multipoint rolls where you give jabs of aileron in quick succession for a full roll. The Synergy does this better than any other machine I’ve flown. When you let go of the cyclic, it stops crisply.

During tic tocs the machine responds quickly and changes direction quickly and without fuss. It feels very ‘light’ in the air.

Tornadoes are also very easy, but you do have to ensure you’re accurate on the controls as it will show up on the helicopter as plain as day. Climbing tornadoes are also very easy and again, it feels very light and easy to move around.

Pirouetting flips are interesting. Because the machine is so quick and accurate on the cyclics, any miss-timed inputs show up quickly. Also, a LOT less cyclic is required during this maneuver. Once you get the hang of how the helicopter responds, piroflips are easy.

Rolling circles are another maneuver where the machine feels very different to say the Vigor. I do rolling circles primarily with aileron and elevator (rather than aileron and rudder), I found that I was easily mis-timing the elevator inputs and the snappy reactions of the machine meant that my mistakes were showing up as clear as day. Once again, I had to slow down and be more clinical with the inputs.

Another maneuver where I had to concentrate more is pirouetting loops, doing it like the Vigor yielded a mess of a maneuver, whereas taking my time with small, deliberate inputs were much better.

Rolling tail slides showed how axially the Synergy rolls and a very hard pull out to inverted saw the heli flip cleanly and surprisingly did not load the helicopter up. It’s like playing a computer game!

Piroflipping autos are straight forward because the machine is so nimble it takes so little energy to flip thereby conserving rotorspeed.

Snappy 3D flying is what the Synergy does best. You can be going flat out backwards then suddenly give it a heap of back elevator and the thing will stand on it’s tail without loosing height, something that I have to manage more with the Vigor.

However it’s not so great for larger more graceful maneuvers. To fly it smoothly, you have to concentrate, for instance, large and fast inverted knife edge circles require constant small corrections. Whereas with the Vigor, you set it up, set it on cruise control and it will go around a huge circle smokingly fast, all by itself.

OTHER VIEWPOINTS
I had a couple of the other guys at my field have a go on the Synergy to see what they thought. James Dargue flies aggressive 3D with a Raptor 90 SE. He said:

I thought that the Synergy was a very precise model and very quick. It was very smooth in the hover but when it went to stunt mode the model reacted how I expected when I had seen it fly.

The difference between my heli and the Synergy was how quick the cyclic was compared to mine and in some maneuvers it reacted very different.  In piro flips it was more touchy than my model and didn’t need much input at all.

During the high speed maneuvers you could see the slight inputs that were being put in where as you don’t on my model.”

Andrew Donaldson also had a go with the Synergy:

“My Millennium II has slightly good cyclic, mostly as a result of Alan Szabo saying to wind it up after flying it. When Si handed me the transmitter for the Synergy he said it would have more cyclic again.

It does. The hover was reasonably normal, due to the large amounts of dual rate going on there, in idle up it changed.

At first I did some circuts and loops to get a feel for it The loops were hard to get round-looking as the model wanted to grab and pitch at about the 3/4 way through point. Next I did some tic tocs and had trouble stopping the model from climbing.

The power from the YS and Hatori combination was most impressive. Doing some piro flips caught me out. The large amount of cyclic is obvious here and needs an adjustment of flying technique. You need to fly it more, and if you're used to hitting the limits on some of these maneuvers you need to change. I'm keen to do more piro flip practice with the synergy now as it helps you work on weak areas.

Doing 4 point tic tocs was great fun partly due to the gobs of cyclic and partly due to the extraordinary power the model had, it just didn't bog.”

Page Three