Since I'm in the usual -- waiting for response -- mode I thought I'd update on yesterdays experience. I was flying the Novus 125 CP and kept eyeing the flight mode switch. When flying in wind, if the wind picks up the helicopter I can't get enough downward thrust to keep the helicopter where it is. I need the V shaped curve of the 3D flight mode, or so I assume. The big question is how much of a jump will switching between modes have and can I control it. So I come up with a plan.

I was going to switch it in the living room where I had a nice soft carpet and nice soft -- well ok not so soft -- stucko. So I started to hover and every time I reached for the switch I would move the collective pitch and start to loose control. Not good. But my wife came to the rescue. I explained everything I was doing to her and asked if she could flip the switch and flip back if I started to lose it. (helicopter I mean) So all geared up we tried it.

First Attempt: Once the switch was thrown the helicopter immediately dropped and hit the floor. So I said "switch back switch back", and cut the throttle. Checked the helicopter over and no apparent damage.

Second Attempt: now semi-prepared for the sudden down we repeated the steps. This time in trying to regain control I nicked the tail on the futon. So we switched back to normal flight mode and I landed. But this time there was damage. When trying to bring the helicopter up again, the tail was fish tailing all over the place. After powering down I manually turned the gears. The tail stop moving at a spot, which means I have a stripped gear. No problem though the helicopter came with some gears.

So I proceeded to take the helicopter apart. Took the landing gear off. The tail support off. Then the instructions say "remove pin with a pair of needle nose pliers. Ya right! My pliers couldn't grip the damn thing. After 20 minutes I gave up. Went to the hardware store and purchased an actual pair of needle noes pliers. (seams mine are called long nose pliers). Then spent another 30 minutes trying to get the thing out. I was surprised I didn't bust something else while trying. Then took the rest of the parts off to get at the gear. Yep flat on one side. Replaced everything (another 10 minutes later) and started to fly again.

This time noticed the tracking was off a bit. Which was supper easy to fix. Just popped off part 5 from the swashplate, see chart to the right, and gave a couple of turns. Now the tracking appears dead on.